Category: Gazetteer

A geographical dictionary providing reference information about places and place names in Warminster and other civil parishes in the surrounding area.

Bleeck’s Field Is Now The Site Of Homeminster House, Warminster

Notes penned by Danny Howell during 1991.

Bleeck’s Field
For many years the Bleeck family owned a piece of pasture between the Avenue and the railway line, immediately south west of Warminster Railway Station. It was appropriately known as Bleeck’s Field.

The Warminster Rose Show was held on this field in July 1881.

At about the beginning of the First World War Mr and Mrs Sam Smart, who moved to Warminster from Trowbridge, acquired the field and used it as a place to buy and sell scrap metal. The Smart family sold the scrap metal business and the site to Drinkwater’s, metal merchants of Trowbridge, in the early 1970s.

Drinkwater’s continued to run a scrap business here until the mid-1980s when they sold out, and a three or four storey block of retirement flats for the elderly has since been built here. These are named Homeminster House and overlook the Railway Station.

Bugley Barton Accommodation Underpass, A36 Warminster Bypass

From Warminster And District Archive magazine, No.4, May 1990:

Bugley Barton Accommodation Underpass

This structure provides a bridleway and farm accommodation track [Pound Lane] under the Bypass. The width of the track through this structure is 5.5 metres and it has a height of 4.75 metres to provide clearance for farm vehicles. The structure consists of a reinforced concrete box having equal thickness floor, walls and roof of 600mm. The ends have reinforced concrete splayed wing walls integral with the main box structure. The structure has partial construction joints midway along its length and at each wing wall extension. In each joint the steel reinforcement is continuous, the concrete is keyed and the joint sealed from water ingress by an external plastic waterstop and a sealant on the inside. Aluminium parapets are provided behind safety fences as a further precaution.

The Bridges On The A36 Warminster Bypass

From Warminster And District Archive magazine, No.4, May 1990:

There are eleven bridges on the route of the Warminster Bypass, with a total tender value of £1.75 million. Together they contain 5,500 cubic metres of concrete and 760 tonnes of steel reinforcement. Three carry Bradley Road, Bishopstrow Road, and the Eastleigh Wood Bridleway over the Bypass. The other bridges take the Bypass over four farm accommodation roads, the B3095 Sutton Veny road, the Salisbury-Bath railway line, and two cross the River Wylye.

The bridges are all founded on reinforced concrete bases, except for the railway bridge near Cotley Hill and the River Wylye Bridge east of Butler’s Coombe, both of which are supported by 600mm diameter bored concrete piles.

The decks of the railway and river bridges are formed with pre-cast pre-stressed concrete ‘T’ beams which were supplied by Bryco Concrete of Taunton. The remaining bridges have in-situ reinforced concrete decks. The farm underpasses are simple reinforced concrete box structures.

The overbridges all have three spans which are continuous over the multiple column piers with movement joints at the skeletal abutments. The Eastleigh Wood bridge has a trough section deck reducing the height of the metal parapets which would have been required for the bridleway.

The B3095 Sutton Veny road underbridge has a 42 degree skew single span deck with buried type movement joints at each end and wing walls at two levels.

The river bridge at Norton Bavant has three spans which are simply supported, having buried type movement joints over the solid piers and at the skeletal abutments. This bridge was constructed adjacent to the original river course prior to diverting the river beneath the centre to keep the span length to a minimum. The bridges over the river at Norton Bavant and east of Butler’s Coombe also cater for farm accommodation roads and public footpaths.

The railway bridge is similar to the Norton River Bridge but has solid reinforced concrete parapets. All bridge construction over and adjacent to the railway line was carried out during weekend night-time possession periods. The construction team included two female engineers, Hilary Walton and Joan Wingfield. The pre-stressed beams for Cotley Bridge were all placed in a single night to minimise the disruption to rail traffic.

The Archaeology Of Scratchbury

An Iron Age hill fort with traces of an earlier enclosure, in the parish of Norton Bavant, near Warminster.

Some notes compiled by Danny Howell in 1990:

Scratchbury (the name is probably derived from Scratch – an old West Country word for the Devil, and burh – meaning an ancient camp) has a bank and ditch enclosing 37 acres and includes several burial mounds or tumuli.

