Westbury is a town and
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...
in the west of the English county of
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
, below the northwestern edge of
Salisbury Plain
Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in the south western part of central southern England covering . It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies wi ...
, about south of
Trowbridge
Trowbridge ( ) is the county town of Wiltshire, England, on the River Biss in the west of the county. It is near the border with Somerset and lies southeast of Bath, 31 miles (49 km) southwest of Swindon and 20 miles (32 km) southe ...
and a similar distance north of
Warminster
Warminster () is an ancient market town with a nearby garrison, and civil parish in south west Wiltshire, England, on the western edge of Salisbury Plain. The parish had a population of about 17,000 in 2011. The 11th-century Minster Church of S ...
. Originally a market town, Westbury was known for the annual
Hill Fair where many sheep were sold in the 18th and 19th centuries; later growth came from the town's position at the intersection of two railway lines. The busy
A350
The Airbus A350 is a long-range, wide-body twin-engine jet airliner developed and produced by Airbus.
The first A350 design proposed by Airbus in 2004, in response to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, would have been a development of the A330 w ...
, which connects the M4 motorway with the south coast, passes through the town. The urban area has expanded to include the village of Westbury Leigh and the hamlets of Chalford and Frogmore.
History
A
Romano-British
The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a ...
settlement was found at The Ham, in the north of the parish, in the 1870s.
The manor of Westbury, and the
hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.
In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...
with the same boundaries, was held by the king at the time of the
Domesday
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
survey in 1086. The
Wiltshire Victoria County History
The Wiltshire Victoria County History, properly called The Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire but commonly referred to as VCH Wiltshire, is an encyclopaedic history of the county of Wiltshire in England. It forms part of the overall Vic ...
recounts the fragmentation into manors, and traces their ownership. The ancient parish included
Bratton, Dilton,
Dilton Marsh
Dilton Marsh is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the far west of the county of Wiltshire, in the southwest of England. The village is about southwest of the centre of the town of Westbury, Wiltshire, Westbury; Dilton Mar ...
,
Heywood and part of
Chapmanslade
Chapmanslade is a village and civil parish in the county of Wiltshire, in the southwest of England. The parish is on the county border with Somerset and includes the hamlets of Huntenhull Green, Short Street and Thoulstone. The village lies abo ...
.
Churches at Bratton and Dilton were dependent chapels of Westbury church.
Westbury centres on its historic
marketplace
A marketplace or market place is a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods. In different parts of the world, a marketplace may be described as a '' souk'' (from the Arabic), ' ...
– although markets ceased to be held in the middle of the 19th century
– and the
All Saints' Church
All Saints Church, or All Saints' Church or variations on the name may refer to:
Albania
*All Saints' Church, Himarë
Australia
* All Saints Church, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
* All Saints Anglican Church, Henley Brook, Western Aust ...
.
This was built between c. 1340 and 1380 in a transitional style between the
Decorated and
Perpendicular Gothic
Perpendicular Gothic (also Perpendicular, Rectilinear, or Third Pointed) architecture was the third and final style of English Gothic architecture developed in the Kingdom of England during the Late Middle Ages, typified by large windows, four-c ...
and parts survive, but the church was rebuilt in the 1430s, when a
clerestory
In architecture, a clerestory ( ; , also clearstory, clearstorey, or overstorey) is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye level. Its purpose is to admit light, fresh air, or both.
Historically, ''clerestory'' denoted an upper l ...
, three chapels, and most of the central tower were added; the north chapel was given by
William de Westbury
William Westbury (c. 1385 – 1448/49), also called William de Westbury and William of Westbury, was a fifteenth-century judge of the King's Bench.
Career
William de Westbury was for many years the steward of the manor of Castle Combe, near Chi ...
and his father. The west window was donated in the 19th century by
Abraham Laverton
Abraham Laverton (3 October 1819 – 31 October 1886), of Westbury, Wiltshire, was an English cloth mill owner, Liberal Member of Parliament for the parliamentary borough of Westbury from 1874 to 1880, and philanthropist.
Early life
Born in ...
.
The
Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway
The Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (WS&WR) was an early railway company in south-western England. It obtained Parliamentary powers in 1845 to build a railway from near Chippenham in Wiltshire, southward to Salisbury and Weymouth in Dors ...
was completed from near Chippenham, via Melksham and Trowbridge, as far as Westbury in 1848. That company was bought by the
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...
in 1850, who over the next few years built lines onwards to Frome (to access the
Somerset coalfield), then south to Yeovil and Weymouth, as well as southeast from Westbury to Warminster and then Salisbury. Westbury station was rebuilt in 1899 since it would become more important as a junction the next year, on the opening of the
Stert and Westbury line. This was a faster route from London to Weymouth, which at Westbury crossed the route between the south coast and Bristol or South Wales. From 1906 the route from London was also used by trains to Taunton and Exeter.
