Community (Warminster) – Page 177

The Name Of Warminster

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

It must surely be a fact that more printers’ ink has been squandered on futile discussions concerning the origin of the name of Warminster than on any other place-name in the country.

The only certainties are the varied spellings since the first mention of Worgemynster in the Anglo-Saxon Charter around A.D. 900. In Domesday the Normans changed it to Guerminstre, then through the Plantagenet period, by an easy transition of Guer into Wer (as Guilou into Wily) we find ever-varying forms of the name ranging from Werminster in 1115, and Warmestre in 1496, to our present-day Warminster.

Many writers, including the historians Hoare and Wansey, have quickly disposed of the matter by presuming that a minster or monastery once stood on the banks of a river or stream called the Were. Daniell declares that “if any brook bears the name of Were, it seems to that which is now called the Biss, which rises in Upton Scudamore and runs through Trowbridge.”

Failing the “Minster on the Were” theory, there have been some fantastic flights of fancy in an effort to solve the puzzle. Working on the names Guerminstre and Worgemynster, one writer finally translated the result into “the place of waters where the blue sky-god was worshipped in a green place, and at which a Dragon protected the Spirit of a Chief in his Grave.”

More down to earth, Daniell suggests that Worgemyn or Guermin is the name of an ancient Wiltshire Chief, so that Warminster means “the headquarters of Worgemyn.”

The Changing Face Of Warminster ~ The Chapel Of St. Laurence

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

Like the Parish Church Of St. Denys, this Chapel Of St. Laurence has been practically re-built from its foundations and restored out of all recognition during its long and chequered existence. The dedication of this ancient Chapel of Ease is to St. Laurence or Lawrence, Archdeacon to Sixtus, Bishop Of Rome, when the latter was martyred in A.D. 258. Three days later St. Laurence himself was put to death on a red-hot gridiron, and his festival in the English calendar is 10th August.

The Chapel was built by the Mauduits, Lords of the Manor of Warminster, in Plantagenet times, and Henry The Third granted to William Mauduit a fair, to be held on the vigil, the festival and the morrow of St. Laurence. St. Laurence’s Fair was held throughout the centuries but in 1783 there was a double hanging on Sutton Common; Matthew Gardner and John Wheeler being publicly executed for the murder of Benjamin Rebbeck on 11th August. Thousands of people flocked to see this free spectacle, before coming into Warminster for the Fair, which then became known as the Hanging Fair. This three-day fair has been allowed to lapse, the present Warminster fairs being held in April and October.

The Chantry of St. Laurence, endowed with twenty nine acres of land, was built in St. Laurence Mead in 1290, and a house provided for a chaplain in Curt or Court Street. Later, the endowments proved insufficient and the inhabitants of Warminster supplemented the chaplain’s stipend, ensuring regular services until the time of the Reformation.

It seems rather strange these days, with good clean roads and footpaths, and a few short cuts to the Parish Church from the centre of the town, but in those days it was felt that the Parish Church was too far away. An account of 1565 reads: “The said Chapel was – and yet is a very fayre howse with a fayre tower and steeple, but the East Window obstructed by a little howse belonging to it, being situate in the very harte of the Market Place, and the Church being a large quarter of a mile from it, and no howse within a good bow shot of the Church.”

This commentary was written after the Reformation, when the old Chapel was gradually falling into ruin. Edward The Sixth granted the Chapel Of St. Laurence to Richard Robertes of London in 1549 – all except the bells and the lead. Thus for some forty years the Chapel was doomed to being spoiled, the retention by the Crown of the lead alone saving the fabric from utter ruin. The graveyard was let for building sites, and some half dozen lofty houses were built along the High Street in front of the Chapel which could only be reached by a long and narrow alley, completely hiding it from view.

By 1575 Thomas Wardoure owned the property and the leading inhabitants of Warminster banded together and purchased the ruined chapel for £36, restoring it in a rough fashion and once more enjoying regular services, no longer by a resident chaplain but under the ministration of the Vicar Of Warminster.

In 1592 the three survivors of the original six members of the Committee of Purchase drew up indentures conveying the property to twelve trustees or feoffees in perpetuity, and there are eight feoffees responsible for the maintenance of the Chapel to this day. In January 1950 an appeal was launched by the feoffees for the sum of one thousand pounds for the restoration of the Chapel; the names of the feoffees being as follows: Mr. H. H. Barber, Mr. A. H. Coates, the Revd. Canon Colson, M.A., Mr. Hedley P. Curtis, Dr. R. W. Graham-Campbell, F.R.C.S. (Edin.), M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., Mr. H. F. Knight, Mr. W. R. Marshall, M.A., Mr. W. H. Wickham, with Mr. H. Pallister Clarke as the Steward.

