Category: About Warminster: Copheap Lane

Wilfred Middlebrook in his newspaper serialisation ‘Highways And Byways In Warminster’ noted:

“Copheap Lane is a very ancient trackway indeed, linking the Westbury Road and Portway with the Imber Road and Woodcock. Blind Man’s Gate once barred the entrance to the lane from Westbury Road and Elm Hill, a thatched cottage demolished in a single day in June 1959, where John Toole took the tolls in 1883.”

“A lovely, tree-shaded lane, it is still classed as an unadopted road, barred entirely to military vehicles, and for many years was ankle-deep in chalky mud. Indeed, one worthy citizen of Warminster, floundering along the muddy lane in the dark, fell full-length into the slime, losing a quantity of loose change from his pockets in consequence. To this day he vows that archaeologists of the future, digging Copheap Lane to find out how the citizens of Warminster lived in the ‘dark ages of the 20th century,’ will come across sundry silver and copper coins that are rightfully his, and put them into a museum for the wonderment of a race that does not know the meaning of money!” 

“The lane is no longer muddy, and much building has taken place in recent years, though it still remains a charming rural lane, skirting the foot of the strange hill [Copheap] from which it takes its name.”

This part of the serialisation was published in the Wiltshire Times, Friday 22nd April 1960.