Trowbridge


Trowbridge is the county town of Wiltshire, England, situated on the River Biss in the west of the county, close to the border with Somerset. The town lies south-east of Bath, south-west of Swindon and south-east of Bristol. The parish had a population of 37,169 in 2021.
Long a market town, the Kennet and Avon canal to the north of Trowbridge played an instrumental part in the town's development, as it allowed coal to be transported from the Somerset Coalfield; this marked the advent of steam-powered manufacturing in woollen cloth mills. The town was the foremost centre of woollen cloth production in south-west England in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, by which time it held the nickname "The Manchester of the West".
The parish encompasses the settlements of Longfield, Lower Studley, Upper Studley, Studley Green and Trowle Common.

History

Toponymy

The origin of the name Trowbridge is uncertain; one source claims derivation from treow-brycg, meaning "Tree Bridge," referring to the first bridge over the Biss, while another states the true meaning is the bridge by Trowle, the name of a hamlet and a common to the west of the town. On John Speed's map of Wiltshire, the name is spelt Trubridge.

Early history

Written records and architectural ruins began marking Trowbridge's existence as a village in the 10th century. In the 1086 Domesday Book, the village of Straburg, as Trowbridge was then known, was recorded as having 24 households, well-endowed with land, particularly arable ploughlands, and rendering 8 pounds sterling to its feudal lord a year. Its feudal lord was an Anglo-Saxon named Brictric, the largest landowner in Wiltshire.

Castle

The first mention of Trowbridge Castle was in 1139, when it was besieged. By the 14th century, it was no longer in military use, and by the 16th century, only ruins remained.
The castle is thought to have been a motte-and-bailey castle, and its influence can still be seen in the town today. Fore Street follows the path of the castle ditch, and the town has Castle Street and the Castle Place Shopping Centre.
The Castle was likely built by Humphrey I de Bohun, whose family dominated the town for over a hundred years.
The most notable member of the family was Henry de Bohun, born around 1176, who became lord of the manor when he was about 15 years of age. It was he who began to shape the medieval town. In 1200, he obtained a market charter, arguably the earliest for a town in Wiltshire, and one of the earliest in England. His officials were to lay out burgage plots for traders, artisans, and shopkeepers. The outline of these plots can still be seen today in the footprints of some of the present shops in Fore Street.
Within Trowbridge Castle was a 10th-century Anglo-Saxon church. Henry de Bohun converted it to secular use and built a new church outside the Castle, the first St James's Church. The Romanesque architecture of the period can be seen in the base of the tower of the present-day church, below the subsequently added spire.
In 1200, Henry de Bohun was created Earl of Hereford by King John. Like other barons, Henry was later threatened by King John and his caput of Trowbridge was taken from him. Henry then joined with the other barons to oppose John's arbitrary rule and forced him to seal Magna Carta at Runnymede. He was elected as one of the 25 enforcers of the charter. Some years after Runnymede, Henry regained control of Trowbridge.

Woollen cloth industry

Trowbridge developed as a centre for woollen cloth production from the 14th century. Thus, before the start of the Tudor period, the towns of south-west Wiltshire stood out from the rest of the county with all the signs of increasing wealth and prosperity during the period of trade recovery led by exports begun under Yorkist Edward IV and, still more, during expansion under Henry VII, when England's annual woollen exports increased from some 60,000 to some 80,000 cloths of assize.
During the 17th century, the production of woollen cloth became increasingly industrialised. However, workers resisted mechanisation in traditional trades; there were riots in 1785 and 1792, and again in the era of Luddism owing to the introduction of the flying shuttle. Thomas Helliker, a shearman's apprentice, became one of the martyrs of the Industrial Revolution in 1803 when he was hanged at Fisherton Jail, Salisbury. Nevertheless, at one point in 1820, Trowbridge's production was on such a scale that it was described as the "Manchester of the West." It had over 20 woollen cloth producing factories, making it comparable to northern industrial towns such as Rochdale.
The woollen cloth industry declined in the late 19th century with the advent of ring-spinning, and this decline continued throughout the 20th century, although Trowbridge's West of England cloth maintained a reputation for excellent quality until the end. The last mill, Salter's Home Mill, closed in 1982 and is now the home of Boswell's Café and Trowbridge Museum and Art Gallery, integrated into the Shires Shopping Centre. There are also working looms on display. Clark's Mill is now home to offices; straddling the nearby River Biss is the "Handle House," formerly used for drying and storage of teazles used to raise the nap of cloth. This is one of the few such buildings still known to exist in the United Kingdom.

