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ON-LINE GUIDE TO WILTSHIRE
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This brief guide provides
summary information on towns, villages and places to visit
in Wiltshire as well as some interesting facts and
anecdotes on the local area. To find a specific place either
scroll down the page or use the find facility on your
browser. Much more information can be found in our
TRAVEL GUIDES -
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A county rich in prehistoric remains, Wiltshire also has one of the highest concentrations
of historic houses and gardens in the country as well as some fine downland and woodland
that provide excellent walking or cycling. The industrial heritage of the county takes
many forms - Brunel's Great Western Railway
centred on Swindon, brewing at Devizes, carpet
making at Wilton and the Kennet and Avon Canal.
The jewel in Wiltshire's crown is the fine city of Salisbury with its magnificent cathedral. But it
is for its ancient monuments, white horses and the intriguing crop circles that the county is
best known. Along with the Stone Circles at Avebury, Silbury Hill, West Kennet Long
Barrow and the White Horse at Westbury, Wiltshire is,
of course, home to Stonehenge. A World Heritage Site, these massive stone blocks are one of
the greatest mysteries of the prehistoric world.
Close by is an even more ancient monument that is often overlooked - Woodhenge.
Swindon
The largest town in Wiltshire, lying in the northeast corner between
the Cotswolds and the Marlborough Downs, Swindon was
an insignificant agricultural community before the railway line
between London and Bristol was completed in 1835. In 1843,
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Great Western Railway's
principal engineer, decided that Swindon was the place to build his
locomotive works.
Within a few years it had grown to be one of the largest
in the world, with as many as 12,000 workers on a 320-acre site
that incorporated the Railway Village: this was a model development
of 300 workmen's houses built of limestone extracted from
the construction of Box Tunnel. This unique example of early
Victorian town planning is open to the public at the
Railway Village Museum. The Great Western Railway Museum, now
called Steam, houses a collection of locomotives, nameplates
and signalling equipment along with exhibitions on the life of
Brunel and of the men and women who built and repaired the rolling
stock for God's Wonderful Railway. The site also contains the
National Monuments Record Centre - the public archive of the
Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, with
7 million photographs, documents and texts.
On the western outskirts of Swindon is Lydiard
Park, one of Wiltshire's smaller stately
homes, which is the ancestral home of the Viscounts Bolingbroke.
Just south of the town lies Wroughton
Airfield, a historic World War II airbase which is
home to the National Museum of Science and Industry's collection of
large aircraft.
Around Swindon
Marlborough
10 miles S of Swindon on the A346
Marlborough College was founded in 1843 primarily for sons of
the clergy. Built on the site of a Norman castle, the first
mansion here was replaced in the early 18th century by a building that
became the Castle Inn and is now C House, the oldest part of the
college.
To the southeast of the town lies the ancient woodland
of Savernake Forest where Henry VIII hunted wild deer.
Situated in a beautiful valley that bears its name,
Pewsey is a charming village that was once
the property of Alfred the Great. The Heritage Centre, housed in an
1870 foundry building, is well worth a visit, but the most
interesting feature here lies just south of the village on Pewsey Down.
The original Pewsey White Horse was cut in 1785 and apparently
included a rider, but it was redesigned by George Marples and cut by
the local fire brigade to celebrate the coronation of George VI.
Avebury
10 miles SW of Swindon on the A4361
This village is home to the Avebury Stone
Circles, the most remarkable ritual megalithic monuments in Europe and now
a World Heritage Site. Many of the archaeological finds from the
site are displayed in the Alexander Keiller
Museum, which also describes the reconstruction of
the site by Keiller in the 1930s.
Avebury also has a gem from more recent times:
Avebury Manor dates from the Elizabethan era and is surrounded by a
walled garden that features a wishing well, topiary and an Italian walk.
This area abounds with ancient monuments. To the south lies
West Kennet Long Barrow, one of the country's largest Neolithic
burial tombs; on nearby Overton Hill is The Sanctuary, an early Bronze
Age monument of giant standing stones. To the west of West Kennet
lies the largest man-made prehistoric mound in Europe,
Silbury Hill, which dates from around 2800
BC
and rises some 300 feet.
