Trowbridge ( ) is the
county town
In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a county town is the most important town or city in a county. It is usually the location of administrative or judicial functions within a county and the place where the county's members of Parliament are elect ...
of
Wiltshire, England, on the
River Biss
The River Biss is a small river in Wiltshire, England and is a tributary of the Bristol Avon. The name is of uncertain origin; it is claimed that the word is from the Old Norse ''bisa'', meaning "to strive".
Progress
The river rises near Upton ...
in the west of the county. It is near the border with
Somerset and lies southeast of
Bath
Bath may refer to:
* Bathing, immersion in a fluid
** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body
** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe
* Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities
Plac ...
, 31 miles (49 km) southwest of
Swindon
Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon un ...
and 20 miles (32 km) southeast of
Bristol. The town had a population of 37,169 in 2021.
Long a
market town, the
Kennet and Avon canal
The Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of , made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by a canal. The name is used to refer to the entire length of the navigation rather than solely to the cent ...
to the north of Trowbridge played an instrumental part in the town's development as it allowed coal to be transported from the
Somerset Coalfield and so marked the advent of steam-powered manufacturing in woollen cloth mills. The town was the foremost producer of this mainstay of contemporary clothing and blankets in south west England in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, by which time it held the nickname "The
Manchester of the West".
The
civil parish of Trowbridge had a population of 33,108 at the 2011 census.
The parish encompasses the settlements of Longfield, Lower Studley, Upper Studley, Studley Green and Trowle Common.
History
Toponymy
The origin of the name ''Trowbridge'' is uncertain; one source claims derivation from ''treow-brycg'', meaning "Tree Bridge", referring to the first bridge over the Biss,
[Town Official Guide, Trowbridge Town Council, 2008][Origins of the name Trowbridge]
''Strum.co.uk'' website. Retrieved on 25 January 2008. while another states the true meaning is the bridge by ''Trowle'', the name of a hamlet and a
common
Common may refer to:
Places
* Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
* Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts
* Cambridge Common, common land area in Cambridge, Massachusetts
* Clapham Common, originally com ...
to the west of the town. On
John Speed
John Speed (1551 or 1552 – 28 July 1629) was an English cartographer, chronologer and historian of Cheshire origins.S. Bendall, 'Speed, John (1551/2–1629), historian and cartographer', ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (OUP 2004/ ...
's map of
Wiltshire (1611), the name is spelt ''Trubridge''.
Early history
In the 10th century, written records and architectural ruins begin marking Trowbridge's existence as a village. In the 1086
Domesday Book the village of Straburg, as Trowbridge was then known, was recorded as having 24 households, well endowed with land, particularly arable ploughlands, and rendering 8
pounds sterling to its
feudal
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a wa ...
lord a year.
Its feudal lord was an Anglo-Saxon named
Brictric Brictric was a powerful Saxon thegn whose many English landholdings, mostly in the West Country, are recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.
Life
According to the account by the ''Continuator of Wace'' and others, in his youth Brictric declined the ...
, who was the largest landowner in Wiltshire.
Castle
The first mention of
Trowbridge Castle was in 1139 when it was besieged. It was no longer in military use by the 14th century and by the 16th only ruins remained.
The castle is thought to have been a
motte-and-bailey
A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. Relatively easy to ...
castle, and its influence can still be seen in the town today. Fore Street follows the path of the castle ditch, and town has a Castle Street and the Castle Place Shopping Centre.
It is likely the Castle was built by
Humphrey I de Bohun
Humphrey I de Bohun (died ''c''.1123), of Trowbridge Castle
in Wiltshire, ''jure uxoris'' 3rd feudal baron of Trowbridge, was an Anglo-Norman nobleman who by his lucrative marriage became "the founder of the fortunes of his family", later prominen ...
; his family dominated the town for over a hundred years.
The most notable member of the family was
Henry de Bohun
Sir Henry de Bohun (died 23 June 1314) was an English knight, the grandson of Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford. He was killed on the first day of the Battle of Bannockburn by Robert the Bruce.
Riding in the vanguard of heavy cavalry, de Bo ...