In 1894, Westbury parish was reduced in size when a new civil parish of Dilton Marsh was created from its western part (all the land west of the
Biss), and likewise Bratton parish from its eastern part. A further reduction in the north created Heywood parish in 1896.
Westbury
Urban District
Urban district may refer to:
* District
* Urban area
* Quarter (urban subdivision)
* Neighbourhood
Specific subdivisions in some countries:
* Urban districts of Denmark
* Urban districts of Germany
* Urban district (Great Britain and Ireland) (hist ...
was formed in 1899, with the same boundaries as the parish.
It was abolished in 1974 as a result of the
Local Government Act 1972
The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant Acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...
, its area becoming part of
West Wiltshire
West Wiltshire was a local government district in Wiltshire, England, formed on 1 April 1974, further to the Local Government Act 1972, as a merger of the former urban districts of Bradford-on-Avon, Melksham, Trowbridge, Warminster and Westbur ...
district. The district was in turn abolished in 2009 on the establishment of
Wiltshire Council
Wiltshire Council is a council for the unitary authority of Wiltshire (excluding the separate unitary authority of Swindon) in South West England, created in 2009. It is the successor authority to Wiltshire County Council (1889–2009) and the ...
as a unitary authority.
Leighton House in the south of the town has been home to the
Army Officer Selection Board
Army Officer Selection Board (AOSB) is an assessment centre used by the British Army as part of the officer selection process for the regular army and Army Reserve and related scholarship schemes. The board is based at Leighton House, Westbury ...
and the Cadet Force Commissioning Board since 1949. Its planned disposal was announced in March 2016, and later that year the MoD estimated that the Selection Board would move to
Sandhurst by 2024.
Jurassic fossils
A band of
Late Jurassic
The Late Jurassic is the third epoch of the Jurassic Period, and it spans the geologic time from 163.5 ± 1.0 to 145.0 ± 0.8 million years ago (Ma), which is preserved in Upper Jurassic strata.Owen 1987.
In European lithostratigraphy, the name ...
Kimmeridge Clay
The Kimmeridge Clay is a sedimentary deposit of fossiliferous marine clay which is of Late Jurassic to lowermost Cretaceous age and occurs in southern and eastern England and in the North Sea. This rock formation is the major source rock for North ...
runs under England from an outcrop on the Dorset coast and comes close to the surface around Westbury.
Many marine fossils have been found in the pits dug for the cement works north-east of the town,
notably the almost complete skull and lower jaw of a new species which was named ''Pliosaurus carpenteri'' after its 1994 discoverer, Simon Carpenter. This evidence of a large reptile-like ocean predator has been conserved by
Bristol Museum
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery is a large museum and art gallery in Bristol, England. The museum is situated in Clifton, about from the city centre. As part of Bristol Culture it is run by the Bristol City Council with no entrance fee. It holds ...
. A smaller fossil found in 1980 was named ''Pliosaurus westburyensis'' in 1993.
Industries
In common with nearby towns in the Avon valley, Westbury was a centre of the cloth industry from the later 15th century. By the start of the 19th century, Dilton Marsh was a centre of
hand-loom
A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but th ...
weaving. The Phipps family were prominent among the clothiers, becoming the largest landowners by the end of the 19th century and occupying Leighton House (Westbury) and
Chalcot House (Dilton Marsh).
During that century the industry declined, until only the Angel and Bitham mills continued to make fine woollen cloth, having been acquired in the 1850s by Abraham Laverton; both mills closed in 1969. There were also tanning and glove-making businesses, some of them taking over the disused cloth mills for a time in the 20th century.
Malting
Malting is the process of steeping, germinating and drying grain to convert it into malt. The malt is mainly used for brewing or whisky making, but can also be used to make malt vinegar or malt extract. Various grains are used for malting, most ...
was another important industry from at least the 17th century. In the 1830s there were six firms active in Westbury and Westbury Leigh, but by 1960 only one remained.
Iron ore
Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...
was discovered just north of the town in the 1840s during construction of the railway;
opencast
Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock (geology), rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a Borrow pit, b ...
mines were developed and furnaces built. Production declined toward the end of the century and had ceased by 1925.