A description of the early restoration in 1575, written by the Vicar Of Warminster in 1855, makes depressing reading. “The Chapel existed from that time,” wrote the Rev. A Fane, “Hidden from without, hideously repaired within, with four roundheaded windows utterly defying the taste and beauty of the tower; the inside a gathering of lofty and unsightly pews; the tower enclosed for fire buckets, coke, coal, and filth; the clock and bell turret in a sad state of decay; the outside, as it may now be seen, partly stuccoed, partly black, partly white; the East Window wholly closed; no altar rails, no organ – in a word, the little Chapel of St. Laurence might rejoice that the outside encroachments prevented the passerby from inspecting the interior defacements; such as the state of this ancient building, devoted now for nearly five centuries to God.”

From 1631 the curfew was sounded at eight o’clock each evening by the “Towne Bell’ in St. Laurence’s steeple, a custom that continued without a break until 1940, when the fear of enemy invasion caused all church bells to be muted, to be used only as an invasion alarm. At the end of the nineteenth century Mrs. House rang the bell by a rope that descended from the belfry directly into the sexton’s house. Since the beginning of the present century, up to 1940, Mrs. Amy Penn and Mrs. Annie Penn have rung the Town Bell for curfew, for services and, occasionally, for fire alarms.

The son of Mrs. House awoke on an early morning in December 1897 to find a huge slab of masonry across the foot of his bed; the upper stages of the tower had been completely destroyed by lightning! Mr. House, who still lives in the shadow of St. Laurence steeple, but not on the premises, was well over 90 years of age when I found him splitting logs in his woodshed. He still recalls many an occasion when he had to run downstairs in his nightshirt to ring the fire bell.

In 1657 a new Town Bell was cast by John Lott in Common Close, the rich throwing half-crowns into the molten metal and the poor throwing in their precious sixpences, “which makes of it such a soft, silvery sound.” This bell lasted over a hundred years, being melted up in 1783, new cast and re-hung at a cost of £24. The nave was rebuilt from the foundations in 1725, with four roundheaded windows “in barbarous fashion of George The Third.” The steeple had been repaired in 1642.

The Clock
A clock was put in the tower in 1765, made by Thomas Rudd and bought by public subscription for £30; still in use, this clock has no face but chimes the quarters on three bells, the chimes being added in 1786.

The St. Laurence Chapel Of Today
In 1855-1856 the Chapel was restored to the condition in which we see it today, through the efforts of the Rev. A. Fane, Vicar Of Warminster at that time. The houses hiding the Chapel from the High Street were pulled down, a new roof with a parapet was raised on the nave, and battlements added to the oblong tower. New windows were inserted and a north porch added; the west window was dedicated to David Kinnier, who left a hundred pounds to the Chapel. The east window depicts Our Lord In Glory with St. Stephen and St. Laurence, while the north and south windows represent Faith and Prayer, with the Good Shepherd and Elijah in one, Our Lord and Moses in the other. The newly-restored Chapel was re-opened on 22nd January 1857, by the Bishop Of Salisbury.

It is a simple chapel equipped with plain pews bordering a central aisle, a timber and plaster roof, plain cream walls and a curtained reredos beneath an east window that can never admit the sunlight because of other buildings that crowd upon it. The darkened east wall is brightened by a beautiful altar cloth of brilliant mauve and purple enriched with silver motifs. On the south wall is a framed panel of prints from frescoes by Fra Angelica in the Vatican at Rome, depicting the life of St. Laurence in five scenes, from his ordination to his martyrdom. It is interesting to note that the spelling of his name is given in both forms on these prints, Laurence and Lawrence.

The Organ
Facing the north door is a small pipe organ, an ancient but lovely instrument that was built, according to the Rev. A. Fane, by a deaf-mute of Warminster called Nelson Hall. In 1954 the well-known church organ builders of London, Messrs. N. P. Mander Ltd., made a report on the St. Laurence organ. One of the few Scudamore organs which had been left unaltered, they said, and a pity if it were dismantled. Worth not more than about £25, it would cost at least £90 for complete restoration, plus £65 for a Discus electric blower; rather prohibitive for a chapel that is so little used.

The maker of this little organ, Nelson Hall, started his unique business in the neighbouring village of Upton Scudamore; and in quite a number of churches in the district there are still “Scudamore” organs to be found. Nelson Hall the organ builder eventually moved from Upton Scudamore to Emwell Street, Warminster, where he carried on his business for a considerable time.

