Extract from The Changing Face Of Warminster by Wilfred Middlebrook, published in 1971:.
Back at the Minster Churchyard at the beginning of Dorothy Walk we find Ash Walk leading the way direct to the heart of the town via George Street. Once called the Ashes or Asheys, from the house at the church end that belonged to the Blake family in the sixteenth century, there is no through thoroughfare for wheeled traffic, wooden posts enforcing a footpath at the church end. It has also been called ‘Sloper’s Walk’; Simon Sloper, once owner of Black Dog Wood, lived in a house on Ash Walk.
There are several references to the Sloper family in the 17th century Quarter Sessions records. For example, in July 1607, it was recorded that a ‘cooking stoole!’ was needed in the town of Warminster, to be made and maintained by Simon Sloper. Thirty years later, in 1637, the Jury at Warminster present “that they have neither a cucking stool (ducking stool) nor pillory in Warminster, and that William Sloper must maintain and put them up.†It seems as though the present century has no monopoly in procrastination, for in 1647 comes: “We present that we have noe stocks in the towne of Warminster in default of William Sloper†(ordered to be provided before August under penalty of 40/-). In 1650 the presentment to the Jury states “that their church is mightily in decay insomuch that the pishoners (parishioners) are afraid to assemble there,†and in 1669 we find “Simon Sloper Junior presented for not setting up a Pillory and Cookinge Stoole in Warminster.†They must have been a kind-hearted lot, these Slopers of Ash Walk.
The Warminster Bowling Club, which moved here after the 1914-1918 War, borders Ash Walk at this end, with the grounds of Lord Weymouth’s Grammar School on the opposite side. The Bowling Club was first started in 1895, chiefly through the keen-ness of a few members from the north of England. At first, Warminster Cricket Club allowed them to use part of their ground, but this proved unsatisfactory, and in May 1908 they opened a new bowling green in an adjoining field; Mr. T. H. Harraway laying them a most excellent green. After the First World War the club transferred to the Lake Pleasure Grounds, but soon settled finally on the splendid green in Ash Walk.
A fair ground once adjoined Ash Walk, on Angel Field, and in July 1821 a big celebration was held there for the Coronation of George The Fourth. An ox and two sheep were roasted in the fair ground, on a day that started with bell-ringing and ended with fireworks and a bonfire, while four thousand loaves were distributed to such poor persons who were in Angel Field at precisely eleven o’clock. School children were given a pint of beer and a dinner in the Market Place.
A British School for Girls was first established in Ash Walk, then moved in 1837 to the Common Close, and again in 1874 to the Old Unitarian Chapel in North Row. The imposing stone building near the George Street end of Ash Walk was for seventy-four years the town Police Station, built in 1857 on the site of two cottages that were destroyed by fire. When the police moved to their new premises in Station Road in 1932, the building was taken over by the Christian Science Society.