Two barrows lie inside the north eastern part and one of these covered a cremation burial. A bowl barrow in the south west part which was excavated by Colt Hoare produced no burial, only animal bones and several burnt stones. A fourth barrow, less than a metre high, in the centre of the hill at the highest point, covered a cremation with a small bronze dagger and a pin of the same metal, as well as a large amber ring and 50 amber beads. These finds are now in Devizes Museum.

William Cobbett (1762 – 1835) referred to Scratchbury and Middle Hill as Roman camps; the earthworks of Scratchbury include a Romano-British (or maybe later) ditch running from east to west but archaeologists have dated Scratchbury to be a predominantly Iron Age hill fort. The Romans were once nearby though as discovery of the sites of two Roman villas at Pitmeads, between Sutton Veny and Norton Bavant, about two miles away, proves.

Immediately east of Scratchbury is Cotley, another hill with extensive earthworks and a number of barrow mounds, notably two visible on the skyline.

Pitmeads Roman Villa, Norton Bavant

THE FIRST DISCOVERIES AT PIT MEADS

Pit Meads is the name of a field near the village of Norton Bavant, about two miles east of Warminster.

Until 1785 the only interesting thing about Pit Meads field was how stony it was. But in the spring of that year a farmer uncovered a pattern of little coloured stones in the field.

The news of this discovery spread. People came to see it. One of the visitors realised it was part of a Roman mosaic. This meant there had once been a Roman house or “villa’ there.

Many of the visitors took stones away as souvenirs. Before long the mosaic had been destroyed. Luckily, someone had made a sketch before all was lost.

In the summer of 1785 a local lady called Catherine Downes decided to look for more Roman remains. She paid some workmen to dig in Pit Meads field. They found another mosaic about 60 feet long. Mrs Downes made a careful drawing of it.

About a week later a small fair or travelling circus came to this area. One of the clowns tried to steal the mosaic, destroying it in the process.

LORD BATH INTERVENES

The owner of the field was Lord Bath of Longleat. He decided to take charge of the digging himself and paid workmen to dig again during 1786.

They found a third mosaic. It was quite large and had elaborate patterns on it. Although it wasn’t complete, you could see a human figure and an animal on it.

Lord Bath’s son, Lord Weymouth, had this mosaic carefully removed and it was taken to Longleat House.

CUNNINGTON TO THE RESCUE

For about 15 years there was no more digging at Pit Meads. Then a man began to dig up the stones in the field, carting them away to sell for road-mending.

At this time there was an archaeologist called William Cunnington living in nearby Heytesbury. When he heard about the new digging he was horrified. He realised the man was actually destroying the walls and foundations of the Roman villa.

Cunnington went to Pit Meads to see what was left. A lot had been taken away but he paid for workmen to dig carefully and they found quite a lot of evidence about the villa, including a fourth mosaic which was very badly damaged.

THE MOSAICS

Four mosaics were found at Pit Meads between 1785 and 1800. This means that the villa was quite lavishly decorated because 75% of villas in Britain had no mosaics at all.

All four mosaics have been lost or destroyed since re-discovery. Only a few small fragments can be seen at Devizes Museum. Fortunately, drawings were made at the time of discovery.

Three of the mosaics were just geometric patterns. The third mosaic was a picture of the legendary musician Orpheus charming wild animals by playing a lyre (a hare is shown). This was a fashionable theme in later Roman art and some scholars believe it was a symbol of Christianity. The original design for this mosaic probably came from Cirencester in Gloucestershire

THE DESIGN OF THE VILLA

The front of the villa was about 100 feet wide and faced south. There were two small wings at the west and east, joined by a colonnaded verandah, with other rooms leading off from it. This design is quite common in Britain and is known as a “winged corridor” villa.

Some of the footings were of Bath stone but the main structure may have been timber-framed. We cannot be sure if it was one or two storeys. The roof was of hexagonal stone slabs which were heavy and held by iron nails.

The seven rooms were joined by a long corridor. The largest room was decorated with wall-paintings and heated by a hypocaust. Some of the other rooms had mosaic floors. Next to the largest room was a sweat-room (sudatorium) or bath.

About 300 feet to the west of the villa was another building, which could have been used as a barn or slave quarters. An underfloor heating system was found there too – perhaps this was used for drying corn.

IN DECAY

The coins and pottery found at the villa can be dated. From this evidence it looks as if no-one lived in the villa after about 380 A.D. A lot of black ash was found in several rooms, so the villa may have burned down. Two skeletons were found but it is not clear how they came to be there.

