Reg Cundick and Danny Howell, writing about The Roebuck public house, in the book The Inns & Taverns Of Warminster, published in November 1987, stated:
The Roebuck is recorded by both Daniell and Halliday. The latter says it was in existence in 1740 at Chain Street [now George Street]. Halliday also records that, in about 1830, it was known as The White Hart.
Reg Cundick and Danny Howell, writing about The Ring Of Bells public house, in the book The Inns & Taverns Of Warminster, published in November 1987, stated:
According to Halliday, this inn was at Chain Street (an area on the south side of today’s George Street). There is no mention of the Ring Of Bells in the 1801 Survey Of Warminster; it had obviously closed some time before.
Wilfred Middlebrook in his newspaper serialisation ‘Highways And Byways In Warminster’ published in the Wiltshire Times, Friday 22nd April 1960, noted:
Chain Street no longer exists as such, but was once a thoroughfare in the heart of the old town, running parallel with George Street.
Colt-Hoare, the Wiltshire historian, describes Chain Street as crossing the foot of the Deverill road from the New Inn to the White Hart.
In 1898 an octogenarian recalled it as running parallel with George Street, from the White Hart to Almshouse Bridge at the foot of Town Hall Hill, now High Street. This was before the fine Georgian houses were built on the north side of George Street, and the old houses now on the south side were almost hidden by another row of houses with a narrow, watered alley between, called Chain Street, either because chains barred the entry of vehicular traffic as in Chain Lane [off Boreham Road, Warminster], or to prevent pedestrians from slipping into the stream. There was one place where the stream could be crossed by stepping stones, and the Almshouse Bridge spanned the stream at the far end. The almshouses fell into decay and were pulled down about 1750.
A commercial directory published in 1823, stated that ‘Warminster has been lately improved by the removal of hovels in George Street, neat houses now being erected.’ This probably marked the widening of the new street as we know it today, a fine wide thoroughfare with Chain Street but a long-lost link with a darker age.
Entry No.622 in Wiltshire Dissenters’ Meeting House Certificates And Registrations 1689-1852, edited by J.H. Chandler, published by Wiltshire Record Society, 1985:
10 July 1804 (28 July 1804). Warminster. A new-built chapel situated in Chain Street. Methodist. Thomas King, James Ludlow, John Gregory, William Jervis. (WRO D1/2/29)
