A Guide to the 5 Biggest Towns in Wiltshire - History

view of Salisbury, United Kingdom (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The second part of this series of articles profiling the five biggest towns in Wiltshire, looks at the potted history of each and how they came to be the places that we know them as today.

Swindon
The old town of Swindon, most likely named after the swine (pig) dun (hill), was originally founded as a Saxon settlement and remained a relatively small rural market town on its hill top until the advent of the industrial revolution. Its transport links have been key to its growth, first with the building of the Wilts and Berks & North Wilts Canals in the early 18th century, shortly followed by Brunel’s Great Western Railway and latterly the M4 from London to Bristol and South Wales.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Western Railway has perhaps been the most important factor in Swindon’s development as he chose a site just outside of the old town for his primary railway works on the key line between London, the country’s second port of Bristol and the key industrial towns of South Wales. The works spawned a surrounding village (or new town), to house and service the workers, and this settlement grew and eventually merged with the old town on the hill at the beginning of the 20th century to form the modern Swindon. The railway works remained the largest employer in the town, with upwards of 10,000 workers, until the middle of the 20th century and this manufacturing tradition lives on today albeit with its focus shifted from rail to road.

Salisbury
The city of Salisbury began life as the Iron Age hill-fort settlement of what is now known as Old Sarum (previously known by the Saxons, Romans & Normans as Searesbyrig, Sorviodunum and Seresberi/Salesberie) which sits about two miles from the modern town centre. The fortunes of the settlement fluctuated through the ages from an important pre-Roman regional centre, to a key Roman garrison and transport hub en route from London and Silchester to Dorchester and Exeter, to a Royal Norman base and religious center. Indeed, under the Normans, the small walled town prospered with Royal patronage and took on the Bishopric from nearby Sherborne leading to the building of the city’s first Cathedral on the hill top.

The pressures of growth within such a confined setting, however, and the inevitable conflict between its religious and military powers, led Bishop Poore to seek a new location for his Cathedral in the early 13th century. Work therefore began on building a new medieval town, complete with Cathedral, Cathedral Close and grid-planned street system in the valley below Old Sarum, in the more fertile meadows on the banks of the River Avon. According to legend the site for the new Cathedral was chosen after an arrow was fired from the ramparts of Old Sarum into the valley.

For many centuries after its rebirth, Salisbury or New Sarum was one of the ten biggest and most important cities in England and a center for market trade, culture and education (particularly religious education). However, it failed to ride the wave of industrialisation that spread through much of the country in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and was left behind by the development of prosperous new towns such as Swindon.

Trowbridge
The exact beginnings of Trowbridge are unclear but the settlement was founded on the River Biss on the site of a bronze age settlement sometime before the 10th century AD, most likely named after the site of a bridge either near a tree or near the settlement of Trowle. In the 12 century its importance warranted a Norman motte-and-bailey castle. With its rural location en route to the major port of Bristol, the town became a center for the wool industry from the 13th century onwards and in the 17th century industrialised its textile production to become one of the biggest textile centres in the country for the next two hundred years with over 2,000 factories at its height. However, the 19th century saw a decline in its prowess with the last remnants of the industry eventually transforming into the the manufacturing of bedding.

Trowbridge today is perhaps best known as the county town of Wiltshire. It took on the mantle as the administrative center of the county in 1889 due to the practicalities of its central location between the two largest settlements of Swindon in the north of the county and Salisbury in the south.

Chippenham
The settlement that we now know as Chippenham, dates from, at least, the Roman period and sat on a crossing of the River Avon (Bristol Avon). In the Saxon era the settlement grew in status (if not size) and became particularly important to King Alfred of Wessex as a royal hunting lodge. It was at Chippenham that both his sister, to the King of neighbouring Mercia, and his daughter married, whilst it also bore witness to the surrender of the Danes after Alfred halted their progress into Wessex.

During the medieval period Chippenham first became an important market town due to its location in a predominantly rural area with good transport links, and later another center for wool production. The towns progress into the industrial and modern eras was boosted by the arrival of the Wilts & Berks canal at the turn of the 19th century and then the Great Western Railway fifty years later, providing it with a location on the main London to Bristol arteries.

Melksham
The town of Melksham began life as a Saxon and Norman royal estate. Throughout the the medieval period the estate changed hands from the control of the Abbey at Amesbury, to the king and then various members of the nobility, including the Seymour, Brouncker and Long families, concluding with Viscount Long at the start of the 20th century. In the early 19th century coal prospectors stumbled across two springs in the town and Melksham’s first spa was opened as a result. However, due to its proximity to the far more established spas at nearby Bath the town never quite prospered as a spa resort.

For one of the country’s most sparsely populated counties, Wiltshire can still boast as very rich history that takes in a wealth prehistory, medieval prosperity and industrialisation. The final part of this series of articles will mention some of the lesser known facts about each town and some of the attractions that this rich history has left them with.

© Stuart Mitchell 2012
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