Cricklade
6½ miles NW of Swindon on the B4040
The only Wiltshire town on the River Thames, Cricklade was
an important post on the Roman Ermin Street and, in Saxon
times, had its own mint. There are many buildings of interest here,
including the famous school founded by the London goldsmith Robert Jenner
in 1651, and the elaborate Victorian clock tower. Nearby,
North Meadow is a National Nature Reserve where the rare
snakeshead fritillary grows.
Chippenham
An important administrative centre in King Alfred's time,
Chippenham later gained prominence from the wool trade and was a major stop
on the London to Bristol coaching route. In the flood plain to the
east of Chippenham lies the footpath known as Maud
Heath's Causeway, a remarkable and ingenious walkway consisting of
64 brick and stone arches that was built in the 15th century at
the bequest of Maud Heath. She had spent most of her life as a
poor pedlar trudging her way between the village of Bremhill
and Chippenham but she died a relatively wealthy woman and
her will provided sufficient funds for the construction and upkeep of
the causeway.
To the south lies Lacock Abbey, which was founded in
1232
by Ela, Countess of Salisbury in memory of her husband
William Longsword, stepbrother to Richard the Lionheart. The estate
later passed into the hands of the Talbot family, whose most
distinguished member was the pioneering photographer, William Henry
Fox Talbot, who carried out his experiments here in the
1830s. Today, the National Trust's estate village of
Lacock is one of the county's real treasures, with
its delightful assortment of mellow stone buildings seemingly
remaining unaltered over the centuries. The Fox Talbot
Museum commemorates the life and achievements of a man who
was not just a photographer but a mathematician, physicist,
classicist and transcriber of Syrian and Chaldean cuneiform.
Around Chippenham
Malmesbury
9 miles N of Chippenham on the B4040
England's oldest borough is dominated by the
impressive remains of the Benedictine Malmesbury
Abbey, founded in the 7th century by St Aldhelm.
In the 10th century, King Athelstan, Alfred's grandson and the
first Saxon king to unite England, granted 500 acres of land to
the townsfolk in gratitude for their help in resisting a Norse invasion.
This land is still known as King's Heath and is now owned by
200 residents who are descended from
those far-off heroes.
In the Athelstan Museum are numerous displays, including
one of lace making and another of early bicycles, while a more recent
piece of local history concerns the Tamworth Two - the pigs
who made the headlines with their dash for freedom.
To the east lies Easton Grey, whose elegant 18th century
manor house was used as a summer retreat by Herbert Asquith, Prime
Minister between 1908 and 1916.
Calne
5 miles E of Chippenham on the A4
Calne is a former weaving centre in the valley of the River Marden
and the prominent Wool Church reflects the town's early
prosperity; inside, is a memorial to Dr Ingenhousz, who is widely
credited with creating a smallpox vaccination before Edward Jenner.
A short distance from Calne, to the west, stands
Bowood House, which was built in 1625 and is
now a treasury of Shelborne family heirlooms, paintings, books
and furniture. It was in the Bowood Laboratory that Dr Joseph
Priestley, tutor to the 1st Marquis of Lansdowne's son,
conducted experiments that resulted in the identification of oxygen.
The Atwell Motor Museum, to the east of Calne, has
a collection of over 70 vintage and classic cars and motorcycles
from the years 1924 to 1983.
Devizes
9 miles SE of Chippenham on the A342
Devizes was founded in 1080 by Bishop Osmund, nephew
of William the Conqueror, who built a timber castle here between
the lands of two powerful manors; this act brought about the town's
name, which is derived from the Latin ad divisas, or `at the boundaries'.
After the wooden structure burnt down, the Bishop of Sarum built
a stone castle in 1138 that survived until the end of the Civil
War, when it was demolished.
Devizes Visitor Centre is based on a 12th century castle
and takes visitors back to medieval times, when Devizes was home
not just to its fine castle but also to anarchy and unrest during
the struggle between Empress Matilda and King Stephen.
