Friday 17th February 2023
Danny Howell writes:
The Hanging, Warminster – The meaning of the name. The Hanging is the name of the steep slope between Alcock Crest, and the Fore Street Playing Field and the water meadow adjacent Brook Street below. The name ‘The Hanging’ has also been adopted for the footpath (Path No.11 on Warminster’s Rights Of Way map) which connects Brook Street (nearly opposite the junction with King Street) with Alcock Crest. The northern part of this footpath ascends/descends the slope known as ‘The Hanging.’
The word ‘hanging’ is a geographical/topographical term and indicates “land on a steep slope” – the word has its origins in Old English – hangende.
From time to time, people on social media and elsewhere wrongly suggest that this slope to the south of the present residential estate Alcock Crest, which divides Warminster from Warminster Common, gets its name from being a place where public hangings took place (the people of nearby Warminster Common had a reputation over one hundred years ago for lawlessness and wrong-doing). The name, however, for this particular slope, has no connection with people being hanged here; nor was this location in Warminster ever the site of a gallows. In this case, ‘The Hanging’ is solely a geographical/topographical one.