Heddington

Heddington is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England 3mi south of Calne. The parish includes the hamlet of Heddington Wick.King's Play Hill is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest within the parish.HistoryOn King's Play Hill, east of Heddington village, are a Neolithic long barrow and two bowl barrows.The northern boundary of the parish follows the Roman road from London to Bath. In the early medieval period, the same course was followed by the Wansdyke earthwork.In the 17th and 18th centuries the London-Bath road followed part of the southern boundary of the parish, where it climbed Beacon Hill. This route declined from the mid-18th century in favour of the road through Calne.A small estate called Splatts originated with land purchases in the 1620s by Robert Child, whose son Francis was the founder of one of the first London banks, Child & Co. The land descended in the Child family and in 1729 Splatts House was built for another Francis Child on his marriage to Priscilla Brooke. The estate continued as the seat of the Childs until 1780 when it was superseded by Osterley Park, London.A small school, with attached house, was built in the village c. 1833, became a National School in 1860, and was attended by 45–50 children in the 1870s.