BOX, a village and a parish in Chippenham district, Wilts. The village stands on the Box river, adjacent to the Great Western railway, 5 miles NW by W of Bath; and has a station on the railway, and a post office‡ under Chippenam. It contains numerous old houses, and an ancient market cross; and is supposed to occupy the site of Roman baths. Numerous Roman relics have been found in the vicinity; and a Roman pavement and other remains are in the parsonage garden.—The parish includes also the hamlets of Wadswick, Box-Quarries, Ashley, Kingsdown, Wadswell, and Middle-Hill, and the manor of Hazelbury. Acres, 4,217. Real property, £10,690; of which £1,425 are in quarries. Pop., 2,051. Houses, 403. The property is subdivided. The surface is a picturesque assemblage of hill and dale. Box Hill has three curious quarries of bathstone, one of them subterranean. Box tunnel, in the course of the railway, is 3,195 yards long, and in some parts 300 feet below the surface; and was formed at a cost of £500,000. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol. Value, £348.* Patron, the Rev. H D C S. Horlock. The church is variously early English, decorated, and perpendicular, with central tower and spire; and contains the tomb of Mrs. Bowdler. There is a school, with £75 from endowment. There is also a lunatic asylum.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))