Category: King’s Arms, The (at Market Place/Weymouth Street)

Extract from The Changing Face Of Warminster by Wilfred Middlebrook, published in 1971:

There are two inns [at Weymouth Street] across the road from the Shambles: the King’s Arms and the Bunch Of Grapes. A town hall once occupied the site of the King’s Arms, mentioned in church records of 1656 but in 1711 a new town hall was built at the top of High Street, still called Town Hall Hill. The old house in Weymouth Street that had been used as a town hall now became the Plume Of Feathers inn. This was pulled down in 1830 to make room for the new Literary Institute, built by Blore at the same time as the new Town Hall on the opposite corner, and the King’s Arms was then built as part of the block to conform with the Town Hall.

Mention of the King’s Arms is a reminder of the story of the visit of George The Third to Longleat in the 18th century, when an old Warminster fellow was asked what he thought of his King. “I zeed “un alright,” he replied, “Bit don’ think much on “im s’naw; why, they told I as he had a lion an’ a unicarn fer “is arms, but I zeed “is arms s’naw, an’ they wur no better nar mine!”