Here the parishes and villages are cheek by jowl, scarce out of Rushall (and a lot closer by foot) you are at Charlton St Peter. It would be easy to suppose that there would be insufficient land to support two such close Wiltshire parishes, but the parish is a long and narrow strip which extends south up Charlton Down into Salisbury Plain. It is the infant Avon that provides the reason for the villages clustering together, leaving a long walk from the fertile lowlands to the downs upon which sheep safely grazed.
Charlton, a common name for a Saxon settlement of 'free men', differentiated here by the name of the Parish from other villages of the same name; first has records of a church in the the 12'th century, though little now remains of that structure. The church had a tower added in 1523 and was much rebuilt in the 1850s, of the earlier building only the tower and chantry survived the 19'th century rebuilding.
Sitting in a small graveyard in this much reduced village, the church is obviously treasured by its parishioners. This church is normally open. Photographed in June 2010 for theChurchPhotographer by Nick Temple-Fry.
