Monday 18th March 1991
Portway Surgery. The PRIVATE land and surrounding PRIVATE parking area at the old surgery will be closed to further access from Friday 22nd March 1991.
The Doctors would like to thank all those who asked for permission to park there, but all vehicles must be removed by the above date or a charge will have to be made to recover them.
Portway Surgery, Warminster, will close for ever on Friday 30th March 1990, at 7.00 p.m. For emergencies on the Friday night and Saturday 31st March and Sunday 1st April, please contact the duty doctors through the answerphone (telephone 216262) or Warminster Hospital.
The Avenue Surgery, adjacent the Central Car Park, Warminster, will open for the first time on Monday 2nd April 1990. There will be no appointments surgeries on that day, but urgent cases will be seen, by arrangement, in the afternoon.
New telephone numbers, as from Monday 2nd April 1990, will be:
Appointments and Repeat Prescriptions, telephone 846224.
Warminster Hospital for casualties, telephone 212076.
Reg Cundick and Danny Howell in the book The Inns And Taverns Of Warminster, published in November 1987, stated:
The Checkers
Daniell mentioned The Checkers in his History Of Warminster. He spelt the name as Chequers. Halliday records that it was Checkers in 1740 and was situated outside the Turnpike at Portway. The site of the Turnpike he referred to, is today occupied by the entrance to the Portway Lane housing estate. The precise location of the inn is uncertain because there appears to be no documentary evidence.
Reg Cundick and Danny Howell, writing about the Live And Let Live public house, in the book The Inns & Taverns Of Warminster, published in November 1987, stated:
This inn is said to have been functioning over 300 years ago. It was at Portway, at the address now known as 17 Portway. The building here has very large oak beams and includes the workshop used for many years by E. Strong, a monumental mason, who succeeded his father in business. Ancestors of the Strong family were master stonemasons who worked under Sir Christopher Wren in the re-building of St. Paul’s Cathedral (1675-1708). In the interim period, between being an inn and a mason’s workshop, this part of Warminster was a wheelwright’s and wagon making business. It is not known when the Live And Let Live ceased to be.
Reg Cundick and Danny Howell in the book The Inns And Taverns Of Warminster, published in November 1987, stated:
The house now called Portway Villa, on the west side of the road at Portway was formerly an inn called The Butchers Arms.
In the 1783 Inclosure Award Of Warminster the owner of the property is given as the Rev. W. Slade and the tenant is recorded as W. Lambe.
Daniell recorded this inn, so did Halliday who stated that it had also been called The Carpenters Arms.
Prior to the 1801 Survey Of Warminster it had closed as an inn, and was then the residence of Benjamin Everett, the son of a local clothier who lived in a larger house further south along Portway.
For a time the former Butchers Arms was used as the “manse” for the Minister of the North Row Baptist Chapel, Warminster.
Reg Cundick and Danny Howell in the book The Inns And Taverns Of Warminster, published in November 1987, stated:
The Shearman’s Arms
The Shearmans Arms was not recorded by Daniell in the History Of Warminster but was listed by Halliday who stated that it was in existence in the early 1700s. He gave its location as Benjamin Everett’s house at Portway.
Everett was one of the last clothiers to operate in the Warminster area. His home at Portway is today two houses (Nos.40 and 42). The old entrance to this house is the door with the rounded arch over the top, currently at No.40. Its position is almost opposite the Newcastle Estate Offices.
This inn must date from the time when the clothing trade flourished in Warminster. A shearman was a person employed in the trade; his job was to trim the nap off the cloth with a large pair of mechanical shears.
An entry in Rambles In And Around Warminster (1883) states that the Brown family kept the Shearmans Arms at Portway during the 18th century.
Friday 2nd January 1981
F. Curtis And Son
Hedley P. Curtis, Glen Shuttlewood, D.I.P., Props.
Funeral Directors
Funerals and Cremations
Embalmings arranged. Chapel of Rest.
11 Portway, Warminster, Wilts.
Telephone 212033 day or night.
In The Changing Face of Warminster, (1971), Wilfred Middlebrook noted:
“Black Hedge was a footpath from Upton Scudamore to Portway [in Warminster].”
From the Warminster Town Guide 1971:
Portway House is a handsome Georgian house now used as the Urban District Council offices and library, a large and well designed building enhanced by the delicate ironwork of the wrought iron entrance gates which were completely restored in 1965.
Information gleaned from a Warminster Town Guide, 1971:
The fire station and Woodmead Welfare Home for the Elderly [at Portway] are of modern design.
In the same area is the Urban District Council’s Portway Lane Housing Estate which has been built to the most modern design and standards in accordance with the recommendations of the Parker Morris Report on Housing.
At the entrance to the Portway Lane Housing Estate, and in the same style, is Medlicott House, a group of elderly persons’ dwellings, which provide 16 single and 4 double bed-roomed self contained flats with communal facilities and a warden service.