The Tower
The arch of the west door of the tower dates from the time of Henry The Seventh, but the greater part of the tower has been renewed several times; the upper stages were completely destroyed by lightning on 15th December 1897. The tower arch is huge by comparison with the size of the little chapel; an arch that covers a modern font and is curtained off from the nave. Beneath the tower is an old font that was discovered in the tower, with an 18th century bowl and base.

Octavius Bertram Chambers
The name of O. B. Chambers is well-known to older residents of Warminster, his memory being perpetuated for many years by the four-foot clock that once adorned the premises he occupied in the Market Place. This clock was reputedly brought from the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in 1851. .

Octavius Bertram Chambers had the duty of keeping the Town Clock in St. Laurence’s Chapel in perfect time. One evening he climbed the tower stairway as usual to wind the old, faceless clock of St. Laurence. Being a long time gone, Mr. Chambers was sought, and there in the clock room they found him dead. After winding the clock to set time on its forward march he himself had relinquished time and entered eternity.

Recent Events
The removal of the houses that once concealed St. Laurence has left a pleasant open space where one can sit awhile and watch the ever-increasing road traffic of a modern Warminster. High railings were removed in recent years, and two seats have been provided at this vantage spot. These seats were presented to the town as the result of a successful “Beat Your Neighbour” television contest in 1963. For a long time the Warminster Gardening Society helped to keep this little plot a thing of beauty, a task now carried out by the Town Council.

It is interesting to record that the first St. Laurence wedding in living memory was held on the 16th of March 1970, when Miss Sarah Grace Butcher of Warminster became the wife of Signor Giovanni Cazzaniga of Italy. As St. Laurence is one of the few churches in England owned by a town and not by church authorities, a special licence had to be granted by the Archbishop Of Canterbury. The reason for this unusual choice was the fact that the Chapel Of St. Laurence is non-denominational, the groom a Catholic and the bride Church Of England. The Scudamore organ was played by Mr. K. Atkins of Warminster Congregational Church. Another most unusual feature of this unique wedding was the guard of honour that formed outside the church. Employees of R. Butcher And Son, wearing white protective clothing and yellow safety helmets, formed an archway of long strips of glass and glazier’s tools, in honour of the bridegroom, who is a master glazier in his native Sovico.

Sambourne School, Warminster

Wilfred Middlebrook, in The Changing Face Of Warminster, first written in 1960, updated in 1971, noted:

The old Sambourne Senior School has also got a new look, the high stone wall being replaced by a lower one of breeze blocks, topped by a wire mesh fence that gives a clearer view of the school buildings with their perpendicular windows and the flattened top-piece where the belfry used to be.

Today this is a primary school but an old scholar who left Sambourne in 1896 recalls the bad old days under the headmastership of Mr. Crispin. He was a man with harsh, brutal methods of teaching – cane, ruler and knuckles – though usually no part of the body escaped his blows, and his assistants followed his example. “Give it to him, Oliver,” he would shout, when Oliver was using the cane. When Mr. Crispin retired the Managers desired a more humane pedagogue, and got one who started off by letting the boys scramble for nuts in the playground. The change from brutality to kindness was too sudden and regarded as weakness – there were some young ruffians from the Common, Pound Street and West Street who did not hesitate in taking advantage of the situation. Discipline became bad, then worse, and the master left.

In those far-off days, boys from the Workhouse attended Sambourne School, dressed in long corduroy trousers often too big for them, long white smocks and heavy, ill-fitting boots. In later years, neat clothing was supplied to the boys of the Orphanage in Vicarage Street.

Perhaps the most popular headmaster in bygone days was Mr. James Bartlett. As one old scholar put it “the most interesting headmaster the boys could wish for, keen on ornithology and wild flowers and sports for boys, a very lovable Jimmy he was. He changed the attitude of teachers to scholars, changed hatred of school to a desire not to stay away. Playing hop almost died out in his time.”

In 1908, under the headmastership of Mr. Bartlett, the teaching staff consisted of Mr. Langdon, Miss Stone, Mr. Dufosee, Miss Smart, Miss Sims, Mr. Hawkins, Miss Beak and Mr. Victor Manley – the notes of the last named, on the history of Warminster, have done much to make this account of mine more complete.

The King’s Arms, Weymouth Street, Warminster

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!”

The Ship And Punch Bowl

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

Across from the blind house stands the Ship And Punchbowl inn, at the beginning of Silver Street. The original inn was thatched, but was burnt down in 1880 and rebuilt. An old press cutting reports of the Ship And Punch Bowl: “There is no house in Warminster with such centuries of vileness justly attributed to it – horrible scenes of debauchery nightly occurred there – the discord of fiddle and tambourine and boisterous singing, followed by the indecency of drunken men and women reeling homewards, shouting curses and threats.”

