BADBURY, a tything and a hundred in Dorset. The tything is in Wimborne-Minster parish, 4½ miles NW of Wimborne. An ancient camp here, called Badbury Rings, crowns a naked hill; commands an extensive panoramic view; is planted with firs; consists of three concentric ramparts, each with an outer ditch, the outer most a mile in circumference; occurs on the line of a Roman road to Old Sarum; seems to have been originally British, but to have been afterwards occupied by both the Romans and the Saxons; and was held by Edward the Elder after the death of Alfred the Great.-The hundred lies in Wimborne division, and includes eight parishes. Acres, 26,880. Pop. in 1851, 6,941. Houses, 1,414.

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