Category: Days During 1928

From The Warminster Official Guide And Souvenir 1928 (penned by Victor Strode Manley):

A first impression of Warminster is one of impelling attractiveness. The railway first reveals the downs on their sunny side dotted with little copses.

From The Warminster Official Guide And Souvenir 1928 (penned by Victor Strode Manley):

Accommodation
Being on the trunk road connecting Southampton (45 miles), Portsmouth (55 miles), with Bristol (30 miles), motor traffic is very heavy, so that garages and petrol stations occur frequently everywhere on the route. Acting as half-way house between these three great dockyard cities, the busy hotels, proud of their old exteriors, have been re-constructed to make them modern, roomy and comfortable internally.

The three chief residential fully licensed Hotels are situated in the Market Place:-

The Bath Arms is the principal hotel, the service is excellent, and it is recommended by the A. A. and R. A. C.

The Old Bell Hotel comes next as a family and commercial hotel, then opposite, The Anchor, as a general resort.

There are several other licensed houses, with a number of Cafes and Restaurants, where visitors are well catered for.

Emwell Private Hotel is in Church Street, near the “Obelisk,” where motorists and family parties will find excellent accommodation – catering and residential.

Apartment Houses
Mrs. Cole, “Stoneleigh,” Boreham Road.
Mrs. Cornelius, “Melrose,” High Street.
Mrs. Snelgrove, 4 High Street.
Mrs. Barnes, “Alma Cottage,” Church Street.
Mrs. Holton, “Bazentin,” Sambourne Road.
Mr. L. Howell, “The Magnet,” 1 Silver Street.
Mr. G. Talbott, 11 Market Place.

Visitors are recommended to advertise their requirements in either of the two local newspapers, “The Warminster Journal” or “Wiltshire Times,” when they will doubtless be offered alternative selections of accommodation.

From The Warminster Official Guide And Souvenir 1928 (penned by Victor Strode Manley):

Places Of Worship In Warminster

Church of England. The Minster (St. Denys) has a Norman foundation of which only a curious splayed window in the north transept remains. It is a cathedral in miniature, and seats upwards of 1,200.

St. Lawrence, High Street, dates from the 13th century. Here still, “the curfew tolls the knell of parting day.” St. John’s, Boreham Road. Both of these serve as Chapels of Ease to the Minster.

Christ Church, Sambourne, is a separate ecclesiastical parish.

Roman Catholic Church. St. George, Boreham Road.

Nonconformist Churches. Baptist, North Row; Congregational, The Close; Wesleyan, George Street.

Gospel Hall (Plymouth Brethren) in The Close.

From The Warminster Official Guide And Souvenir 1928 (penned by Victor Strode Manley):

Industries
The growth of the town, apart from its famous market, is attributable to two industries, the manufacture of unsurpassed West of England cloth from local wool, and malting. Of the thirty cloth factories none remain, although the industry left good tailors in its train.

The sixty malthouses have dwindled to two with an experimental station managed by a leading expert. Each of the innumerable inns used to brew its own ale, and though the neighbouring towns bought our malt, they could not equal the ale because the Warminster water was so superior.

The lanes in rear of the hotels were rope-walks.

The many mills have one survivor. The large and old-established Warminster Timber Works and Saw Mills are still flourishing, and supply a wide and extensive wholesale and retail trade.

Iron foundries, except at Woodcock, have given place to motor works and the electric power house.

Two glove factories, a silk factory, a wood distilling factory and a chair factory (the latter operated by ex-Service men) are recent introductions.

The Station Road Garage has a large output of wireless sets manufactured there, and in this connection mention should also be made of the Orchestron Radio Manufacturing Co.

The Castle Laundry is a great asset to residents.

Horticulture is well represented by several nurserymen, whose seeds and plants are widely known.

Good building concerns are busiest of all in the rapid development of an increasingly popular residential district.

Poultry farming occupies a prominent position; there is a small army of dairymen, and genuine Wiltshire bacon is always procurable.

There is nothing decadent about the town, which has undergone a renaissance from an industrial to a residential era of progress.