, born around 1176, who became lord of the manor when he was about 15 years of age. It was he who really began to shape the medieval town. In 1200 he obtained a market charter, arguably the earliest for a town in Wiltshire, and one of the earliest in England. His officials were to lay out
burgage plots for traders, artisans, and shopkeepers. The outline of these plots can still be seen today in the footprints of some of the present shops in Fore Street.
Within Trowbridge Castle was a 10th-century Anglo-Saxon church. Henry de Bohun turned this to secular use and instead had a new church built outside the Castle; this was the first St James's Church. In the base of the tower of the present day church, below the subsequently added spire, can be seen the Romanesque architecture of the period.
In 1200 Henry de Bohun was created
Earl of Hereford by
King John King John may refer to:
Rulers
* John, King of England (1166–1216)
* John I of Jerusalem (c. 1170–1237)
* John Balliol, King of Scotland (c. 1249–1314)
* John I of France (15–20 November 1316)
* John II of France (1319–1364)
* John I o ...
. Like other barons, Henry was later threatened by King John and his caput of Trowbridge was taken from him. Henry then joined with the other barons to oppose John's arbitrary rule and forced him to seal
Magna Carta
(Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the ...
(the Great Charter) at
Runnymede; and was elected as one of the 25 enforcers of the charter. Some years after Runnymede, Henry regained control of Trowbridge.
Woollen cloth industry
Trowbridge developed as a centre for woollen cloth production from the 14th century. Thus before the start of the
Tudor period, the towns of south-west Wiltshire stood out from the rest of the county with all the signs of increasing wealth and prosperity during the period of trade recovery led by exports begun under Yorkist
Edward IV
Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England ...
and, still more, during expansion under
Henry VII, when England's annual woollen exports increased from some 60,000 to some 80,000 cloths of assize.
During the 17th century the production of woollen cloth became increasingly industrialised. However, mechanisation was resisted by workers in traditional trades; there were riots in 1785 and 1792, and again in the era of
Luddism (1811–1816) owing to the introduction of the
flying shuttle
The flying shuttle was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. It allowed a single weaver to weave much wider fabrics, and it could be mechanized, allowing for automatic machine l ...
.
Thomas Helliker
Thomas Helliker (sometimes spelled Hilliker) (23 March 1784 – 22 March 1803), known as the Trowbridge Martyr, was a figure in early English trade union history who was hanged, aged 19, for his alleged role in machine-breaking at a Wiltshire woo ...
, a shearman's apprentice, became one of the martyrs of the
Industrial Revolution in 1803 when he was hanged at Fisherton Jail,
Salisbury. Nevertheless, at one point in 1820, Trowbridge's scale of production was such it was described as the "
Manchester of the West". It had over 20 woollen cloth producing factories, making it comparable to
northern
Northern may refer to the following:
Geography
* North, a point in direction
* Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe
* Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States
* Northern Province, Sri Lanka
* Northern Range, a ra ...
industrial towns such as
Rochdale.
The woollen cloth industry declined in the late 19th century with the advent of
ring-spinning, and this decline continued throughout the 20th century, although Trowbridge's West of England cloth maintained a reputation for excellent quality until the end. The last mill, Salter's Home Mill, closed in 1982 and is now the home of Boswell's Café and
Trowbridge Museum and Art Gallery, integrated into
the Shires Shopping Centre. The museum portrays the history of woollen cloth production in the town; the displays include a rare
Spinning Jenny, one of only five remaining worldwide. There are also working looms on display. Clark's Mill is now home to offices; straddling the nearby
River Biss
The River Biss is a small river in Wiltshire, England and is a tributary of the Bristol Avon. The name is of uncertain origin; it is claimed that the word is from the Old Norse ''bisa'', meaning "to strive".
Progress
The river rises near Upton ...
is the "Handle House", formerly used for drying and storage of
teazles used to raise the
nap
A nap is a short period of sleep, typically taken during daytime hours as an adjunct to the usual nocturnal sleep period. Naps are most often taken as a response to drowsiness during waking hours. A nap is a form of biphasic or polyphasic sl ...
of cloth. This is one of very few such buildings still known to exist in the United Kingdom.
