Wiltshire Buildings Record is lucky enough to see all sorts of interesting buildings, not just houses but industrial buildings, chapels, and farm buildings to name a selection. We have also seen a few mills. The following snippets of history were part of the research for Great Cheverell Mill. This is a former water mill dating…
At the end of 2022 Wiltshire Buildings Record was asked to prepare a talk on Melksham Spa for the reopening of Melksham Library. Having a good deal of information on the individual buildings, we thought this was a matter of collating what we already had and doing a bit more research before presenting our talk.…
How many people living in Warminster now are aware that certain streets on the south side of Warminster were once part of a completely separate squatter community? We recently completed a historic building study on the south edge of Warminster Common, and were utterly fascinated to discover its unique identity. This area is now rather…
Looking through correspondence of the Local Authority files the other day I came across some interesting letters. Wiltshire Buildings Record had been investigating a failing, ancient WC attached to a medieval house in Fisherton Street, Salisbury (we get to see allsorts!), which naturally led me on to looking at when the sewers had been constructed.…
Hi, my name is Maddie and I have just completed year 10 at Abbeyfield School in Chippenham. I was very lucky due to family connections in July, to find a work experience placement with the Wiltshire Buildings Record (WBR) based at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre in Chippenham. I started off my work experience…
On a summer evening last year I led a free walk around Lacock for the Festival of Archaeology. It was a showery day and I had my fingers crossed for a dry walk, which unfortunately didn’t work! We had to shelter at least once while the heavens emptied a torrent on us. The village is…
When is a stone not just a stone? – when it is a guard stone, also sometimes known as a glance stone. None the wiser? Don’t worry – I’m not about to try and convince you of these stones’ magical or archaeological properties, etc., but to make you see what is so easily missed in…
About two miles north of Dilton Marsh is the ancient manor house of Bremeridge, which we were fortunate to be able to visit a month or so ago. It was once one of the smaller manors that made up the parish of Westbury. Its settlement dates from at least the late 12th century, and a…
Stratford Tony is a small village 4 ½ miles from Salisbury. The river Ebble flows through it, and the line of the ancient Roman road known as ‘Icknield Street’ passes close on the west side of the village. The most notable occupant of Stratford Tony was the impressionist painter Wilfrid de Glehn, who lived at…
Warminster is a market town lying in close proximity to Salisbury Plain. Its history starts with the discovery of two Roman villas at Pit Mead, Bishopstrow. In Anglo-Saxon times it was a royal estate and residence, but it was not until the 13th century that it began to develop into the town we know now.…