Alton is a civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The parish includes the adjacent villages of Alton Barnes and Alton Priors, and the nearby hamlet of Honeystreet on the Kennet and Avon Canal. It lies in the Vale of Pewsey about east of Devizes. The north of the parish is on the Marlborough Downs and includes part of Milk Hill, which is the highest point in Wiltshire at . The Woodborough Stream, a tributary of the Hampshire Avon, rises at Alton Priors and separates the two villages as it flows south. History The area has prehistoric sites including the Knap Hill earthwork and Adam's Grave, a Neolithic long barrow. A hoard of Roman coins was discovered at Alton Barnes. The boundaries of Alton Barnes parish were established in the early 10th century, and the ancient parish became a civil parish in 1866. Alton Priors was a chapelry of Overton parish, now West Overton, and became a separate civil parish in 1866. In 1934 the civil parishes of Alton Barnes and Alton Priors were abolished and merged to form the new civil parish of Alton. In 1086, Domesday Book recorded two landholdings within Swanborough Hundred at Awltone: one corresponding to Alton Barnes, held by Edward of Salisbury, with 14 households and a mill; and another held by Winchester Abbey with 50 households and two mills. The association of the latter with the abbey led later to the name Alton Priors. The Wiltshire Victoria County History traces the later ownership of the manors: Alton Barnes was granted in 1385 by William of Wykeham to New College, Oxford which he had recently founded, and it remained in their ownership in 1970. Alton Priors remained with the abbey until the dissolution, then passed through several hands until the estate was bought by New College in 1912. The Ridgeway, an ancient trackway, passes through Alton Barnes (although this section is not part of the Ridgeway National Trail, which begins further north). The Wansdyke, an early medieval earthwork, crosses the north of the parish on the Marlborough Downs. Alton Barnes Manor Farmhouse (18th-century) and the Manor House at Alton Priors (c. 1830) are Grade II listed. Local government Alton is a civil parish with an elected parish council. It is in the area of the Wiltshire Council unitary authority, which is responsible for all significant local government functions, and is represented in the council by Paul Oatway,