Many of the town's finest buildings are situated in and
around the old market place, including the Town Hall and the
Corn Exchange. Devizes stands at a key point on the Kennet and
Avon Canal and the Kennet and Avon Canal
Museum tells the complete story of the waterway
in fascinating detail. Many visitors combine a trip to the
museum with a walk along the towpath; the town really buzzes in July
when the Canalfest is held at the Wharf.
Trowbridge
11 miles S of Chippenham on the A361
The county town of Wiltshire and another major weaving centre
in its day, Trowbridge still has a number of old
industrial buildings, and an interesting waymarked walk takes in many
of
them. The parish Church of St James contains the tomb of
the poet and former rector George Crabbe, who wrote the work
on which Benjamin Britten based his opera Peter
Grimes. Trowbridge's most famous son was Isaac
Pitman, the shorthand man, who was born in Nash Yard in 1813.
Bradford-on-Avon
10 miles SW of Chippenham on the A363
A historic market town at a bridging point on the River
Avon, which is spanned by a superb nine-arched bridge with a lock-up at
one end. The town's oldest building is the Church of St
Lawrence that is believed to have been founded
by St Aldhelm in around AD 700. It `disappeared' for over 1,000
years, during which time it was used variously as a school, a
charnel
house for storing the bones of the dead and a residential dwelling;
it was re-discovered by a keen-eyed clergyman who looked down
from a hill and noticed its cruciform shape.
Another of the town's outstanding buildings is the
mighty Tithe Barn, which was once used to store the grain from local
farms for Shaftesbury Abbey.
On the edge of the town, Barton Farm Country
Park offers delightful walks in lovely countryside beside the River
Avon and the Kennet and Avon Canal. Barton Bridge is the
original packhorse bridge that was built to assist the transportation of
grain from the farm to the tithe barn.
Half a mile south of the town, by the River Frome, is the
Italian-style Peto Garden laid out between 1899 and 1933 by the architect
and landscape gardener Harold Ainsworth Peto.
To the west, in the middle of the village of
Holt, stands The Courts, an English country
garden of mystery with unusual topiary, water gardens and an arboretum.
Castle Combe
5½ miles NW of Chippenham on the B4039
The loveliest village in the region, and for some the loveliest in
the country, Castle Combe was once a centre of the prosperous
wool trade, famed for its red and white cloth. Many of the
present buildings date from the 15th and 16th centuries, including
the covered Market Cross and the Manor House, which was built
with
stones from the Norman castle that gave the village its name.
Salisbury
The glorious medieval city of Salisbury stands at the
confluence of four rivers, the Avon, the Wylye, the Bourne and the
Nadder. Originally called New Sarum, it grew around the present
Cathedral, which was built between 1220 and 1258 in a sheltered position
two miles south of the site of its windswept Norman
predecessor, Old Sarum.
Surely one of the most beautiful buildings in the
world, Salisbury Cathedral is the only medieval cathedral in England to
be built all in the same Early English style - apart from its spire,
the tallest in England, which was added some years later and rises to
an awesome 404 feet. The Chapter House opens out of the
cloisters and contains, among other treasures, one of the four
surviving originals of the Magna Carta. The oldest working clock in Britain,
and possibly in the world, is situated in the fan-vaulted north transept;
it was built in 1386 to strike the hour and has no clock face.
The Close, the precinct of the
ecclesiastical community serving the Cathedral, is the largest in England and
contains a number of museums and houses open to the public, including, in
the 17th century King's House, Salisbury
Museum, home of the Stonehenge Gallery and The
Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire
Museum, housed in a
13th century building called the Wardrobe, which was
originally used to store the bishop's clothes and documents.
Mompesson House is a perfect example of Queen Anne architecture that
is noted for its plasterwork, an elegant carved oak staircase, fine
period furniture and the important Turnbull collection of 18th
century drinking glasses.