Once the heavy stone roof collapsed, the walls soon started to crumble. Gradually the building was reduced to a heap of rubble, overgrown by weeds, worn down by the weather, and burrowed into by rabbits. Local people stole stones for new buildings. Ploughing scattered the remains. After a few hundred years the only interesting thing about the place was how stony it was.

THE VANISHING VILLA

There had been so much digging by 1820 that there wasn’t much to see in Pit Meads Field. When the archaeologist Sir Richard Colt Hoare visited it that year he said “I found nothing of interest.”

In 1951, when a new history of Wiltshire was being written, the archaeologist Lesle Grinsell made a long list of all the Roman remains found in the county. He asked to see the mosaic at Longleat (the one that had been dug up in 1786). Lord Bath (the 6th Marquis) had a search made of the store-rooms and attics but the mosaic was not found – it had been lost!

PIT MEADS TODAY

What is left of the Roman Villa today? Notes,drawings and records survive in books. Some of the things Cunnington found are kept at Devizes Museum.

If you fly over Pit Meads in an aeroplane when conditions are right (when the soil is very wet or very dry, or the crops are ripening, or the light is at a particular angle) you may be able to see the vague outline of where the villa stood. Apart from this, the villa has vanished.

The field has been ploughed annually in recent years. Fieldwalking has recovered finds not only from the Roman period but also from Saxon and Mediaeval times.

A FARMING ESTATE

Archaeological records, photographs and old maps provide an insight into reconstructing what life was like at the villa some l700 years ago.

Pit Meads is at the heart of a large area of Salisbury Plain and Cranborne Chase, where no other Roman villas have been found.

But this area was probably farmed as actively as today, because field systems, farmsteads and even villages from the Romano

-British period were situated on land that we now use as Army ranges and woodland.

So, Pit Meads could have been the centre of a large faming estate.

TIME CHART

IRON AGE (700 B.C. – 43 A.D.)

A farm existed near the present-day Bishopstrow Farm.

ROMAN PERIOD (43 A.D. – 4l0 A.D.)

Pit Meads villa built, probably as the centre of a farming estate. Other small farms continued much as in the Iron Age. The villa was abandoned towards the end of the Roman period.

SAXON PERIOD (4 l0 A.D. – 1066 A.D.)

A village existed at Norton Bavant, around the site of the present-day church.

MIDDLE AGES (1066 A.D. – 1485 A.D.)

Pit Meads field under the plough, breaking up and scattering the Roman walls, etc.

MODERN TIMES (after 1485 A.D.)

Pit Meads used for pasture.

1785 – 1786: Field under plough again. Re-discovery of the villa. First excavations followed by souvenir hunters destroying two mosaics. Lord Bath removed a third mosaic.

1800: Roman walling removed for road mending. Second excavations lead to a plan and description being made by William Cunnington.

1820: Sir Richard Colt Hoare finds little trace left of the villa.

1985 – 1986: Field under plough again. Roman tile pottery, etc., unearthed, plus a spearhead from the Saxon period.

Compiled by Andrew Houghton and Danny Howell, 1990.

Middleton Close, Warminster, Built On Former Pound Street Allotments

Friday 27th October 1989

“New residential estates (in Warminster) have been completed, including . . . Middleton Close which now occupies the former Pound Street allotments.”

~ stated by Danny Howell in a lecture “Changing Faces Of Warminster” which he gave at the Athenaeum, Warminster, during October 1989.

Byne Cottages At Church Street, Warminster

Adrian Phillips, in the book The Warminster Trail, compiled for the Warminster Festival 1989, and published by Aris & Phillips Ltd., wrote:

Behind the coach house [of Byne House] [at Church Street], through the modern archway along side it, is a row of cottages called Byne Cottages, originally built for weavers when they used hand looms in their own homes. They [Byne Cottages] ceased to be used for this purpose in 1824. This marked the death of the cloth industry in the town.

Culverhouse’s Yard, Church Street, Warminster

Adrian Phillips, in the book The Warminster Trail, published by Aris & Phillips Ltd. for the Warminster Festival in 1989, noted:

Church Street, Warminster . . . . . On the south side of the street is the yard of Culverhouse, a well-known firm of local builders. The deeds show that this site was used by a clothier in 1603. In common with many buildings in Warminster it was a malthouse in the 19th century when it belonged to a Robert Butcher (1853) and was unusual in having its steep and furnace adjacent. The house next to it, Northdown, now part of Warminster School, was the maltster’s house.

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