Downton Hundred
Hundred in the County of Wiltshire
Historical Forms
- Duntona, Dontone hundred 1086 ExonDB
- Duntonhdr 1167 P
- in quodam loco voc. la Mote in decenn' de Dounton (1348 Cor)
Etymology
v. Downton infra 394. The Hundred meeting-place may well have been in Downton and it has been identified with the site of the present Moot Ho in Downton where there is a mound.The earliest reference to the mound that has been noted is in the phrase in quodam loco voc. la Mote in decenn ' de Dounton (1348Cor ). Recent archaeological investigations suggest, however, that this mound is of Norman origin, and if that is the case it becomes impossible to take the mound itself to be the meeting- place of a Hundred going back to Saxon times. Cf. WM xliii, 380.