Warminster
Warminster is a historic market town and civil parish in south-west Wiltshire, England, on the western edge of Salisbury Plain. The parish had a population of 18,173 in 2021.
The name Warminster occurs first in the early 10th century and the Minster Church of St Denys was begun in the 11th century. The High Street and Market Place have many fine buildings including the Athenaeum Centre, the Town Hall, St Lawrence Chapel, The Old Bell and a variety of independent shops. Several Army establishments, known collectively as the Warminster Garrison, are on the edges of the town.
Etymology
The origin of the root Wor is wara, the genitive plural of the Old English noun waru meaning "those that care for, watch, guard, protect, or defend." It was used as an endonym by both Goths and Jutes. Their specific ethnonym is unknown, though it likely was related to the native name of the oppidum at Battlesbury Camp during Sub-Roman times.The town's name has evolved over time; it was known as Worgemynstre in the early tenth century and was recorded as Guerminstre in the Domesday Book. The noun minster derives from Old English mynster meaning monastery, nunnery, mother church or cathedral, and was given to the town by Saxon settlers in the seventh century.
History
Early history
The main settlement at Warminster dates back to the Anglo-Saxon period, although there is evidence of pre-historic settlements in the area, especially at the nearby Iron Age hill forts: Battlesbury Camp, Scratchbury Camp and Cley Hill. Two Roman villas have been discovered in the area, as have caches of Roman coins.By the 10th century, Warminster included a royal manor and an Anglo-Saxon minster, with the residents largely associated with the estate. The royal manor was passed to new lords in the 12th century, during which time the township started to grow. In the 13th century a market was set up at Warminster, and by 1377 the town had 304 poll-tax payers, the tenth largest in Wiltshire.
Civil war
During the Civil War, between 1642 and 1645, the town was the site of a few incidents. A major for the "Roundheads", Henry Wansey, was besieged in Warminster, while a force under Edmund Ludlow entered a skirmish on Warminster Common when trying to relieve him. By 1646, the town had suffered £500 worth of damages by supporting the Roundheads.Post-medieval prosperity
The market at Warminster was the focus of the town's prosperity, with significant wool, clothing and malting trades established by the 16th century and continuing to be the economic backbone of the town until the 19th century. The market also included a significant corn trade throughout the period and was regarded as the second largest corn market in the west of England in 1830. Unlike many markets of the time where farmers would take only samples to market, Warminster's corn market required a sack from each load of corn to be available to customers; each purchase was to be agreed between 11am and 1pm and paid for by the end of the day.The town had a large amount of accommodation for visitors to the market, and in 1686 it was ranked fourth for number of places to stay in Wiltshire, with 116 beds. By 1710 there were approximately fifty inns and alehouses in the town. The town was an early adopter of the Turnpikes Act to improve the roads around the town. Unlike many roads improved at the time which would link to towns, Warminster chose to improve seven roads around the town, all under long.
By the late 18th century some 200 dwellings had been built under squatter's rights near Warminster Common, many of them substandard and overcrowded. William Daniell, a 19th-century Methodist minister, reported the reminiscences of a woman born there in the 1770s: unplastered hovels with earth floors, and piles of filth which poisoned the Cannimore Brook, bringing typhus and smallpox. The people were considered rude and drunk criminals. Daniell and members of the clergy were keen to help the residents, and by 1833 the area was considered clean and respectable.
19th and 20th centuries
The town centre was redesigned after 1807 when George Wansey, from a family of clothiers in Warminster, left £1,000 to improve the town, provided his money could be matched by local fundraising. The amount raised was spent on demolishing houses to widen roads. In 1851, a railway line from Westbury was opened, and then in 1856 the line was continued to Salisbury. The railway had a devastating effect on the town's market, which fell away almost to nothing; the shops and inns lost most of their business, and the local industries declined.In 1907, a committee was put together to advertise the town, creating a town guide and advertising in national publications. The committee could not come to an agreement with Lord Bath over the location of a new hotel.
The headquarters and factory of luxury glovemakers Dents moved to the town in 1937, where it has remained since.
Between 1937 and 1965, a significant military presence formed at Warminster, with the addition of camps, a permanent barracks at Battlesbury, married quarters, a School of Infantry, and workshops for vehicle repairs.
