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Concept
Kington St Michael
Summary
Kington St Michael is a village and civil parish about north of Chippenham in Wiltshire, England.
Kington St Michael is about west of the A350 which links Chippenham with junction 17 of the M4 motorway; the village is about southwest of the junction.
It is largely a linear village based on its main street, which runs from southeast to northwest, where Honey Knob Hill leads into open countryside towards Grittleton. Easton Piercy, west of the village and now a farm and a few houses, was formerly a tithing of Kington St Michael, which had its own chapel in medieval times and a population of 41 in the 1840s.
A brief history of Kington St Michael is given in the relevant Wiltshire Community History page.
There is evidence of habitation of the area in the New Stone Age and Bronze Ages. The first named settlement dates to about AD 934, when it was known as "Kington". Both Kington (Chintone) and Easton (Estone) were small settlements at the time of the 1086 Domesday survey. Later known as "Kington Minchin" during the early existence of Kington St. Michael Priory, it became "Kington St Michael" in 1279 when the church was rededicated to St Michael.
Land in the area was given by the kings to Glastonbury Abbey in the 10th century. After the Dissolution, in 1544 Nicholas Snell bought Kington Michael manor from the Crown; he and/or his father, Richard, had been employed by the last abbot of Glastonbury. The Snell family accumulated extensive estates on the Wiltshire–Somerset border, and after John (son of Nicholas) bought Easton Piercy manor in 1575, they owned almost the whole of the parish. The manor house built by Nicholas remained in the family until 1651; when the present house, north-west of the church, was built in 1863 some details from the Snell's house were reused, including the Snell crest over a window.
A market cross was adjacent to the Priory and according to Aubrey, staple foods were sold there. A Michaelmas Fair was noted for its "ale and geese".
For many years the main activity in the village was agriculture, although there is some evidence of a small textile industry.
Official source
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