There are many other areas of Salisbury to explore, and on a
huge mound to the north are the ruins of Old
Sarum, abandoned when the bishopric moved into the
city. Old Sarum became the most notorious of the `rotten
boroughs', returning two Members of Parliament, despite having
no voters, until the 1832 Reform Act stopped the cheating. A plaque
on the site commemorates Old Sarum's most illustrious Member
of Parliament, William Pitt the Elder.
Around Salisbury
Amesbury
7 miles N of Salisbury on the A345
It was here that Queen Elfrida founded an abbey in AD 979,
in atonement for her part in the murder of her son-in-law,
Edward the Martyr, at Corfe Castle. Henry II rebuilt the
abbey's great Church of St Mary and St
Melor, whose tall central tower is the only structure to survive from the
pre-Norman monastery.
A mile to the north of the town lies
Woodhenge, a ceremonial monument that is
even older than its more famous
neighbour, Stonehenge, and was the first major prehistoric site to
be discovered by aerial photography.
Two miles west of Amesbury stands
Stonehenge, perhaps the greatest mystery of the
prehistoric world, one of the wonders of the world and a monument of
unique importance. Stonehenge's orientation on the rising and
setting sun has always been one of its most remarkable features, leading
to theories that the builders were from a sun-worshipping culture or
that the whole structure is part of a huge astronomical calendar.
Wilton
3 miles W of Salisbury on the A30
The third oldest borough in England, and once the capital
of Saxon Wessex, Wilton is best known for its carpets and
the Wilton Carpet Factory, on the River Wylye, continues to
produce top-quality Wilton and Axminster carpets.
To the south of the town stands Wilton
House, the home of the Earls of Pembroke that
was designed by Inigo Jones in the 17th century after the original house
had been destroyed by fire in 1647. Later remodelled by James
Wyatt, Wilton House features the amazing Double Cube Room and a fine
art collection.
To the west lies Dinton, a lovely hillside village that is
home to Little Clarendon House, a near perfect Tudor manor house,
and Philipps House, a handsome early 19th century mansion that stands
in the beautiful grounds of Dinton
Park. Further west again are the ruins of Old Wardour
Castle, a unique six-sided castle that dates from the 14th century.
Stourton
23 miles W of Salisbury off the B3092
The main attraction of this beautiful village is
Stourhead, one of the most famous examples of
an early 18th century English landscape garden, and a
place renowned for its striking vistas and woodland walks. Stourton House
is a classical masterpiece dating from the 1720s and on the edge of
the estate is the imposing King Alfred's
Tower, a redbrick folly erected in 1772 that
commemorates the king who reputedly raised his standard here against the Danes
in AD 878.
Warminster
19 miles NW of Salisbury off the A36
This historic town on the western edge of Salisbury Plain has
a number of distinguished old buildings and some
interesting monuments of varying age. The
Obelisk, with its feeding troughs and pineapple top, was erected
in 1783 to mark the enclosure of the parish; the
Morgan Memorial Fountain stands in the Lake Pleasure Grounds; and
Beyond Harvest is a statue in bronze by Colin Lambert of a girl sitting
on sacks of corn.
To the west of town, Cley Hill is an Iron Age hill fort with
two Bronze Age barrows; it is renowned as a place for
sighting
UFOs. The region is also noted for the appearance of crop circles,
and some have linked the two phenomena.
Just to the west of Warminster is Longleat
House, the magnificent home of the Marquis of Bath that dates from the
1570s and is filled with a superb collection of old masters,
beautiful furniture, rare books and murals by Lord Bath. The glorious
grounds, landscaped by Capability Brown, are famous as the home of
the Safari Park established in the 1960s.
North of Warminster is Westbury, a major centre of
the wool and cloth trades in the Middle Ages and with many fine
buildings still standing as a legacy of those prosperous days.
To the east of Westbury is the town's best known feature,
the famous Westbury White Horse that dates from 1778 and
replaces an earlier horse carved to celebrate King Alfred's victory over
the Danes in AD 878. Above the horse's head are the ruins
of Bratton Castle, an Iron Age hill fort covering 25 acres.
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