CRICKLADE, a town and parliamentary borough of England on the northern borders of the county of Wilts, situated in a flat stretch of country on the right bank of the Thames, not far from the Thames and Severn Canal. The town consists of one rather mean-looking street ; and its principal buildings are St Sampson's Church restored in 1864, St Mary's with a fine Gothic cross in the churchyard, and public chambers built in 1861. The trade is purely agricultural and local. The position of the town at the passage of the Thames gave it some little importance in the Saxon period, and it sent representatives to Parliament as early as the reign of Edward I. The present parliamentary borough, which extends partly into Gloucestershire, and includes no fewer than fifty-two parishes or parts of parishes, with an area of 26,694 acres, had in 1871 a population of 43,622, of whom less than 2000 were in the town.