Another queer press cutting, dated 15th March 1779, reads as follows: “To Gentlemen Ringers, Warminster Wilts; Notice is hereby given that six Hats, value 12/- each, with Silver Buttons and lappets, the gift of Mr. William Cutler of the Ship and Punch Bowl Inn of Warminster aforesaid will be rung for on Tuesday in Easter-week. Each set is to ring for half an hour, allowing five minutes to rise and four to fall, and to ring a full peal without intermission. The Hats to be given to that set which makes the least faults. The Umpires to be sworn if required. Whose dinners are to be paid for by that set who wins. N.B. – A good dinner will be on the table at 8.”

Quakers In Warminster

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

By the side of this lane [from Bugley to Cley Hill], well up beneath the shadow of Cley Hill, and now ploughed up into oblivion, was an old Quaker burial ground.

There were several Quakers in Warminster in the hey-day of the clothing industry, with a Meeting House in Common Close that was afterwards a malthouse.

The last Quaker in the town was George Gardiner who died in 1795, but two other Quakers were brought some distance in the nineteenth century and buried in this tiny graveyard at Leynes, near Bugley; a graveyard some fifteen yards long and seven wide, enclosed with a low stone wall, near a few trees. No trace now remains.

The Baptist Church And John Halliday

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

Further along North Row, at the opposite side, is the Ebenezer Baptist Chapel, built in 1810, with schools and classrooms added later. Before its erection, Baptist worshippers went to Common Close or walked out to Crockerton, where a small chapel had been built before the 1719 chapel of Common Close. The Crockerton Chapel was built on a piece of land called “The Waste’ to “accommodate worshippers who had been walking from Crockerton and the Deverills to the Old Meeting House in Warminster.” It was a kind of half-way house, still existing as a chapel forty years ago.

Mention has been made of the Halliday Pew being ejected from the Minster. A curious sequel to this was that John Edmund Halliday, by his will of June 1905, left the whole of his £20,000 estate “to his wife Kate for life, after which it goes to Warminster Baptist Church.” The Halliday family, this branch of it at any rate, were supporters of the Old Meeting. John Halliday, born 1671, was connected with the Presbyterians in 1691. John Edmund Halliday, of Yard House, East Street, was his great-grandson.

John Halliday purchased his own pew when the Old Meeting House was built but this was not the one that caused such a commotion in later years, the one ejected from the Minster Church. Edward Halliday purchased the freehold of a pew site in the Minster Church in 1680, and installed a pew five feet high, “in shape resembling a cattle truck.” Apparently, the Trustees of the Baptist Church had a reversionary interest in this pew, which they surrendered in 1914 when the widow of John Edmund Halliday expressed a desire to see the pew, with all rights pertaining to it, restored to the Minster Church.

The Independent Chapel At Bread Street, Warminster Common

Wilfred Middlebrook in The Changing Face Of Warminster, first written in 1960, updated in 1971, noted:

The Independents had a chapel in Bread Street, which was used by the Wesleyans, but according to Daniell they left it in 1818. There was a split at the time, and some of the Methodists who had been expelled got possession of the Chapel. On 3rd April 1827 the foundations of a Methodist Chapel were laid at the Common and William Daniell preached there for many years.

The Independent Chapel in Bread Street was destroyed by fire in 1857. The Chapel occupied the site of an old cockpit known as the Hammer and Trowel.

The Literary & Scientific Institute, Warminster

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

Here we are tempted to turn down Weymouth Street for a further exploration, but will instead proceed along the Market Place on this south side and return along the north side. The Literary Institution no longer exists as such, though the fine building remains to match the Town Hall on the Weymouth Street corner. For many years the British Legion Club used the upper floors, but for some years now it has been occupied by the Ministry Of Labour And Pensions.

The frontage of the Literary Institute is at present occupied by a firm of estate agents and auctioneers. Thirty years or so ago it was the offices of Wakeman And Son, solicitors. The major part of the building, with the entrance round the corner in Weymouth Street, was for many years the British Legion Club. During the last War, air raid wardens held their meetings and discussions here.

The Minster Church Of St. Denys, Warminster

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

Two features strike the eye as one comes into view of the Parish Church Of St. Denys: the first is the way the road seems to encircle the churchyard, and the second is the mighty yew, its spreading branches propped by stout stakes; branches that spread almost to the south porch. Round churchyards are believed to spring from pagan stone circles, as the early Christian Church often utilised prehistoric ‘temples’ to wean worshippers gradually to Christianity without suddenly uprooting their age-old beliefs and customs.

This circular formation of the Minster churchyard was regarded by Victor Manley, an earlier historian of Warminster, as sure proof that a Celtic stone circle stood here in pagan times, or at least a circular burial mound.

