Warminster Town Guide 1963
Warminster is a thriving and progressive town on the borders of Wiltshire, Somerset and Dorset, with some of the most enchanting scenery it is possible to find. Immediately outside the town there is the rolling downland of Salisbury Plain and the beautiful wooded countryside also has a charm of its own. The town has long enjoyed the title of “The Gateway to the West” and this description is still apt today.
One has only to take a peeping glance at the Market Place during the summer weekends with thousands of motor vehicles wending their way to holiday resorts. Naturally this brings much trade to the town.
One need not reflect on past history and the origin of the town in today’s Guide. Rather should one look to its present attractions and scope for advancement. Population figures speak for itself. From under 6,000 when the 2nd World War broke out the figure is now nearer the 10,000 mark. This has been largely brought about by new industries with much speculative building by private enterprise whilst credit is also due to the local Council with their contribution of over 600 nicely constructed houses set in attractive estates.
Standing 400 feet above sea level, the town boasts being one of the most bracing and health giving inland resorts in the county. There is ample evidence of this by the amazing records of longevity. In fine weather a walk over the lofty Downs is an exhilarating experience. The air is fresh and sweet and on a clear day the far away Bristol Channel can be seen. The residential part of the town has been acclaimed by many as most attractive, the residents seemingly taking great pains to compete with their neighbours in providing floral beauty.
Historically, Warminster is of more than usual interest, for it was here that King Alfred gathered his army for a last great fling against the Danish invaders. Not very far away, as one walks across the Downs in the footsteps of the famed English warrior, is the White Horse carved out of the chalk hillside above the village of Bratton, designed to celebrate his victory. No less than ten people at one time have enjoyed a picnic on the eye of the giant carving.
Round about are relics of a still older civilisation. On the summit of Cop Heap, a curious conical hill whose beech-clad slopes rise gently from a point quite near the railway station, stands a huge barrow dating from the Bronze Age. It is feasible that, if a tunnel were bored into the base, the interred bones of a Wessex chieftain of that period would be found, but enough excavations have already been made in the district.
Less than two miles away, at Battlesbury, is one of the finest examples of a prehistoric hill town to be seen in the whole country, a triple ring of entrenchments encircling the summit. Views from the peak are particularly impressive giving a thrilling panorama of unrivalled loveliness. Easily imagined are the many battles fought here, to preserve the existence of ancient Britons, and later came the battle exercises of the Roman gladiators, chariot wheels cutting into the earth round the lower hem of the slopes.
Not far from Warminster, in the opposite direction, is Cley Hill, which also affords magnificent views. A strange isolated peak that rises to over 700 feet, it dominates the neighbouring countryside for leagues around and was a noted landmark of the prehistoric ridgeway from South Devon to the Wash, a signal post from which a flaming beacon announced the sighting of the Spanish Armada. Easily accessible from here is one of the most imposing and lovely buildings in Britain, Longleat House, country seat of the Marquess of Bath often described as “The Treasure House of the West”.
Warminster is indelibly stamped by a character and charm all its own. Perhaps it is a little unfair to stress that its permanent population increased by over 1,000 in the year 1961-62, whereas that of near-neighbour Westbury changed but a fraction, yet there is undoubtedly a magnetic appeal about the rural regality of Warminster that unfailingly draws visitors and holiday-makers back time and again.
Although Warminster is still unsullied, unspoilt by the warping demands of uglifying Big Business in which smoke-disgorging factories pollute the atmosphere, dull the mind and leaden the limbs, the town does nevertheless accommodate a number of pleasing light industries mindful of the long-term values of full employment and future prosperity in its structure of social security.
Relative newcomers are a fruit ripening and distribution centre housing over 70 million bananas alone each year, weighing 10,000 tons, complete with its own railway siding to off-load from specially insulated wagons travelling direct from the dockside; a large greetings card firm that plans designs three years in advance and sends its artistic wares all over the world: a plastic heel production unit that specialises in helping create the latest footwear fashions, including injection of nylon fabric into plastic heels for reinforcement: an egg-packing station and a chick hatchery (the latter holding several world records in laying trials); and a travel agency expertly run for holiday-makers at home or abroad, which proudly claims to “take the trouble out of travel.”
Continuing to give satisfaction to numerous clients are an ex- Service industry renowned for chair-making, turning out quality furniture fashioned by disabled veterans of H.M. Forces; an old-established agricultural engineering and machine repairing concern, swift approaching its centenary, founded by a local farmer’s son and manufactur ing ploughs, harrows, grain elevators, corn conveyors, windmills, digging plant, water supply equipment, etc.; bacon curing, milk and cheese production, gloving, a saw mill and timber supplier, an old-established paint manu facturing works, manufacture of electrical apparatus, nursery seedsmen, and a big barley research station and trial grounds complete with malt-house.
During recent years, with the establishment and con tinued growth in the town of the School of Infantry, Warminster has become of considerable importance to the military authorities. The School teaches officers infantry tactics, both at company and platoon commander levels. Infantry clerks are also trained there. It is a big training ground area for Salisbury Plain, Battlesbury (which dates from about 900 B.C.) still extensively in use as a military fortress in battle exercises.