1800s to present

In its place, a bedding industry developed, initially using wool cast off from the mills; the company now known as Airsprung Furniture Group was started in the town in the 1870s. Food production also developed in the town when Abraham Bowyer started his business in 1805. Eventually, as Pork Farms Bowyers, it became one of the largest employers in the town until its closure in April 2008, when production moved to the Shaftesbury and Nottingham factories.
The town became the county town of Wiltshire in 1889 when Wiltshire County Council was formed and sought a place which representatives from Swindon and Salisbury, among others, could reach and return home from in one day. Trowbridge fulfilled this criterion by its railway connections and thus was chosen as the county town, further reinforced by the construction of County Hall in 1939.
The brewing company Ushers of Trowbridge opened in 1824 and had a brewery in a central part of the town. This was shut in 2000 following several changes of ownership, and its equipment was sold to North Korea, where it forms the core of the Taedonggang brewery, just outside Pyongyang.

21st-century redevelopment

Since 2002, plans have been in place to redevelop significant town centre sites. Trowbridge Community Area Future produced a Community Area Plan in 2004 to guide future development.
In the early 1990s, the supermarket chain Tesco moved from St Stephen's Place to a site adjoining the A361 on County Way, and their former site remained dormant for a decade. The building was demolished, but a pile of rubble, nicknamed 'Mount Crushmore' by local media, remained. Legal & General acquired the land, and construction of St Stephen's Place Leisure Park began in 2012. A seven-screen Odeon cinema and Nando's restaurant opened in October 2013. A Premier Inn and food outlets, including Frankie and Benny's and Prezzo, followed in 2014.
The former Usher's brewery site has also undergone redevelopment over several years, with Newland Homes building town centre flats incorporating the frontage of the Usher's building.
In April 2009, building work started on one of the town's biggest brownfield sites, the former Usher's bottling plant. This was developed into a Sainsbury's supermarket, a public square and housing.

Architecture

Trowbridge has much architectural interest, including many old buildings associated with the textile industry, and the Newtown conservation area, a protected zone of mostly Victorian houses. The town has six Grade I listed buildings: St James's Church, Lovemead House on Roundstone Street, and numbers 46, 64, 68 and 70 Fore Street. The latter is referred to more commonly as Parade House.
Trowbridge Town Hall is in Market Street, opposite the entrance to the now-pedestrianised Fore Street. This three-storey building with an Italianate clock-tower was presented to the town's residents by a local mill-owner, Sir William Roger Brown, in 1889 to celebrate Queen Victoria's golden jubilee. The building was the seat of local government until 1974 and subsequently accommodated the magistrates' courts until 2003. More recently, it has been used for exhibitions and community events.

Governance

The Town Council is the first tier of local government and comprises 21 councillors.
County Hall in Bythesea Road, Trowbridge, is the administrative centre for Wiltshire Council, a unitary authority created in April 2009 which replaced West Wiltshire District Council and the former Wiltshire County Council, which had been headquartered at County Hall since 1940. Trowbridge civil parish is divided into seven electoral divisions, each electing one member of Wiltshire Council.
Trowbridge is within the South West Wiltshire parliamentary constituency, which has been represented by Andrew Murrison since its formation in 2010.

Geography

The River Biss enters Trowbridge from the southeast, flowing through Biss Meadows, managed as a country park. In the north of the town, the Lambrok Stream joins it, then continues north to join the River Avon near Staverton.
Northwest of the town, part of the Avon Green Belt prevents expansion towards Bradford-on-Avon. To the north and northwest, housing areas in Staverton and Hilperton parishes are contiguous with Trowbridge's urban area; however, to the south and southeast, the villages of Southwick, North Bradley, Yarnbrook and West Ashton maintain their separate identities.

Demography

The first official census of 1801 showed Trowbridge having 5,799 inhabitants, which rose sharply to 9,545 in 1821. The population rose by less than 50% in the 130 years to 1951, compared to a considerably larger increase in the country's population. From 1951 to 2011, the population increased by 133%. Coinciding with this increase, a considerable conversion of arable fields and some riverside meadows to residential estates occurred.
Year18011811182118311841185118811891-
Population5,7996,0759,54510,86311,05011,14811,04011,717-
Year190119111921193119511961200120112021
Population11,52611,81512,13012,01113,85915,84428,16332,30437,169

According to the census in 2011, the ethnic breakdown of the population of Trowbridge parish was: White 94.8%, Mixed/multiple ethnic groups 1.9%, Asian/Asian British 1.5%, Black/African/Caribbean/Black British 1.1%, Other ethnic group 0.8%. The built-up area's population, including Staverton and Hilperton parishes, was 39,409 in 2011 and was estimated to have grown to 43,719 by mid-2020.
In 2018, the Office for National Statistics estimated the larger "community area" population to be 45,822, making Trowbridge the most populous area in Wiltshire, with Chippenham close behind in second place and Salisbury third. At the 2021 Census, the "built-up area" population – consisting of Trowbridge, Staverton and Hilperton parishes – was 43,744.