From the Visitors’ Guide To Wiltshire, circa 1973:
Fovant, like most valley villages in Wiltshire, was founded by the Saxons. They called it Fobbefunt.
Before that time, people of the Early Bronze Age, about 1500 B.C., lived on the high greens and ridges on either side of the ford near the present church hall and left many stone implements to mark their abode.
Horsemen from Chitterne used to meet smugglers from Southampton, at Chiselbury. Another man, from North Bradley, used to ride the thirty miles to Fovant to pick up two kegs of brandy.
Boulter, the famous highwayman, was caught at the Cross Keys. Jack Rattenbury, another famous highwayman, used to work the old turnpike road on the top of the downs. The staple in an oak tree by the side of the road, to which he used to tie his horse, was still there a few years ago.
The courts of the manor were held at “The Cross.†The remains of the pound, the lock-up, and the stone uprights of the stocks are still preserved.
The enclosure map of 1787 is preserved.
The land charters relating to Fovant, dated 901 and 994, and a parchment, dated 1765, on which is written the judgement on Joseph Marks of Fovant, for swearing twenty-one oaths, are still preserved.
Above the village, cut into the chalk of the downs, are the famous Fovant badges. These replicas of army badges date from the First World War.