Bishops Cannings is a village and civil parish in the Vale of Pewsey in Wiltshire, England, north-east of Devizes. The parish includes the village of Coate (not to be confused with Coate, Swindon) and the hamlets of Bourton, Horton and Little Horton. Geography Etchilhampton Water, a minor tributary of the Salisbury Avon, rises from streams in the parish and flows south past Etchilhampton to Patney. The northern part of the parish lies on the Marlborough Downs, including Morgan's Hill and part of Roundway Hill. Bishops Cannings village is about south of the A361 road which links Devizes with Avebury and Swindon. History Prehistoric remains include a long barrow called Kitchen Barrow on a slope in the north-east of the parish, and a square earthwork enclosure of uncertain date on Morgan's Hill in the north-west. A section of the Wansdyke crosses the parish, west from Tan Hill to Morgan's Hill. The manor of Cannings was recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book as held by the Bishop of Salisbury; there was a substantial population of 127 households, with six mills. Horton is first attested in 1158. The place-name is a common one in England and derives from Old English horu 'dirt' and tūn 'settlement, farm, estate', presumably meaning 'farm on muddy soil'. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Bourton manor was an estate of the Ernle family. The manor included the hamlet of Easton but today the name survives only at Easton Farm and Easton Down. In the 1660s the lease of the manor of Cannings was bought by Paul Methuen (d. 1667) of Bradford-on-Avon, reputedly the richest cloth merchant in England. His son John (c.1650–1706) was MP for Devizes, and simultaneously Lord Chancellor of Ireland and ambassador to Portugal. John's son Paul (c.1672–1757) deputised for his father at Lisbon, sat for Devizes and Brackley (Northamptonshire), became a government minister and held offices in the royal household; he sold the estate in 1720. The Wansdyke medieval earthwork crosses the north of parish. The Kennet and Avon Canal (opened in 1810) was built through the parish, passing between Bishops Cannings and Horton. On the 27 May 1941, a Royal Air Force De Havilland Dragon Rapide (R5929) was operating a training flight out of RAF Yatesbury. The aircraft stalled at low altitude and crashed near the village, killing all seven on board. Boundaries Bishops Cannings was anciently part of the hundred of Potterne and