Teffont Evias is a small village and former civil parish in the Nadder valley in the south of Wiltshire, England. Edric Holmes described the village as "most delightfully situated", and Maurice Hewlett included Teffont in his list of the half dozen most beautiful villages in England. The present buildings are mostly of local stone, and several are thatched. The civil parish was combined in 1934 with neighbouring Teffont Magna to form a united Teffont parish. Location Teffont Evias lies northeast of the large village of Tisbury and west of Wilton. The southern boundary of both the former Teffont Evias parish, and the modern Teffont parish, is the River Nadder. The village street follows a stream which rises at Teffont Magna and flows south to join the Nadder. Geology Purbeck limestone underlies almost all of the parish, with a ridge of Cretaceous Upper Greensand. Teffont Evias Quarry and Lane Cutting is protected as a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest, where fossils include some of the best Purbeck fish, with crocodile, turtle, and insect remains. The Chilmark Quarries extend under Teffont and some of the disused entrances are within Teffont parish. In the 13th century, Teffont Evias's quarries of Purbeck limestone at the southern end of the former parish were the source of much of the freestone used in the building of Salisbury Cathedral. History A silver stater of the pre-Roman Durotriges tribe has been found in Teffont which may have been near the boundary of Durotrigian territory. The modern name derives from "Teo", an old Germanic word meaning a boundary, and the Late Latin word "fontana", meaning a spring of water. The perennial stream rises at Spring Head at the north end of Teffont Magna, and flows some 2.5 km south to its debouchment into the River Nadder. Early Saxon remains have not been found to the west of the stream, and the original boundary may have separated the Romano-British from the Anglo-Saxons. The "Ewyas" element derives from Ewyas Harold in Herefordshire's Golden Valley, the main seat of Alfred of Marlborough, lord of Tefonte at the time of Domesday Book. From Saxon times the village has been generally on the valley bottom along the course of the stream; the Teffont Archaeology Project found remains of Roman settlement, possibly a sacred site, on higher ground. For administration, including punishment of misconduct, the village formed part of Dunworth hundred; in 1502 its