BOSCOMBE, a parish in Amesbury district, Wilts; on an affluent of the river Avon, and on the Basingstoke and Salisbury railway, 1½ mile NE of Porton station, and 4 SE of Amesbury. It has a post office under Marlborough. Acres, 1,692. Real property, with Gomeldon, Idmiston, Porton, and Winterbourne-Gunner, £7,630. Pop., 143. Houses, 34. The property is divided among a few. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury. Value, £330.* Patron, the Bishop of Salisbury. The church is old but good; and there are almshouses, with endowed income of £24. Richard Hooker was rector from 1591 till 1595, and wrote here the first four books of his "Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity"

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