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Tidworth

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Tidworth

Tidworth is a garrison town and civil parish in south-east Wiltshire, England, on the eastern edge of Salisbury Plain. Lying on both sides of the A338 about 3+12 miles (5.6 km) north of the A303 primary route, the town is approximately 8 miles (13 km) west of Andover, 12 miles (19 km) south of Marlborough, and 13 miles (21 km) north by north-east of Salisbury. The population of the parish at the 2011 census was approximately 10,600.

Originally two villages – North Tidworth and South Tidworth – the modern town is dominated by Tidworth Camp, a large British Army site. Swinton Barracks, another Army site, is in the west of the parish.

Evidence of prehistoric activity in the area is in the form of several sites with bowl barrows, including a group of seven; and an Iron Age hillfort at Sidbury Hill in the north of the parish.

The name Tidworth derives from the Old English tudaworð meaning 'Tuda's enclosure'.

Domesday Book of 1086 recorded four landowners and 18 households at what is now North Tidworth, in the Amesbury hundred of Wiltshire; and three landowners with 20 households and one church at South Tidworth, in the Broughton hundred of Hampshire. Placenames were written as Todeworde, Tedorde or Todeorde.

The two villages developed in the valley of the small River Bourne, which flows south to join the Hampshire Avon near Salisbury; later the Oxford-Salisbury road also followed the valley.

On John Speed's maps of 1611 the villages are North Tudworth, belonging to Amesbury hundred in "Wilshire", and South Tudworth within Andover hundred in "Hamshire". Before 1650 there was a substantial country house with parkland at South Tidworth; the present Tedworth House is a rebuilding of 18281830.

In 1897 the War Office bought the house and grounds, together with land to the north which gave access to Salisbury Plain for Army training. Extensive barracks were built in the early 20th century, largely in South Tidworth but spreading across the boundary to the north. From 1902 to 1963 there was a railway station at North Tidworth, connected to the main line by a branch from Ludgershall.

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