From the book Yesterday’s Warminster, by Danny Howell, published in 1987:
Nearly opposite Jimmy White’s bakery [at East Street, Warminster] was East House, the home of Robert Henry Artindale. He had come to Warminster in 1900 after residing for a while at nearby Fisherton-de-la-Mere, but he originally hailed from Burnley in Lancashire.
He was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 1922. Shunning publicity and any form of official thank-you, Robert Artindale’s generosity towards the poor of Warminster often went unrecorded. He also took a keen interest in the affairs of St. John’s Church, where he was a vicar’s warden for nearly ten years.
He was an active sportsman, particularly in the pigeon world, and was the first President of the Warminster and District Flying Club when it was founded on 30 September 1922. Rumour had it that, if any bird of his did not immediately enter the loft and register after a race, he would shoot it as he thought it no good for racing. During the First World War he had given many of his young birds to the War Office to help with message carrying. Fishing and shooting were his other loves and he held the shooting rights on much of the land between Warminster and Imber, employing a keeper to look after his interests.
Robert Artindale’s death on 31 January 1933 robbed not only St. John’s Church of an esteemed member but also the town of a great benefactor. He was one of several men and women who came from away to settle in Warminster and in so doing, added much to the ways of life in the town. The site of East House and its gardens is now the East End Avenue housing estate, built in 1939.