File:TrowbridgeClarksMill.jpg, Clark's Mill from Wicker Hill
File:TrowbridgeHandleHouse.jpg, Handle House adjacent to Clark's Mill
File:TrowbridgeAshtonMill.jpg, Ashton Mill, once a major employer
File:ShiresTrowbridgeInterior.jpg, Salter's Mill, now the centrepiece of the Shires Shopping Centre
1800s to present
In its place a bedding industry developed, initially using wool cast off from the mills; the company now known as
Airsprung Furniture Group was started in the town in the 1870s. Food production also developed in the town when
Abraham Bowyer
Bowyers was a company known for the manufacture of meat products, including a brand of sausages, which was based in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England. The company was acquired by Northern Foods in 1985, and passed through two other owners until the ...
started his business in 1805 which eventually, as
Pork Farms Bowyers, became one of the largest employers in the town until closure in April 2008 when production moved to the
Shaftesbury and
Nottingham factories.
The town became the
county town
In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a county town is the most important town or city in a county. It is usually the location of administrative or judicial functions within a county and the place where the county's members of Parliament are elect ...
of Wiltshire in 1889 when
Wiltshire County Council was formed and sought a place which representatives from Swindon and Salisbury, among others, could reach and return home from in one day. Trowbridge fulfilled this criterion by virtue of its railway connections and thus was chosen as the county town, further reinforced by the construction of the county hall in 1939.
The brewing company
Ushers of Trowbridge opened in 1824, and developed the brewery in the town. This was finally shut in 2000 following several changes of ownership and its equipment was sold to
North Korea, where it forms the core of the
Taedonggang brewery, just outside
Pyongyang.
Food production continues in the town through companies such as frozen food processor
Apetito. The largest employers are
Wiltshire Council and Apetito.
Architecture
There is much of architectural interest in Trowbridge, including many of the old buildings associated with the textile industry, and the Newtown conservation area, a protected zone of mostly Victorian houses. The town has six Grade I
listed buildings, namely
St James's Church, Lovemead House on Roundstone Street, and numbers 46, 64, 68 and 70 Fore Street. The latter is referred to more commonly as
Parade House
Parade House is a Grade I listed Georgian townhouse situated in Trowbridge, 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 o ...
.
Trowbridge Town Hall is in Market Street, opposite the entrance to the now-pedestrianised Fore Street. This three-storey building with an Italianate clock-tower was presented to the residents of the town by a local mill-oner,
Sir William Roger Brown, in 1889 to celebrate
Queen Victoria's golden jubilee
The Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated on 20 and 21 June 1887 to mark the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. It was celebrated with a Thanksgiving Service at Westminster Abbey, and a banquet to which ...
.
The building was the seat of local government until 1974 and subsequently accommodated the magistrates' courts until 2003. More recently it has been used for exhibitions and community events.
Governance
There are seven
electoral divisions in Trowbridge for elections to
Wiltshire Council, which are also the wards of the town council. Together, they cover the same area as the civil parish.
Trowbridge is within the
South West Wiltshire parliamentary constituency, which has been represented by
Andrew Murrison (
Conservative) since its formation in 2010.
County Hall in Bythesea Road, Trowbridge, is the administrative centre for Wiltshire Council, a
unitary authority created in April 2009 which replaced both
West Wiltshire District Council and the former
Wiltshire County Council, also headquartered at County Hall since 1940.
The
Town Council is the first tier of local government and is composed of 21
councillors. It is currently held by the
Liberal Democrats who have 10 seats in addition to the 9 Conservatives and 2
Independents.
Geography
The
River Biss
The River Biss is a small river in Wiltshire, England and is a tributary of the Bristol Avon. The name is of uncertain origin; it is claimed that the word is from the Old Norse ''bisa'', meaning "to strive".
Progress
The river rises near Upton ...
enters Trowbridge from the southeast, where it flows through Biss Meadows, managed as a country park. In the north of the town it is joined by the Lambrok Stream, then continues north to join the
River Avon near
Staverton.
Northwest of the town, part of the
Avon Green Belt prevents expansion towards
Bradford-on-Avon. To the north and northwest, housing areas in Staverton and
Hilperton
Hilperton is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The village is separated by a few fields (the Hilperton Gap) from the northeastern edge of the town of Trowbridge and is approximately from Trowbridge town centre.
