From The Warminster Official Guide And Souvenir 1928 (penned by Victor Strode Manley):
Longleat
Strolling through Westminster Abbey your eye will be sure to light upon an exquisite carving in white marble depicting a gorgeous coach surrounded by horsemen whose riders are shooting through the window. The gentleman inside was “Tom of Ten Thousand,” Lord of the Manor of Warminster. He had come up from his country seat at Longleat in the year 1682 to marry the heiress of the rich Percy estates. His rival was the Austrian ambassador, whose hired assassins murdered my lord as he drove along Pall Mall.
Longleat Park (about 2,000 acres) is two miles from Warminster, reached from the Frome road, and the House another two and a half miles beyond. Pedestrians and cyclists may traverse the Park, but motors are forbidden, and must turn up the Horningsham road (which is one long stretch of rhododendrons on either side), reaching the inn at the Lodge gates. Longleat House, the country seat of the Most Hon. the Marquis of Bath, K. G., and Viscount Weymouth, is one of the stateliest of palaces in England and a favourite resort with Royalty, its noble owner being characterised by his democratic spirit and generous gifts to the town. Bounding several parishes, it is said that when the Marquis writes his morning letters he is in Horningsham and when he dines he is in Longbridge Deverill. The estate is situate partly in Wilts and Somerset.
Originally a priory built in 1270, dedicated to St. Radegund, a queen of France, and housing black canons of St. Augustine, it included a church with several altars, dissolved at the Reformation. Rebuilding began in 1547, and it stands today a glorious example of the English Renaissance embellished with classical statuary. The leat, or stream, runs beside it formed into several little lakes. A colony of Scots masons, imported for the building operations, have left in Horningsham the oldest nonconformist chapel in England, a thatched building bearing the legend 1566.