A chain of lakes and ponds near The Ham is evidence of the abandoned workings.
Toponymy
The most likely origin of the ''West-'' in Westbury is simply that the town is near the western edge of the county of Wiltshire, the bounds of which have been much the same since the
Anglo-Saxon period
Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom of ...
.
The ''-bury'' part of the name is a form of ''
borough
A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
History
In the Middle Ag ...
'', which has
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
s in many languages, such as the
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
''-burg'' and the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
''-pyrgos''. It carries the idea of a hill or fortified town. In Wiltshire, ''-bury'' often indicates an
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
or
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
fortified
hill fort
A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...
, and such a site is to be found immediately above the
Westbury White Horse
Westbury or Bratton White Horse is a hill figure on the escarpment of Salisbury Plain, approximately east of Westbury in Wiltshire, England. Located on the edge of Bratton Downs and lying just below an Iron Age hill fort, it is the oldest ...
.
Governance
The majority of local government functions (including schools, roads, social services, waste disposal, emergency planning, leisure services, development control, refuse collection and street cleaning) are carried out by
Wiltshire Council
Wiltshire Council is a council for the unitary authority of Wiltshire (excluding the separate unitary authority of Swindon) in South West England, created in 2009. It is the successor authority to Wiltshire County Council (1889–2009) and the ...
, a
unitary authority
A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...
. The area of Westbury parish is divided into three electoral divisions, each electing one member of Wiltshire Council.
Westbury is a civil parish with an elected town council of fifteen members: five for each of three wards with the same boundaries as the electoral divisions. The council has significant consultative roles, in addition to responsibility for certain local services. The chairman has the title of Mayor of Westbury which is a wholly ceremonial role. Around 2020, the council took over the running of the town's play areas, toilets and flower planting from Wiltshire Council, and supplemented reduced services from Wiltshire Council with its own staff. The council also runs the Grade II listed Laverton Institute which serves as the town hall and as a venue for events and meetings.
The parliamentary constituency of
Westbury dated back to the 15th century but the name was abandoned in 2010, when the town and most of the former constituency became part of the new
South West Wiltshire constituency. Before the parliamentary reforms of the mid-19th century, Westbury was considered a
pocket borough
A rotten or pocket borough, also known as a nomination borough or proprietorial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom before the Reform Act 1832, which had a very small electorat ...
, at one point having as few as twenty-four electors.
This status led to gifts to the town from the owners of the parliamentary borough, including the
Old Town Hall
Old or OLD may refer to:
Places
* Old, Baranya, Hungary
* Old, Northamptonshire, England
*Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD)
*OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, ...
in the Market Place, donated by
Sir Manasseh Masseh Lopes.
Geography
Westbury is in the far west of Wiltshire, close to the border with
Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
, locator_map =
, coordinates =
, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
, established_by =
, preceded_by =
, origin =
, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
, lord_ ...
. It lies under the northwestern edge of
Salisbury Plain
Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in the south western part of central southern England covering . It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies wi ...
; in the past, the name Westbury-under-the-Plain was sometimes used to distinguish it from
other towns of the same name. The town is southeast of the city of
Bath, approximately south of the county town of
Trowbridge
Trowbridge ( ) is the county town of Wiltshire, England, on the River Biss in the west of the county. It is near the border with Somerset and lies southeast of Bath, 31 miles (49 km) southwest of Swindon and 20 miles (32 km) southe ...
and the same distance north of the garrison town of
Warminster
Warminster () is an ancient market town with a nearby garrison, and civil parish in south west Wiltshire, England, on the western edge of Salisbury Plain. The parish had a population of about 17,000 in 2011. The 11th-century Minster Church of S ...
. Nearby villages are
Bratton,
Chapmanslade
Chapmanslade is a village and civil parish in the county of Wiltshire, in the southwest of England. The parish is on the county border with Somerset and includes the hamlets of Huntenhull Green, Short Street and Thoulstone. The village lies abo ...
,
Dilton Marsh
Dilton Marsh is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the far west of the county of Wiltshire, in the southwest of England. The village is about southwest of the centre of the town of Westbury, Wiltshire, Westbury; Dilton Mar ...
,
Edington Eddington or Edington may refer to:
People
*Eddington Varmah, Liberian politician
*Eddington (surname), people with the surname
Places
Australia
* Eddington, Victoria
United Kingdom
* Eddington, Berkshire
* Eddington, Cambridge
* Ed ...
