CHRISTIAN-MALFORD, a parish partly in the hundred of CHIPPENHAM, comprising the chapelry of Avon, but chiefly in the northern division of the hundred of DAMERHAM (of which it is a detached portion), county of WILTS, 5 miles (N.E. by N.) from Chippenham, and containing 896 inhabitants. The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry of Wilts, and diocese of Salisbury, rated in the king's books at £27, and in the patronage of the Bishop of Bath and Wells. The church is dedicated to All Saints. There is a place of worship for Independents. The origin and name of this large parish are involved in obscurity, though it was evidently of greater importance in former times than it is at present; but tradition says that the Saxons having been defeated by the Danes in this neighbourhood, the place being before called Melford, from the badness of the passage across the river, it assumed the prefix of Christian for having proved disastrous to the former. The village is built near an old ford on the Avon, which here turns a fulling-mill. There is a National school for children of both sexes.

AVON, a chapelry in that part of the parish of CHRISTIAN-MALFORD which is in the hundred of CHIPPENHAM, county of WILTS, 3 miles (N.E.) from Chippenham, containing 18 inhabitants.