Doubtless the first settlement of Ancient Britons, when skin-clad Celts finally deemed it safe to leave their hill-top camps of Cley Hill, Arn Hill and Cop Heap, was here on the banks of the Cley Hill Stream at Coldharbour. There is no trace or record of a minster or a monastery ever standing here, though there was an earlier church of Norman erection, dedicated to Saint Simon and Saint Jude, and a still earlier church of wood, built by the Saxons nearby.

The circular churchyard and the ancient yew are said to point to both a pagan and a Saxon foundation.

Another Warminster historian, the Reverend John J. Daniell, gives a vivid picture of “tall, lusty, grim men, with bodies stained and painted, clothed in skins – the fathers of the present inhabitants of Warminster” settling on an island clearing at Coldharbour, on the banks of the Rocky Daddy, thus creating the first town of Warminster.

The mighty yew tree, that could well have served as a Saxon moot tree around which councils were held, is now fifteen feet in circumference and is said to be over a thousand years old. Reverting to that earlier Saxon church of wood, an old manuscript states that “there is still seen a burying place, where coffins and bones are continually dug up, as well as some foundations of an old building seen in dry weather by the appearance of the grass.” This was in the meadow about a hundred yards west of the present church.

The second church, built by the Normans, was dedicated to St. Simon and St. Jude. In a sermon given at the Minster in 1940 by the Vicar of Longbridge Deverill, this dedication was referred to by the preacher as follows: “A former dedication of the Minster was to S.S. Simon and Jude, probably because Cley Hill being a twin hill, but more likely because the name Jude coincided with the ancient Neolithic Stone-age god named Dhu, or Sol-dieu – God of the Sun. A relic of those far-off days was found in the ancient wall in a field near Longbridge Deverill Church, which is still called Dhu’s Wall.”

The present church is dedicated to St. Dionysius or Denys, long the patron saint of the Kings of France, a missionary bishop sent by Fabian, Bishop Of Rome, to preach in France in A.D. 245. There are some forty-three English churches with this dedication; St. Denys being remembered in the English calendar on 9th October, which gives Warminster her October Fair.

By the entrance to the churchyard, between the mighty yew and the road, is a clear space paved with flagstones and obviously outside the original circle of the churchyard. On this unhallowed site stood the Church House, from which church ales were served in olden times. Abolished generally throughout England soon after the Reformation, church ales survived in Warminster well into the nineteenth century, until 1826, when a notice proclaimed: “No Church Ales after Easter Vestry from this date.”

John Aubrey writes “There were no rates for the poore even in my gr. Father’s daies; the Church Ales at Whitsuntide did their businesse. In every Parish is, or was, a church howse, to which belonged spitts, crocks, &c., utensils for dressing provision. Here the Howsekeepers met, and were merry, and gave their Charitie; the young people came there too, and had dancing, bowling, shooting at buttes, &c., the ancients sitting gravely by, looking on. All things were civill and without scandall. This Church Ale is doubtless derived from the agapae, or Love Feasts, mentioned in the New Testament.”

Here is another indication that pagan customs were handed down from generation to generation, though altering in form to suit the tenets of the Christian faith. Another pagan ritual that survived in Warminster until the present century was the annual Shrove Tuesday ceremony of “clipping the church.’ Manley relates how lads from Warminster Common walked to Crockerton to meet the girls as they left their work at the silk factory. After “threading the needle’ all the way from Crockerton Green to Warminster, the young folk dancing and singing and forming an ever-moving arch with their hands, under which succeeding couples passed, the whole party would link hands in a huge circle that embraced the Parish Church. This custom of encircling the church was also observed at Hill Deverill.

The Church House was finally deemed an incumbrance and a deformity in its original site, so it was pulled down in 1813, after housing the Parish Sexton for many years.

Asheys, the house that gave the name to Ash Walk, was bought, pulled down, and a sexton’s house erected, where it stands to this day at the corner of Ash Walk and Church Street, across from the churchyard gate.

THE INTERIOR OF THE MINSTER CHURCH
The older portions of the present Church Of St. Denys are parts of a building erected, probably by the Mauduits, about the time of Edward the Third, a cruciform church, with shallow transepts and a low tower crowned with an octagonal spire. Nothing was done to the church for many years after this; and the whole must have fallen into decay, for in 1626 an order was made to repair the old building, which “weeps many a teare for her decayed house, especially when the wynd is in the west.” The first gallery was erected in 1660, in the north transept, and other galleries were added, until 1724, when almost the whole of the old building west of the tower was pulled down and an extremely ugly nave built on the old foundations; with its many galleries, this accommodated over a thousand people.