,
Heywood and Hawkeridge,
Coulston, and
Upton Scudamore
Upton Scudamore is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The village lies about north of the town of Warminster and about the same distance south of Westbury. The parish includes the hamlet of Halfway.
The village occupies a ridge w ...
; and in Somerset,
Rudge and
Standerwick
Beckington is a village and civil parish in the Mendip district of Somerset, England, across the River Frome from Lullington about three miles north of Frome. According to the 2011 census the parish, which includes the hamlet of Rudge, which ...
.
The Biss Brook, which becomes the
River Biss as it flows north towards Trowbridge, forms most of the western boundary of the parish.
Suburbs of Westbury include Frogmore, Bitham Park, and The Ham (north and east), Chalford, Leigh Park, and Westbury Leigh (southwest). Westbury Leigh is sometimes considered a separate village, with its own church and chapel, although it is now a contiguous part of the town. Leigh Park is a large housing estate developed from the late 1990s immediately to the north of Westbury Leigh, with a large medical centre, a community hall, and a district centre with a
Tesco Express
Tesco plc () is a British Multinational corporation, multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues an ...
.
Economy
Until the 1940s, the
Westbury Hill Fair
The Westbury Hill Fair, or Westbury Hill Sheep Fair, was an annual fair which took place on the first Tuesday in September on high ground at Westbury, Wiltshire, England, near the north-western corner of Salisbury Plain. The main business was the ...
was an important annual event, mostly for the sale of sheep.
The company which became known as
Blue Circle
Blue Circle Industries was a British public company manufacturing cement. It was founded in 1900 as the Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers Ltd through the fusion of 24 cement works, mostly around on the Thames and Medway estuaries, toget ...
built in 1962 a rail-served cement production plant a short distance north-east of the town, partly in
Heywood parish; its two
rotary kiln
A rotary kiln is a pyroprocessing device used to raise materials to a high temperature (calcination) in a continuous process. Materials produced using rotary kilns include:
* Cement
* Lime
* Refractories
* Metakaolin
* Titanium dioxide
* Alum ...
s were for a short time the largest in the country.
Chalk came from a quarry around 2 km away, and clay was dug from pits near the plant. From 1977 to 1992 part of the plant's fuel came from domestic refuse, and from 2000 tyres were burned.
French company
Lafarge
La Farge, LaFarge or Lafarge can refer to:
People
* Antoinette LaFarge (1966–), American artist and writer
* Christopher Grant LaFarge (1862–1938), American architect and partner in the firm Heins & LaFarge
* Christopher Grant La Farge ( ...
took over Blue Circle in 2001, and cement production ended in 2009. Most of the site was demolished in 2016 but the cement silos remain in use as a distribution centre, owned since 2013 by
Tarmac Tarmac may refer to:
Engineered surfaces
* Tarmacadam, a mainly historical tar-based material for macadamising road surfaces, patented in 1902
* Asphalt concrete, a macadamising material using asphalt instead of tar which has largely superseded ta ...
. From 1961 until its demolition in 2016, the plant's chimney was the tallest unsupported structure in southwestern England.
Businesses at the Brook Lane industrial area, north-west of the railway station, include an
Arla Arla may refer to:
* ''Arla'' (moth), a genus of moth
* Arkansas Library Association
* Arla, Greece, a village
* Ärla, a village in south-eastern Sweden
* Arla Foods, a large Scandinavian producer of dairy products
** Arla (Finland), a subsid ...
creamery which makes
Anchor
An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek ἄγ ...
butter. The West Wilts trading estate, in Heywood parish just north-west of Westbury, has Welton Bibby & Baron who claim to be the UK's largest manufacturer of paper bags and similar goods.
Landmarks
Pevsner Pevsner or Pevzner is a Jewish surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Aihud Pevsner (1925–2018), American physicist
* Antoine Pevsner (1886–1962), Russian sculptor, brother of Naum Gabo
* David Pevsner, American actor, singer, da ...
states that the best houses in Westbury are near the church. His perambulation takes in the Market Place and the streets leading off it, then proceeds south and west. He notes the 1960s central shopping parade – two yellow brick ranges facing each other – and the former Barclays Bank, 1970, purple brick in
brutalist
Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...
style.
Besides the Grade I listed
All Saints' Church
All Saints Church, or All Saints' Church or variations on the name may refer to:
Albania
*All Saints' Church, Himarë
Australia
* All Saints Church, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
* All Saints Anglican Church, Henley Brook, Western Aust ...
