Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for WARMINSTER

WARMINSTER, a town, a parish, a sub-district, a district, and a hundred, in Wilts. The town stands on the Bath and Salisbury railway, at the head of a valley, under escarpments of the downs, on the E border of Salisbury plain, 20 miles NW by W of Salisbury; disputes with Heddington the claim of occupying the site of the Roman Verlucio; derives its name from an ancient nunnery on the banks of the Guere or Were; was known, at Domesday, as Guermestre; is now a seat of sessions and county courts, and a polling place; publishes a weekly newspaper; carries on malting; consists chiefly of one street, about a mile long, with many good houses; and has a head post-office,‡ a r. station with telegraph, three banking offices, two chief inns, a town hall of 1831 in the Tudor style, a market house, a parish church of 1724, two other churches of 1831 and 1865, a chapel of the time of Edward I., four dissenting chapels, an endowed grammar-school with £30 a year, national and British schools, a mission-house for training young men as missionaries, a literary institute, an athenæum, a house for preparing women for home and foreign work, a cottage hospital, a free orphanage, a workhouse, charities £161, a weekly market on Saturday, and three annual fairs. Pop. in 1861, 3,675. Houses, 808.—The parish comprises 6,370 acres. Real property, £23,031: of which £24 are in quarries, and £150 in gasworks. Pop. in 1851, 6,285; in 1861, 5,995. Houses, 1,308. The manor belonged anciently to the Crown; passed, through the Manduits, the Hungerfords, the Howards, and others, to the Thynnes; and belongs now to the Marquis of Bath. Roman antiquities have been found; and an ancient camp is at Southley-Wood. The head living or St. Denys is a vicarage, and that of Christchurch is a p. curacy, in the diocese of Salisbury. Value of St. D., £425;* of C., £300.* Patron of St. D., the Bishop of S.; of C., the Vicar of W. Bishop Squire was a native.—The sub-district contains three parishes and a part. Pop., 7,643. Houses, 1,703.—The district includes also Heytesbury and Longbridge-Deverill sub-districts, and comprises 56,356 acres. Poor rates in 1863, £11,151. Pop. in 1851, 17,067; in 1861, 15,942. Houses, 3,545. Marriages in 1863, 105; births, 482,- of which 21 were illegitimate; deaths, 298,-of which 107 were at ages under 5 years, and 7 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 1,131; births, 5,069; deaths, 3,334. The places of worship, in 1851, were 26 of the Church of England, with 7,315 sittings; 5 of Independents, with 2,101 s.; 6 of Baptists, with 1,304 s.; 1 of Unitarians, with 200 s.; 3 of Wesleyans, with 748 s.; 2 of Primitive Methodists, with 215 s.; and 3 of Independent Methodists, with 451 s. The schools were 21 public day-schools, with 1,699 scholars; 34 private day-schools, with 565 s.; 28 Sunday schools, with 2,063 s.; and 2 evening schools for adults, with 39 s.-The hundred contains 10 parishes. Acres, 25,640. Pop. in 1851, 10,807; in 1861, 10,098. Houses, 2,228.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a town, a parish, a sub-district, a district, and a hundred"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Warminster AP/CP       Warminster Hundred       Warminster SubD       Warminster RegD/PLU       Wiltshire AncC
Place names: GUERMESTRE     |     WARMINSTER
Place: Warminster

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