The font occupied a central position near the west end, with an ugly heating stove close by, the flue passing to the exterior in a dangerous and unsightly fashion. Surmounting the western apex of the tower arch were the Royal Arms, heraldically emblazoned, and encased in an ornamental frame. The display of the Royal Arms was at one time compulsory in most churches. Some years later the Royal Arms were removed, and over the arch, following its outline, was inscribed the following text: ‘Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.’ The ceiling of the nave was a flat plastered surface, relieved by geometrical ribs. Suspended from the centre of each division in the design was a sun-burner, illuminated by gas. The reredos was of embattled design, inscribed with the Lord’s Prayer, Creed and Commandants.

During the Caroline period, galleries were fixed in the north and south transepts, and the same course was followed during the erection of the eighteenth century nave; a west gallery being added in 1770 for the organ. In advance of the organ itself was a central projection from the west gallery used as a singing loft by the choir. A painting of King David praising to harp accompaniment was placed in front of the singers’ gallery. On Whit Tuesday festivals the flags of the local friendly societies were displayed from this west gallery. The pulpit was lofty, the preacher being in line with the choir in their gallery. There was a hexagonal sounding board over-hanging the pulpit and a reading desk below it; and beneath this was the desk of the Parish Clerk. Nave and aisles were fitted with “horse-box’ pews, these continuing through the transepts but facing eastward also, an arrangement altered in later years. By the west door of the present church are photographs taken in 1886, before the final restoration of the church as we know it. These show the organ above the west door, and a flight of steps leading from the floor of the nave to the singers’ gallery.

THE BELLS
At one period the bells were rung from the floor of the church beneath the tower, then a “chiming’ system was substituted for constructional reasons, the ropes being attached to the clappers. The extra strain on the sounding bows was so great that the bells were ruined, having to be re-cast before the general restoration of the church. On their return from London in 1881, the bells were carried through the streets of Warminster during the October Fair to their home in the squat tower of the Parish Church, where they remained until 1914, when they were again re-hung at a cost of two hundred pounds. All except the tenor were re-cast by John Warner And Sons of Cripplegate, London, in 1881.

According to Daniell, John Lott was a famous bell-founder in Warminster, in the middle of the 17th century. All the bells in Warminster, which he cast in his foundry in the Common Close, have been melted up again and again. In 1629 the Great Bell broke and was sold to John Lott at 10d. a lb. In 1686 he re-cast the fourth bell, weighing over 17 cwt., and in 1707 the tenor bell was re-cast by Richard Lott for £46/5/-.

William Cockey of Frome cast another bell in 1732 for £14/14/-, and a new tenor bell was cast at Gloucester by Abel Rudhall in 1737, bearing the legend “I to the church the living call, And to the grave I summon all.’ Another bell was cast by Thomas Rudhall in 1765, and the treble bell new-cast by William Belbie of Chew Stoke in 1781. This was replaced in 1805 by a bell cast by James Wells of Aldbourne. When Daniell wrote his History Of Warminster, in 1879, he recorded that “the Second Bell is now broken – the Third and Fifth are cracked.”

In 1960 it was again necessary to have the bells taken down to be tuned and overhauled. This time it was the London firm Mears And Stainbank, of Whitechapel, who did the work. The bells were taken down in May and returned at the end of June. According to Mr. Theobald, who removed them, the tenor bell, cast by Abel Rudhall of Gloucester, had never left its original mounting since 1737. Beams had to be cut away above the trap door to lower the huge 28 cwt. bell, and part of the removal process was shown on B.B.C. television – a true sign of the times.

Asked whether it was usual to find bats in belfries, Mr. Theobald replied that in his experience it was usually dead flies, thousands of which had to be removed by the bucketful before his job could begin. For the first time in their long history, the Minster bells made their long journey to and from London by train, in special containers. For the first time also, they were re-hung with steel ball-bearings instead of brass.

THE ORGAN
There was an organ in the Minster Church as early as 1630. In 1636 the foretop of the organ was new-cast and in 1638 it was removed from the west end of the north gallery. In 1639 “was the Angel on the top of the organ newe gilded, and the organ itself newe painted and gilded.” In 1643 the organ pipes were removed and hidden in the floor of the tower “lest the soldiers should spoyle them and teare them as they did others in other places.”

In time this organ became decayed and useless, some kind of primitive orchestra taking its place, but in 1792 a new organ was bought for £400. This fine organ, inscribed “ENGLAND. LONDON. FECIT 1792.’ is still in use, though restorations and alterations have taken place from time to time.