, the town has five Grade II* listed houses and one monument. Oldest among them is Ferndale House, now the Conservative Club, just east of the Market Place, which although altered dates from the early 18th century. In rendered brick, its front has two Palladian windows on each of the ground and first floor, all with small side lights.
North of the Market Place, Bank House is an early 18th century house in red brick with stone dressings; its five-bay front, with a carved stone shell hood over the central door, is passed by traffic on the A350. Leigh House at Westbury Leigh, perhaps of slightly earlier date, is a similar structure.
![Westbury old town hall](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Westbury_old_town_hall.JPG)
In a central position on the Market Place, the early 19th century
former town hall is in
Bath stone
Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate. Originally obtained from the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines under Combe Down, Somerset, England. Its honey colouring gives the World Heritage City of ...
ashlar
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...
and has a
colonnade
In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...
d front at street level, behind which shops were inserted in the 1970s.
The first floor windows have
balustrade
A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...
d
aprons
An apron is a garment that is worn over other clothing to cover the front of the body. The word comes from old French ''napron'' meaning a small piece of cloth, however over time "a napron" became "an apron", through a linguistics process cal ...
below, and above them the triangular
pediment
Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape.
Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds.
A pedimen ...
has the Lopes arms in the
tympanum.
Edgar House, off Edward Street south of the town centre, is a four-bay early 18th century remodelling of an older house, faced in
stucco
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...
. The Grade II* monument is the Phipps mausoleum in the cemetery, on the Bratton road on the eastern edge of the town. Dating from around 1871 (for the burial of
John Lewis Phipps
John Lewis Phipps (1801–1870), of Leighton House, Westbury, Wiltshire, was a merchant trading with Brazil, who was briefly Conservative MP for Westbury (1868) and High Sheriff of Wiltshire (1864).
He was the second son of Thomas Henry Hele P ...
), the stone monument has a basement, an octagonal chamber with four windows, and a short spire with
lantern
A lantern is an often portable source of lighting, typically featuring a protective enclosure for the light sourcehistorically usually a candle or a wick in oil, and often a battery-powered light in modern timesto make it easier to carry and h ...
.
White Horse
![Paragliding above Westbury White Horse - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Paragliding_above_Westbury_White_Horse_-_geograph.org.uk_-_539764.jpg)
A well-known feature of the area is the
Westbury White Horse
Westbury or Bratton White Horse is a hill figure on the escarpment of Salisbury Plain, approximately east of Westbury in Wiltshire, England. Located on the edge of Bratton Downs and lying just below an Iron Age hill fort, it is the oldest ...
, which overlooks the town from a slope up to Salisbury Plain, in Bratton parish about west of the town. Probably first made in the 18th century, its present form dates from 1778 when it was restored. In the 1950s it was decided that the horse would be more easily maintained if it were set in concrete and painted white.
Transport
Road
The
A350 road
The A350 is a north–south primary route in southern England, that runs from the M4 motorway in Wiltshire to Poole in Dorset.
Route
Starting at junction 17 of the M4 motorway north of Chippenham, the first three miles are a dual carriageway to ...
passes through the town and provides a fast route to the
M4 motorway
The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is a motorway in the United Kingdom running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh element was largely ...
(junction 17) 21 miles to the north. A controversial
Westbury Bypass was once proposed which would have reduced traffic in parts of the town but would have had a negative effect on the landscape on the east of the town. The eastern bypass scheme was eventually rejected after an Independent Planning Inquiry recommended against it in 2009.
Rail
The town is an important junction point on the railway network, as it lies at the point where the
Reading to Taunton line
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spelling) ...
, forming a link from
London Paddington
Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a London station group, Central London railway terminus and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of services pro ...
to
Penzance
Penzance ( ; kw, Pennsans) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated ...
, intersects the
Wessex Main Line
The Wessex Main Line is the railway line from Bristol Temple Meads to Southampton Central. Diverging from this route is the Heart of Wessex Line from Westbury to Weymouth. The Wessex Main Line intersects the Reading to Taunton Line at and th ...
, linking
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
and
Bath Spa to
Salisbury
Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath.
Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...
,
Southampton
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
,
Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most dens ...
and
London Waterloo
Waterloo station (), also known as London Waterloo, is a central London terminus on the National Rail network in the United Kingdom, in the Waterloo area of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is connected to a London Underground station of ...
. Westbury railway station is northwest of the town centre. A smaller station,
Dilton Marsh
Dilton Marsh is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the far west of the county of Wiltshire, in the southwest of England. The village is about southwest of the centre of the town of Westbury, Wiltshire, Westbury; Dilton Mar ...
