Ebbesbourne Wake

Records from Saxon times, about 826 CE, show that the Chalke Valley area was thriving. The village name of Eblesburna was probably derived from a man called Ebbel, who may have owned land near the bourne (stream) – the word bourne derives from the Old English "brunna". Ebbesbourne appears in the Latin will of a Dorset woman, Wynflæd, the earliest will of a woman to survive in English history, described as "a small stained sheet of parchment". The detailed terms bequeath to her daughter Æthelflœd an engraved bracelet, a brooch, some named household articles including books, and "the farm at Ebbesbourne with the title deed as a perpetual inheritance... and the men and the livestock on the…