Reg Cundick and Danny Howell in the book The Inns And Taverns Of Warminster, published in November 1987, stated:
The King’s Arms, Market Place/North Row, Warminster
There have been three public houses with the name The King’s Arms in Warminster. The first one was recorded by both Daniell and Halliday. The latter mentions the date 1719 and adds that the King’s Arms was still in existence in 1740.
It was one of the places used for distributing charities to the poor. In his will dated 25th February 1719, Warminster resident William Slade, who died in 1723, left one half-crown to each of “Twenty poor housekeepers of the Parish, who did not get anything from the Collection for the Poor”. This was to be distributed on or about 15th January every year. Another “hand-out” called Slade’s Charity (a rent charge of 50 shillings on a freehold property at the entrance to Meeting House Lane) was distributed at Christmas.
The inn was not recorded in the 1801 Survey Of Warminster; it had obviously closed before this time. Halliday, in 1830, said the site of the inn was then occupied by Cusse the grocer. Cusse and his family had a shop on the corner of Meeting House Lane (now known as North Row) and Market Place for many years. Mrs Mary Hatton (1881 – 1976) in an article she wrote in 1970, looking back at her childhood, recalled: “The worst smell of all came from a grocer’s shop owned by Peter Samuel Cusse, which was later the Co-op, and he made tallow candles every week”. The Co-op moved into Cusse’s premises shortly before 1907 and continued trading there until 1982. After they had left, the building, with its current address of 1 Market Place, became Pleasures toy shop. This closed in August 1987.