, is to the southwest of the town centre between the suburbs of Dilton Marsh and Westbury Leigh; this is a
request stop
In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a stop or station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or dropped off. In this way, st ...
.
Education
Westbury has one
secondary school
A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...
, two
primary school
A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...
s, a
junior school
A Junior school is a type of school which provides primary education to children, often in the age range from 8 and 13, following attendance at Infant school which covers the age range 5–7. (As both Infant and Junior schools are giving Primary E ...
and an
infants school
An infant school is a term used primarily in England and Wales, for the education of children between the ages of four and seven years. It is usually a small school serving a particular area. It is sometimes a department in a larger primary school ...
. The secondary school,
Matravers School
Matravers School is a mixed foundation secondary school and sixth form located in Westbury in the English county of Wiltshire. As a foundation school, Matravers is administered by Wiltshire Council. Pupils are admitted mainly from Bitham Brook ...
, has a sixth form offering a range of subjects. It serves Westbury and the surrounding villages including Chapmanslade, Bratton, Dilton Marsh and Edington.
Westbury Leigh C of E Primary School was moved from Westbury Leigh to the neighbouring Leigh Park estate. Bitham Brook Primary School mainly serves the western part of the town. Westbury C of E Junior School serves the central part of the town and takes children from Year 3 to Year 6. It is fed by Westbury Infant School, which takes children from Reception to Year 2.
The closest further and higher education establishments are at
Wiltshire College
Wiltshire College & University Centre is a tertiary college of education founded in 2002 by the merger of Chippenham Technical College, Lackham College and Trowbridge College. Consolidation was completed with the merger of Salisbury College, whi ...
's Trowbridge campus, 4½ miles to the north; and the
University of Bath
(Virgil, Georgics II)
, mottoeng = Learn the culture proper to each after its kind
, established = 1886 (Merchant Venturers Technical College) 1960 (Bristol College of Science and Technology) 1966 (Bath University of Technology) 1971 (univ ...
, 18 miles to the northwest.
Religious sites
Church of England
All Saints' Church
All Saints Church, or All Saints' Church or variations on the name may refer to:
Albania
*All Saints' Church, Himarë
Australia
* All Saints Church, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
* All Saints Anglican Church, Henley Brook, Western Aust ...
, now a
Grade I listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
building, has 14th-century origins but was altered and extended around 1437, then restored in 1847. Although it has a central position near the market-place, surrounding buildings hide it from view except for the central tower.
St Mary's Church, Old Dilton
St Mary's Church in Old Dilton, Wiltshire, England was built in the 14th century. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a Grade I listed building, and is now a redundant church in the care of the Churches Conservation ...
was begun in the 14th century but went out of regular use in 1900 after the population dwindled in that area, southwest of Westbury. The Grade I listed building, which remains consecrated, has been in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust since 1974.
The Church of the Holy Saviour at Westbury Leigh was built as a
chapel of ease
A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently.
Often a chapel of ea ...
in 1877, the south aisle added in 1889 and the tower in 1890; all in honey coloured limestone, to designs of the
Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
architect
William White. In 2000 the nave was screened off and converted for use as a community hall.
Others
Nonconformists met in the town from 1662, and built a chapel on Warminster Road soon after 1711, which was rebuilt to suit a congregation of 500 in 1821. It became a
United Reformed Church
The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. As of 2022 it has approximately 40,000 members in 1,284 congregations with 334 stipendiary ministers.
Origins and history
The United Reformed Church resulte ...
on the foundation of that organisation in 1972.
![Phipps Mausoleum, March 2021](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Phipps_Mausoleum%2C_March_2021.jpeg/1200px-Phipps_Mausoleum%2C_March_2021.jpeg)
There has been a strong
Baptist
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...
movement at Westbury Leigh, encouraged by the congregations at
Southwick, some away towards Trowbridge. An early chapel was made from a barn in 1714,
and replaced on the same site in 1797 by a chapel with accommodation for 500, built in red brick with stone trimmings. Improved and enlarged in the next century, it is described by Historic England as an "impressive building". In 1810 another chapel was built nearby, at Penknap in Dilton Marsh parish, after a split in the congregation. The earlier chapel fell into disuse sometime before 2019;
the Penknap building continues in use as Providence Baptist Church. Later, there was a Baptist congregation in Westbury itself, and in 1868 they rebuilt their West End chapel to seat 350, on the site of a smaller 1820s chapel.
