We do not know when our church was founded, but it is likely that there was a Saxon minster church on the present site by the middle of the 8th century. What became Wroughton Parish was made up of five tithings: Salthrop, Elcombe, Ellendune, Overtown and Westlecott each with its own communities. The church was built in Ellendune on the boundary with Elcombe. Up until the 19th century it was sometimes called Ellendune Church. As a minster church it would have served all those five communities as well as three other communities small communities in that were also in the same administrative area called the Hundred of Blackgrove. These two small communities were called Lydiard Tregoze, Swindon and Walcot.
In September 825, probably on a site that was about half a mile to the south on what is now the Science Museum, King Ecgberht of Wessex fought off the invading army of King Beornwulf of Mercia in the Battle of Ellendune. It was a battle that transformed the political landscape of England. Before the battle the Kings of Mercia had been the most powerful in England and after then it was the Kings of Wessex who were the most powerful.
The first surviving written reference to the church is in a charter of King Edwig who in the year 956 granted the manor of Ellendune to his relative Ælfheah. The charter described the landmarks on the boundary of the manor and one of these was ‘the church wall’. A few years later after his death in around 972 he voluntarily bequeathed the manor back to the King.
By the time of Domesday Book in 1086 the manor of Ellendune had passed to the Bishops of Winchester for the support of the Monks of the Cathedral Priory. This link influenced the governance of the church well into the 19th century.
The present building probably dates from the late 11th or early 12th century though it was altered and extended many times taking something like is current shape in about 1450.