South of Hil ...
parishes are contiguous with Trowbridge's urban area; however, to the south and southeast, the villages of
Southwick,
North Bradley
North Bradley is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, between Trowbridge and Westbury. The village is about south of Trowbridge town centre. The parish includes most of the village of Yarnbrook, and the hamlets of Brokerswood, Cu ...
,
Yarnbrook and
West Ashton
West Ashton is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It is about southeast of Trowbridge, near the A350 between Melksham and Yarnbrook which bypasses Trowbridge. The parish includes the hamlets of Dunge (), East Town () and Rood As ...
maintain their separate identities.
Demography
The first official census of 1801 showed Trowbridge having 5,799 inhabitants, which rose very rapidly to 9,545 in 1821. The population rose by less than 50% in the 130 years to 1951, compared to a considerably larger increase in the population of the country as a whole. From 1951 to 2011, the population increased by 133%.
Coinciding with this increase a considerable conversion of arable fields and some riverside meadows to residential estates took place.
According to the census in 2011, the ethnic breakdown of the population of Trowbridge parish was: White 94.8%, Mixed/multiple ethnic groups 1.9%, Asian/Asian British 1.5%, Black/African/Caribbean/Black British 1.1%, Other ethnic group 0.8%. The population of the built-up area, which includes
Staverton and
Hilperton
Hilperton is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The village is separated by a few fields (the Hilperton Gap) from the northeastern edge of the town of Trowbridge and is approximately from Trowbridge town centre.
South of Hil ...
parishes, was 39,409 in 2011 and was estimated to have grown to 43,719 by mid-2020.
In 2018 the
Office for National Statistics estimated the population of the larger "community area" at 45,822, making Trowbridge the largest area in Wiltshire (excluding Swindon), with
Chippenham
Chippenham is a market town
A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village ...
close behind in second place and
Salisbury third.
Transport
Trowbridge railway station was opened in 1848 on the
Westbury–
Bradford-on-Avon section of the
Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway. Today this line forms part of both 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 ...
(Bristol–Westbury–Southampton) and the
Heart of Wessex Line (Bristol–Westbury–Weymouth), while the original route to Melksham, Chippenham and Swindon is used by the TransWilts service. Other services from Trowbridge join the
Great Western Main Line
The Great Western Main Line (GWML) is a main line railway in England that runs westwards from London Paddington to . It connects to other main lines such as those from Reading to Penzance and Swindon to Swansea. Opened in 1841, it was the or ...
at
Bath
Bath may refer to:
* Bathing, immersion in a fluid
** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body
** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe
* Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities
Plac ...
and
Chippenham
Chippenham is a market town
A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village ...
, or join the
Reading to Taunton line at Westbury.
Trowbridge is about from junction 17 of 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 ...
at
Chippenham
Chippenham is a market town
A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village ...
. The
A361
The A361 is an A class road in southern England, which at is the longest three-digit A road in the UK.
History
When first designated in 1922, the A361 ran from Taunton (Somerset) to Banbury (Oxfordshire). It was later extended west through B ...
runs through the town, connecting it to
Swindon
Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon un ...
to the north-east and
Barnstaple
Barnstaple ( or ) is a river-port town in North Devon, England, at the River Taw's lowest crossing point before the Bristol Channel. From the 14th century, it was licensed to export wool and won great wealth. Later it imported Irish wool, bu ...
to the south-west, while the north–south
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 ...
primary route to
Poole
Poole () is a large coastal town and seaport in Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east. Since 1 April 2019, the local authority is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Counc ...
passes close to the town.
The nearest airport is
Bristol Airport
Bristol Airport , at Lulsgate Bottom, on the northern slopes of the Mendip Hills, in North Somerset, is the commercial airport serving the city of Bristol, England, and the surrounding area. It is southwest of Bristol city centre. Built on ...
, which is west.