Napoleon may have been contemptuous of the English as a nation of shopkeepers, but Warminster’s tradespeople have a wonderful reputation for unflagging courtesy, civility, help and willing service at all times. These qualities have been freely and favourably commented upon by visitors, who have been agreeably impressed. As B.B.C. interviewer Franklin Englemann was at pains to stress in a “Down Your Way” broadcast in May, 1963, Warminster is a town filled with “friendly people”.
The main street has an exceptionally wide and noble thoroughfare. It has many fine old buildings in stone along its length, notably the attractive inns, some of which date back to the 18th century. Two interesting old hotels in the Market Place are the Bath Arms and the Old Bell. The former, a grand old coaching house with a superb example of an archway leading into the inn-yard, adds a distinctive note with its display of the coat-of-arms of the Marquess of Bath, bearing the proud motto “J’ay Bonne Cause.” A graceful and notable feature of the Old Bell is the arcade extending across its front, a relic of the days when galleries ran all round the Corn Market for the temporary accom modation of innumerable sacks of wheat. The main street is distinguished by the tasteful and classical architecture of its chief buildings – which may be ascribed to the influence of many famous architects who came here to plan succes sive embellishments for the great mansion at Longleat.
One of these was the famous Sir Christopher Wren, him self a Wiltshire man, his birthplace of East Knoyle only eight miles south of Warminster. Examples of his unique handiwork are seen in the house known as “The Chantry” in High Street and “Wren House” in Vicarage Street.
Its porch shaded by an ancient and lordly yew some 15 feet in circumference, the Parish Church of St. Denys stands at the western end of the town. Familiarly known as The Minster Church, it is a cruciform edifice decorated in the style of the 14th century. Apart from the 15th century tower and lady chapel, much of it has been re-built, the nave in the Georgian style in 1722 and again in 1887 by Blomfield. Originally destined for Salisbury Cathedral the church organ commissioned by King George III in 1792 for that purpose instead made its way to Warminster, proving to be of insufficient power for the Cathedral City and bought for The Minster for 400 guineas raised by local subscription.
Close by is another building of considerable interest, the Latin or Grammar School erected in 1707 under the direction of Lord Weymouth. It is now known as the Lord Weymouth School. Dr. Thomas Arnold, famous master of Rugby School and educational pioneer, spent his early school life here. Dean Stanley reveals that Arnold long cherished a grateful recollection of the books in the School library.
Warminster’s name is “nobler sounding than any other in Wiltshire”, according to writer W. H. Hudson, and its history goes deep into the past. First known reference to the town is in a document among the Canterbury MSS dated about A.D. 900: “And Aethlem Higa went from that suit when the King was at Worgemynster, Ordlaf, and Osforth, and Odda, and Withbord, and Aefstan the Bald, and Aethelmoth, being witnesses.”
In the 18th century Warminster was a rich wool town. In his Tour Through Wiltshire in 1722, Daniel Defoe explains the practice of master clothiers in Warminster, Westbury, Trowbridge and Bradford-on-Avon in weekly sending out raw wool to surrounding villages, where cottagers spun it up and returned it to be made into cloth. Defoe also singles out Warminster as being “without exception the greatest market for wheat in England.” In the palmy days of the town’s history it was quite commonplace for 300 sacks of wheat to be sold in a morning on the ready-money market in the main street.
That shrewd observer, William Cobbett, remarks on the same thing a century later. He often expressed a poor opinion of the smaller English towns encountered in his “Rural Rides”, but of Warminster wrote: “I must observe that Warminster is a very nice town; everything belonging to it is solid and good. There are no villianous gingerbread houses running up, and no nasty shabby-genteel people; no women traipsing about with showy gowns and dirty necks; no Jew-looking fellows with dandy coats, dirty shirts, and half-heels of their shoes. A really nice and good town. It is a great corn market, one of the greatest in this part of England. Besides the market I was delighted and greatly surprised to see meat, not only the finest veal and lamb that I have ever seen in my life, but so exceedingly beautiful that I could hardly believe my eyes. I am a great connoisseur in joints of meat, a great judge, if five and thirty years can be sound judgement. I verily believe that I have bought and roasted more whole sirloins of beef than any man in England. I know all about the matter. A very great visitor to Newgate Market; in short, though a very little eater, I am a very great provider. It is a fancy; I like the subject, and, with all this knowledge of the matter, I never saw veal and beef half so fine as I saw in Warminster. The town is famous for fine meat, and I knew it, and therefore I went out in the morning to look at the meat.”
Efficient and frequent bus services run through to Salisbury and Trowbridge (enquire from the Western National Omnibus Co. Ltd., Market House, Trowbridge, or the Wilts and Dorset Motor Services Ltd., Endless St., Salisbury), to Bath. Frome and the School of Infantry (the Bath Tramway Motor Co. Ltd., Northgate St., Bath) and between Shaftesbury and Trowbridge (the Western National Co and A.P. and E.A. Cruse, Emwell St., Warminster). The railway station, just within the Southern Region, is on the branch line from Salisbury to Bristol, with through connections for Southampton, Brighton and the South Coast line, South Wales and Weston-super-Mare, etc., and, of course. London can be reached either via Salisbury or Westbury, an excellent service prevailing to bring the City inside three hours travel by rail.
Many tritely-worded guide books claim that certain resorts or towns are beneficial to the visitor or holiday-maker, without specifically stating the reasons beyond a bald recital of “invigorating properties” or “high rate of sunshine,” etc., which conveys little to the rational being in search of happiness and health. Our proud boast is that Warminster has EVERYTHING.