Apparently, about 1790, the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury Cathedral negotiated with George Pike England, a famous organ-builder of London, to build them a new organ. Soon afterwards King George The Third was on a visit to Salisbury, heard they wanted a new organ, and offered them £1,000 providing the organ was built by his favourite organ builder Samuel Green. This was agreed to, but George England was not told of the new arrangement, and carried on making the organ. When it was finished, and the true situation revealed, he consented to let Warminster have it for £400. Daniell and other historians say that the England organ was found to be unsuitable for Salisbury Cathedral, but this was not so. The Samuel Green organ was replaced at the beginning of the 20th century by a Willis organ, and transferred to St. Thomas’ Church, Salisbury.

The Minster organ was moved and rebuilt about 1860 by Willis and again in 1904 by Vowles. At a cost of £3,000 it was finally restored and modernised in 1963 by Hill, Norman And Beard. During this last restoration an organ subscription list dated 1792 was found hidden behind the organ. This last restoration was necessary because the organ “broke down’ at Christmas 1961, owing to the hardening of the leather in action. Electrically-operated bellows had been fitted in 1933.

THE MINSTER CHURCH TODAY
The Minster Church was restored as we see it today by the Rev. Sir James Erasmus Philipps, Vicar of Warminster from 1859 to 1897, at a total cost of over twelve thousand pounds. A beautiful marble plaque in the south transept is inscribed: “To James Erasmus Philipps, Baronet, Canon of Salisbury. Vicar of Warminster 1859 – 1897. Through whose zeal the church restoration was completed 1889.’

In his History Of Warminster, Daniell describes Warminster Church as “the ugliest Church in the diocese,” but he was writing in 1879. There is nothing ugly about the present church, unless one includes the fearsome gargoyles and weird figures that can be seen from the outside. There are carved figures of stone inside as well, but these are far from ugly; angels at prayer holding up the roof beams, and an angel choir below, complete with musical instruments – graceful figures that lean out from the capitals of the pillars and help to make of Warminster’s Parish Church a place of real beauty.

As re-opened on 21st February 1889, the Church Of St. Denys is now a cruciform structure, in the Perpendicular style, consisting of clerestoried nave of five bays, aisles, transepts, chancel with south aisle or Lady Chapel, south and west porches, vestries, organ chamber, and the original central and embattled tower with pinnacles.

Cruciform means cross-like; the chancel forming the head of the cross, with transepts for the arms and the nave as the long base. The tower covers the centre of the cross, between nave and chancel, and this gives added length and dignity to the church; a sense of vastness then viewed from the west door that is equalled only by the fine old cruciform church of Heytesbury in the near neighbourhood. The clerestory, or clear storey, has lights of clear glass that let the pure sunlight stream down upon the lofty nave, with coloured windows around the nave that soften and beautify the flanking aisles.

A three-light window in the north aisle was presented by the Seagram family, showing The Resurrection, while a fine window in the south aisle is in memory of the old masters and boys of Lord Weymouth’s Grammar School, who fell in the Great War of 1914-1918; this has figures of Saints Louise, George, and Coeur-de-Lion. Another south aisle window shows the Samaritan aiding the robbed traveller, “in memory of John Elling, 1892.’ On the wall of the north aisle is a plaque in memory of Charles Bleeck, F.R.C.S., “born Warminster 1805 died 1878. Practised here for nearly half a century. Tablet erected chiefly by efforts of the poor for his kindness and sympathy.’

The west window was placed by William Langley Feltham on Palm Sunday, 1891, “in memory of his Father and Mother. Three members of the family were Rectors of the Parish’. This lovely four-light window shows Christ entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and Christ bearing the Cross. There are two east windows, a four-light in the Lady Chapel “To the Glory of God and in Gratitude for the Restoration of this Church. Festival of All Saints, A.D. 1888,’ and a five-light window in the chancel showing The Crucifixion, The Stoning of St. Stephen, The Preaching of St. Paul, The Offering of the Magi and The Raising of the Widow’s Son. This window was destroyed or blocked up in 1760, and rebuilt by money contributed by parishioners as a testimonial of respect to the Rev. W. Dalby, on his resignation of the Vicarage in 1841.

There are two southern windows in the Lady Chapel in memory of the Rev. Canon Sir James Erasmus Philipps, 12th Baronet of Picton, Vicar of Warminster 1859-1897; and his wife. The first shows Saints David, George, Edward and Boniface, and the second the figures of S.S. Margaret, Anne, Katharine and the Virgin Mary.

A three-light window in the south transept, given by the Slade family, shows Mary washing Jesus’ feet, The Woman at the Sepulchre, and The Conversion of Paul. The north transept is used as a robing room; its walls lined with fine murals, lighted by a window showing The Resurrection, The Women, and Saints Peter and John – a three-light window presented by the Seagram family. On the east wall of this north transept is to be seen the Norman window discovered during the restoration, a narrow slit of unglazed window through which the light from outside was forced to widen out in rapidly increasing angles until a large portion of the interior was illuminated.

