Extract from The Changing Face Of Warminster by Wilfred Middlebrook, published in 1971:Â
The changing face of Warminster is strikingly apparent as one traverses Ash Walk, for here, where the Manor House of the Mauduits once stood, is a large new housing estate called Manor Gardens. Not so many years ago, the Manor Guest House, as it was then called, stood well-hidden in spacious grounds; the Manor House is still well-hidden, but now by a cunningly arranged house-planning scheme, and it is now the office quarters of Sykes International Limited, the specialist poultry breeders.
In the Domesday Survey of 1086 it was recorded that “the King himself holds Cuerminter. King Edward formerly held it.†Thus was Warminster declared a Royal Manor, with a population of some six hundred. The Manor of Warminster remained in the Crown through the reigns of William The First and William The Second, Henry The First, and Stephen; Henry The Second later granting the Manor of Warminster to Robert Mauduit from Normandy.
It was to William Mauduit, many years later, that Henry The Third chartered a yearly Fair in Warminster, to be held on the vigil, the festival and the morrow of St. Laurence. The Mauduit family terminated in male descent in the reign of Richard The Second and by this time the original Manor of the Lordship of Warminster had shrunk to meagre dimensions. Portions of the parish separated from the Manor were still called manors, these being Smallbrook, Boreham, Furneaux, Sambourne, Newport (Portway) and others.
Finally, Lord Mervyn Audley (who was beheaded in 1631) sold the Manor of Warminster to Sir Thomas Thynne (grandson of the founder of Longleat) who had married his sister, Mary Audley. Thus a large part of Warminster became a part of the vast Longleat Estate.
The present Manor House was built in 1790 by a farmer called Randall, who held the remains of the Mauduit mansion under lease from Lord Bath. He pulled down the greater part and rebuilt the house as we know it today, standing on a gentle elevation that once commanded a fine view of the town and countryside. Now it is drowned effectively in a sea of bricks and mortar.
When farmer Randall pulled down the old Mauduit mansion, several old silver coins were found under the floors, and a small carved figure in jet, which later passed into the possession of the Hallidays of East Street. On the wall of what was probably part of the Chapel Of St. Nicholas was found a crude painting of the Crucifixion. According to Daniell, the Chapel Of St. Nicholas in the Manor of Warminster was founded and endowed by the Mauduits. It was a private chapel, for the sole use of the family and large household of the Mauduits.