A
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...
church and schoolroom was built in 1926 at the town end of Station Road, replacing a smaller chapel elsewhere dating from around 1809. It is used as a meeting place and events venue by local organisations.
The Roman Catholics built the Church of St Bernadette of Lourdes in West End, Westbury, in 1938, which is now served from St John the Baptist,
Trowbridge
Trowbridge ( ) is the county town of Wiltshire, England, on the River Biss in the west of the county. It is near the border with Somerset and lies southeast of Bath, 31 miles (49 km) southwest of Swindon and 20 miles (32 km) southe ...
.
Sport and leisure
Westbury has one of the oldest Victorian swimming pools still in use in the country, built in 1887 by William Laverton.
Westbury has a
Non-League football
Non-League football describes football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is specifically used to de ...
club,
Westbury United, who play at the Meadow Lane ground in the
Southern League (English football's eighth tier). The non-league Rugby Football Club, Westbury RFC, has both male and female teams who play at White Horse Country Park.
A cricket field at Wellhead Lane was laid out by the mill-owning Lavertons and came to be known as
W. H. Laverton's Ground. In 1890
W. G. Grace
William Gilbert Grace (18 July 1848 – 23 October 1915) was an English amateur cricketer who was important in the development of the sport and is widely considered one of its greatest players. He played first-class cricket for a record-equal ...
played in W. H. Laverton's XI against a team called the Australians. Today the ground is home to Westbury & District Cricket Club, and to one side is the Leighton Recreation Centre, run by Places Leisure (part of
Places for People
Places for People (PfP) is a property management, development, regeneration company and leisure company based in the UK. History
Places for People was founded by North British Housing Association in 1965. Bristol Churches Housing Association j ...
) on behalf of
Wiltshire Council
Wiltshire Council is a council for the unitary authority of Wiltshire (excluding the separate unitary authority of Swindon) in South West England, created in 2009. It is the successor authority to Wiltshire County Council (1889–2009) and the ...
.
Media
Westbury is served by a fortnightly free newspaper, the ''
White Horse News'', named after the defining feature on the edge of the town. The newspaper is delivered to all homes in the town and the nearby villages of
Bratton,
Dilton Marsh
Dilton Marsh is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the far west of the county of Wiltshire, in the southwest of England. The village is about southwest of the centre of the town of Westbury, Wiltshire, Westbury; Dilton Mar ...
and
Edington Eddington or Edington may refer to:
People
*Eddington Varmah, Liberian politician
*Eddington (surname), people with the surname
Places
Australia
* Eddington, Victoria
United Kingdom
* Eddington, Berkshire
* Eddington, Cambridge
* Ed ...
, amongst others.
Westbury is also served by the weekly ''
Warminster Journal'' and ''
Wiltshire Times
The ''Wiltshire Times'' is a weekly newspaper published in Trowbridge, Wiltshire in South West England. The paper serves the western Wiltshire towns of Bradford on Avon, Trowbridge, Corsham, Chippenham, Warminster, Westbury and Melksham, and th ...
''.
Notable people
*
William de Westbury
William Westbury (c. 1385 – 1448/49), also called William de Westbury and William of Westbury, was a fifteenth-century judge of the King's Bench.
Career
William de Westbury was for many years the steward of the manor of Castle Combe, near Chi ...
(c.1385–1448/49), judge of the
King's Bench, built (together with his father) the north chapel of All Saints' church, and endowed it.
*
Matthew Ley
Matthew Ley (1545–1636) was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1597 to 1614.
Ley was the second son of Henry Ley. In 1578 he and his brother James purchased the manor of Brembridge, near Westbury in Wilts ...
(1545–1636), and his brother
James
James is a common English language surname and given name:
*James (name), the typically masculine first name James
* James (surname), various people with the last name James
James or James City may also refer to:
People
* King James (disambiguat ...
, owned Brembridge and Heywood; Matthew sat as MP for Westbury and James went on to become
Lord High Treasurer
The post of Lord High Treasurer or Lord Treasurer was an English government position and has been a British government position since the Acts of Union of 1707. A holder of the post would be the third-highest-ranked Great Officer of State in ...
and
Earl of Marlborough
Earl of Marlborough is a title that has been created twice, both times in the Peerage of England. The first time in 1626 in favour of James Ley, 1st Earl of Marlborough, James Ley, 1st Baron Ley and the second in 1689 for John Churchill, 1st Duke ...
.
*
John Cogswell (1592–1669), merchant from Westbury Leigh, became a politician after emigrating to North America.
