Villa is of local origin and Roman masonry may be seen at the base of the wall between the church of St. Thomas a Becket and Box House. Legend has it that St Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury (c. 639–709) threw his glove on Box Hill, saying, "dig here and you will find treasure". Box stone was used for the construction of Malmesbury Abbey in the late 7th century. Stone quarried in the parish was used in the late 12th and early 13th centuries for the abbeys at Stanley and Lacock, and in the 15th and 16th for Great Chalfield Manor and Longleat House. Transport of stone was improved in 1727 when the Avon was made navigable between Bath and Bristol, and again in 1810 when the Kennet and Avon Canal provided a route from Bradford to London. The railway made transport much cheaper, and the excavation of the tunnel revealed vast beds of stone on both sides of the line. Underground quarries were carved out between Box and Corsham, with stone carried by narrow-gauge railways to yards at and stations. The peak period for quarrying was between 1880 and 1909 when millions of tons of stone was cut. The quarries continued working until 1969. As of 2015, quarrying continues on a smaller scale at Corsham, where the Box Ground stratum has been re-encountered at a lower level in the Hartham quarry, from which the stone for the obelisk at the Box Rock Circus (below) was extracted. Disused quarries RAF Rudloe Manor, a headquarters site handling intelligence and directing operations, was established in the far east of the parish in 1940. Until 1945, critical functions were housed underground in a worked-out quarry, Brown's Quarry, to the north of Tunnel Quarry. Underground in the same area, Spring Quarry was requisitioned in 1940 in order to create a shadow factory for aircraft engine manufacture, following the bombing of the Bristol Aeroplane Company at Filton. Construction took longer than expected and little production was achieved before the site closed in 1945. Artist Olga Lehmann was invited to paint murals in the workers' eating areas; in 2013 these were designated as Grade II* listed. Between the late 1950s and 2004, Spring Quarry served as the Central Government War Headquarters, a self-sufficient government headquarters for use in the event of a nuclear conflict. Box Mine became a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1991. Governance