Great Cheverell is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, south of Devizes. In some sources the Latinized name of Cheverell Magna is used, especially when referring to the ecclesiastical parish. The parish includes Great Cheverell Hill, a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest consisting of unimproved species-rich chalk grassland on the northern edge of Salisbury Plain. History A large settlement of 111 households was recorded at Chevrel in the Domesday Book of 1086. There were 73 taxpayers in 1377. Population of the parish peaked around the time of the 1841 census, which recorded 295; then fell as agricultural employment decreased, reaching 174 at the 1951 census. Subsequent increases reflect housebuilding and employment at HM Prison Erlestoke. Two manors, Cheverell Burnell and Cheverell Hales, came into the ownership of the Hungerford family in the 15th century and were given as endowments to Heytesbury almshouse until 1863, when much of the parish was acquired by Simon Watson Taylor as an addition to the Erlestoke estate bought by his father, George Watson-Taylor. After the son's death in 1902 the holdings were divided and sold. Small streams meet in the northeast corner of the parish to form a tributary of the Semington Brook. A water-powered corn mill was recorded here in 1449; in the 16th and 17th centuries the mill was used for fulling. Edge-tools were made here in the early 19th century, and later a flour mill and an iron mill were in operation. A three-storey 19th century mill building is still standing. The Manor House, next to the church, dates from c. 1690 with enlargement and alteration in the 18th century. Southwest of the house is a Grade II* listed game larder and gazebo of similar date. Glebe House, a former farmhouse north of the church, is from the late 17th century and early 18th. The Stert and Westbury Railway was built through the parish by the Great Western Railway Company in 1900, providing routes from London to Weymouth or Taunton. There was a station called Lavington, just beyond the east boundary of the parish, about one mile by road from Great Cheverell village. The line remains open but the station was closed in 1967 and no local stations remain; the nearest are Pewsey and Westbury. To the south the parish extends onto higher ground at Cheverell Down, where the southernmost part has been part of the Imber Range military