Religious sites
Church of England
is the town's oldest, and is claimed to have had minster status, as there was a church here in the 10th century. Rebuilding was carried out in the 14th century, and in 1889 the church was mostly rebuilt, with a longer nave.As the town's population grew in the 19th century, two more churches were built: Christ Church in 1831 to serve the south of the town, and St John's in 1865 in the southeast. All three churches are listed, St Denys' and St John's churches are Grade II* and Christ Church is Grade II.
Town chapel
The chapel of St Lawrence, on the High Street near the market place, has been a chapel-of-ease to St Denys since at least 1290. Its tower is from the late 13th or early 14th century, but the rest was rebuilt in 1855–7. The people of the town bought the chapel in 1574, giving it the status of a non-royal peculiar outside the jurisdiction of the Church of England. Since then has been administered by feoffees on behalf of the town, and they invite the vicar of St Denys' to hold services.Others
built a chapel on George Street, west of the town centre, in 1804; it was rebuilt in 1861. The congregation amalgamated with the United Reformed Church in 1983 to form the United Church. A predecessor of the URC opened a chapel at Common Close in 1720, which by 1829 had a congregation of 900, leading to the chapel being rebuilt for a second time in 1839; notable ministers included Daniel Fisher and Geoffrey Nuttall. Numbers fell in the 20th century, and after the 1983 amalgamation the chapel was demolished in 1987.The Baptist chapel in North Row, off the High Street, was built in 1810 using red brick with stone dressings; by 1829 there were 250 in the congregation. Its interior was remodelled c.1850.
St Giles' Garrison Church, Imber Road, was built in 1968.
St George's Roman Catholic Church, Boreham Road, in the Diocese of Clifton, was built in 1922 to designs of Bristol architect Sir Frank William Wills.
College and convent
James Erasmus Philipps, vicar of St Denys from 1859 to 1897, raised funds in 1860 to found a college for young men in a house on Church Street. It evolved into a missionary college called St Boniface Missionary College, and its building was greatly enlarged in 1901 and 1927. From 1948 until closure in 1969, as Warminster Theological College, it was a post-graduate facility of King's College London. Today its buildings are part of Warminster School.Philipps also led the foundation of an order of nuns, the Community of St Denys, in 1879. The nuns ran St Monica's School for Girls, which merged with Lord Weymouth's Grammar School in 1973 to form Warminster School. Since the retirement of the last nun in the early 21st century, the order operates as a grant-making charity.
Notable buildings and structures
Warminster has one Grade I listed building: Portway House, to the north of the town centre, built for a wealthy clothier in 1722. The Bath stone house has a seven-bay front flanked by later extensions, and is set back from the road behind ornamental ironwork dated 1760.Other Bath stone houses include 38–40 Market Place, late 18th century or early 19th, now shops at street level; and The Chantry, 34 High Street. Both are Grade II* listed.
Further Grade II* listed buildings include the churches of St Denys and St John; Byne House, Church Street, 1755; and Warminster School, 1708, endowed by Lord Weymouth, two storeys with attic, seven-bay front. Wren House, Vicarage Street, of 1720 or 1730, is described by Historic England as "a fine example of an early Georgian 5-bay house". The Pound Street maltings, at what was the western edge of the town, are a rebuilding of 1879 in rubble stone with some ashlar. The Athenaeum Centre, designed by William Jervis Stent and built in 1857, is Wiltshire's oldest working theatre and has been showing films since 1897.
At the triangular junction of Vicarage Street and Silver Street stands a tall stone obelisk, crowned with a reeded urn and pineapple, which was erected in 1873 on the site of an earlier high cross to commemorate the inclosure of the parish.
Warminster Town Hall, at the junction of the High Street and Weymouth Street, was designed c. 1837 by Edward Blore at the expense of the 5th Marquess of Bath; the two-storey front elevation is a replica of Longleat, with the addition of a central bellcote, clock and coat of arms. The building was sold by the district council in 1979.
Governance
Warminster falls within the parliamentary constituency of South West Wiltshire, which has been represented since 2001 by Andrew Murrison for the Conservatives.There are two levels of local government: Wiltshire Council – the unitary authority for the county – and Warminster Town Council, which has 13 elected councillors.
Until 2009, when it was abolished, West Wiltshire District Council acted as the second tier of local government.