*
Thomas Phipps
Thomas Phipps (c. 1648 – 1715) was an English merchant who became briefly a Member of Parliament for, first, Wilton and, secondly, Westbury.
Origins and career
Thomas Phipps was the second son of Thomas Phipps of Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, wh ...
(c.1648–1715), merchant, acquired Dilton manor around 1693 and
Heywood House around 1700.
A son,
William
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
(c.1681–1748), was Governor of Bombay between 1722 and 1729.
*Phipps' descendants acquired the Leighton estate, and Thomas Henry Hele Phipps built
Leighton House
The Leighton House Museum is an art museum in the Holland Park area of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in west London.
The building was the London home of painter Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton (1830–1896), who commi ...
in 1800. His grandsons
John Lewis Phipps
John Lewis Phipps (1801–1870), of Leighton House, Westbury, Wiltshire, was a merchant trading with Brazil, who was briefly Conservative MP for Westbury (1868) and High Sheriff of Wiltshire (1864).
He was the second son of Thomas Henry Hele P ...
(1801–1870) and
Charles Paul Phipps
Charles Paul Phipps (1815–1880), of Chalcot House, near Westbury, Wiltshire, was an English merchant in Brazil and later Conservative MP for Westbury (1869–1874) and High Sheriff of Wiltshire (1875).
Origins
Charles Paul Phipps was the ...
(1815–1880) built a business as coffee merchants importing from Brazil. Charles bought
Chalcot House, nearby in Dilton Marsh, and sat as MP for Westbury.
*
Bryan Edwards (1743–1800), born in Westbury, inherited plantations in
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
and was a supporter of the
slave trade
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
.
*
Joshua Marshman
Joshua Marshman (20 April 1768 – 6 December 1837) was a British Christian missionary in Bengal, India. His mission involved social reforms and intellectual debates with educated Hindus such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy.
Origins
Joshua Marshman was b ...
(1768–1837), was a Baptist missionary to India.
*
Rebecca Smith (1807–1849), last British woman executed for infanticide.
*
Abraham Laverton
Abraham Laverton (3 October 1819 – 31 October 1886), of Westbury, Wiltshire, was an English cloth mill owner, Liberal Member of Parliament for the parliamentary borough of Westbury from 1874 to 1880, and philanthropist.
Early life
Born in ...
(1819–1889), mill owner and Member of Parliament for Westbury, was a philanthropist who donated many buildings to Westbury such as the Laverton Institute.
*
George Laverton (1888–1954), cricketer
*
Charles Nicholas Paul Phipps
Charles Nicholas Paul Phipps (4 November 1845 – 9 December 1913), of Chalcot House, near Westbury, Wiltshire, was a merchant trading with Brazil, who sat as Conservative MP for Westbury (1880–1885) and was High Sheriff of Wiltshire (1888). ...
(1845–1913), another coffee merchant and Member of Parliament for Westbury.
*
Ruth May Fox (1853–1958), born in Westbury but brought up elsewhere, became a women's rights activist in Utah.
*
Vernon Bartlett
Charles Vernon Oldfield Bartlett, CBE (30 April 1894 – 18 January 1983) was an English journalist, politician and author. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1938 to 1950: first as an Independent Progressive advocating a Popular Fro ...
(1894–1983), was a journalist, author, and independent Member of Parliament.
*
Penleigh Boyd
Theodore Penleigh Boyd (15 August 1890 – 27 November 1923) was a British born Australian artist.
Penleigh Boyd was a member of the Boyd artistic dynasty: his parents Arthur Merric Boyd (1862–1940) and Emma Minnie Boyd (née à Beckett) ...
(1890–1923), Australian painter
[''The Riverside Dictionary of Biography'' (American Heritage Dictionaries, 2004, ), p. 107]
See also
*
Baron Westbury
Baron Westbury, of Westbury, Wiltshire, Westbury in the County of Wiltshire, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 27 June 1861 for the lawyer and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Wes ...
*
Baron Grimston of Westbury
Baron Grimston of Westbury, of Westbury in the County of Wiltshire, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1964 for the Conservative politician and former Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Robert Grimston, ...
*
Westbury Ironstone Quarry – a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest
References
Bibliography
*
Westburyat Wiltshire Community History – Wiltshire Council
ThisisWestbury.co.uk: Westbury history website archived in 2008
External links
Westbury Town CouncilHistoric Westbury photosat BBC Wiltshire
*
{{authority control
Towns in Wiltshire
Civil parishes in Wiltshire