Below the tower, facing the Lady Chapel, is a prayer book kept in a glass case; this was used by Edward The Seventh when, as Prince Of Wales, he attended service on Sunday the 21st of October, 1856. Here also is a list of Vicars from Stephen, 1258, to John Freeman, 1956. The south transept probably had an altar at one time, as there is still a piscina. There is an altar in the Lady Chapel or Lady Aisle, the gift of Dr. J. H. Markland, Esq., of Bath, in 1851. There is a finely carved pulpit of Caen stone and Devonshire marble presented by George and Maria Bayley Vicary in 1889, in memory of their parents; the eagle lectern was also a gift of George Vicary in 1883.

The organ, already described, is on the north of the chancel. Nine members of the Halliday family are buried here, according to a tablet in the Lady Aisle, from Edward, 1625-1702 to Edmund, 1812-1840, and here also stood the famous Halliday pew, of which more later. There is a most lovely reredos of gold with alabaster figures of Christ holding the Orb, two angels, Madonna and Child and a bishop. A stained glass window in the north wall, beyond the organ, was presented by the late Mr. H. P. Jones, in memory of his son.

The most modern window in this Church Of St. Denys was unveiled in January 1951, to the memory of Dr. W. L. Hogan and Mrs. Hogan, who lived for many years at Portway. This beautiful window, which was presented by Mrs. Hogan before her death, has in the central light the figure of Our Lord, the Physician and Healer of Men, cleansing the Leper, with St. John on the left and St. Francis on the right. The home of the late Dr. Hogan is now used as a surgery by the combined doctors of Warminster, thus acting as a lasting and practical memorial to a man who was beloved by all who knew him.

There have been several fonts in the history of this much-altered church; fonts that have occupied various sites, from the west end to the central site below the tower. The present font, of Hopton stone, stands by the south door on a mosaic pavement. A marble plaque on the wall above is inscribed: ‘Ellen Louisa Jones, who for 13 yrs. was as a mother to the girls of the Orphanage of Pity in this town and died 27 May 1884 – placed by her brothers and sisters and dedicated by Lord Bishop of Salisbury 21 Feb. 1889.’

THE HALLIDAY PEW
In these days of free seating in churches, it is hard to imagine the conditions in the “good old days’ of pew rents and other rackets. According to Daniell, there was a scandalous traffic in sittings and pews in Warminster Church soon after the Reformation. Whole pews and single seats were bought, sold, left by will, leased and sub-leased, let and sub-let, by their proprietors, and even parcels of the very soil within the church were sold for the erection of such seats as the purchaser wished. The poor were thus driven into the dark seats beneath the galleries and, as a body, were virtually excluded from the church. This amazing system led to the famous Halliday case when the church was restored and re-seated in 1889; the “horse-box’ pew of the Halliday family was removed with the rest, but the owner claimed his right to the ground on which the pew had stood for so many years.

The freehold of this site was purchased in 1680, an entry in the Church Vestry Accounts reading: “Received of Mr. Edward Halliday for ye ground whereon hee has bilt a seat for his wife and family, 5/-.” The current Mr. Halliday commenced an action against the Vicar and Churchwardens in the High Court Of Justice, but the Vicar won; an appeal was made and the decision reversed, then the case went to the House Of Lords and the decision was upheld, the pew being repaired and fixed in its former position in the south chancel aisle.

A newspaper report describes how, at 10.00 a.m. on the first Monday in March 1897, “the ugly old pew was conveyed from his house, where it had been carefully preserved, to the Minster, on a trolley borrowed by Mr. Button from Mr. Titt, (both of whom deny having any knowledge of the intended use of the truck). The pew is old-fashioned, five feet high, resembling in shape a cattle truck.” A month later, the pew was removed by dead of night, thrown over the churchyard wall, smashed to pieces and partially burnt but was again repaired and remained in the Minster until 1914, when Mr. Halliday’s widow expressed a desire to see all the rights pertaining to the pew restored to the Minster. The Trustees of the Baptist Church at the same time surrendered their reversionary interest in the pew.

There was an amusing sequel to the attempted destruction of the Halliday Pew, foiled only because of rain damping the paraffin with which it was soaked; on the Saturday night a donkey was paraded along the Market Place by a juvenile. The donkey wore a white hat, a large pair of spectacles, coloured ribbons on its legs, and carried a large placard executed in red ink: ‘Looking for the Pew Shifter.’ This happened in April 1897; by the end of July the pew, banded with iron, was back in church.