Education
Primary schools in the town include Bellefield Primary School, The Grove Primary School, Holbrook Primary School, Oasis Academy Longmeadow, Paxcroft Primary School, The Mead Community Primary School, Newtown Primary School, Castle Mead School, St John's Catholic Primary School, Studley Green Primary School and Walwayne Court Primary School. Children may also attend schools in adjacent parishes including North Bradley CE Primary School, Hilperton CE Primary School and Staverton CE Primary School.
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) ...
s in Trowbridge are
the Clarendon Academy,
the John of Gaunt School and
St Augustine's Catholic College. All of the secondary schools also operate their own
sixth forms. Larkrise School is a
special school
Special education (known as special-needs education, aided education, exceptional education, alternative provision, exceptional student education, special ed., SDC, or SPED) is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates th ...
for children aged 3 to 19.
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 ...
has one of its four campuses in Trowbridge offering a range of vocational courses for school-leavers.
Shopping and entertainment
The town centre is compact, and the focus for shops is the ancient Fore Street; the more modern
Shires and Castle Place shopping centres provide a wide variety of outlets. The Shires Gateway, situated by the entrance to the Shires shopping centre car park, was opened in 2009.
The civic centre, opened in 2011 and next to the town's central park, is a conference and entertainment venue and is home to the town's information centre as well as Trowbridge Town Council. A nearby leisure development includes an
Odeon
Odeon may refer to:
Ancient Greek and Roman buildings
* Odeon (building), ancient Greek and Roman buildings built for singing exercises, musical shows and poetry competitions
* Odeon of Agrippa, Athens
* Odeon of Athens
* Odeon of Domitian, Rome
...
cinema and several food vendors (
Wagamama,
Nando's etc.).
The former Town Hall, a large Victorian building, is a performance and exhibition venue and is also used by community groups.
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 ...
the Arc Theatre is used by students and local groups. There is a concert hall at
Wiltshire Music Centre
Wiltshire Music Centre is a 300-seat concert hall in Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, England which has been described as having "the finest acoustic outside London". The Centre puts on over 150 concerts a year including critically acclaimed artists s ...
in neighbouring
Bradford-on-Avon.
Trowbridge is part of the historic
West Country Carnival circuit, and has also given its name to the
Trowbridge Village Pump Festival. The festival was held in the old stablehouse of the Lamb Inn public house on Mortimer Street in Trowbridge, and was founded by Alan Briars and Dave Newman. Currently the event, renamed Trowbridge Festival, takes place at Stowford Manor Farm between
Wingfield near Trowbridge and
Farleigh Hungerford in Somerset.
Notable people
Trowbridge was the birthplace of Sir
Isaac Pitman, developer of the
Pitman system of shorthand writing, who is remembered in the town through several memorial plaques.
Matthew Hutton (later archbishop of Canterbury) was the town's rector from 1726 to 1730. The poet
George Crabbe held the same position from 1814 until his death in 1832.
Mary Mortimer
Mary Mortimer (December 2, 1816 – July 14, 1877) was a British-born American educator. She served as principal of the Milwaukee Female College and other women's educational institutions.
When just a child, Mortimer and her family emigrated fro ...
, born in Trowbridge in 1816, became an American educator. Sir
William Cook William, Will, Willie, Bill or Billy Cook may refer to:
Sportsmen
* William Cook (billiards player), World Champion of English billiards in the 19th century
* W. T. Cook (William Thomas Cook, 1884–1970), American college sports coach
* Willi ...
, born in Trowbridge in 1905, was involved with the development of the British
nuclear bomb
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
at
Aldermaston in the 1950s, becoming the establishment's deputy director.
Sir William Roger Brown (1831–1902), a Trowbridge mill-owner, employed more than a thousand people and donated a school, almshouses, and the
Trowbridge Town Hall to the town.
David Stratton, the film critic, journalist, film historian and lecturer, television personality and producer, was born in Trowbridge in 1939.
He founded the Melksham and District Film Society before emigrating to Australia in 1963, where he was the Director of the
Sydney Film Festival for 17 years, as well as presenting the film review shows ''
The Movie Show'' on
SBS and
''At The Movies'' on the
ABC.
Nick Blackwell, professional boxer and former British middleweight champion, is from Trowbridge, as are footballer
Nathan Dyer
Nathan Antony Jonah Dyer (born 29 November 1987) is an English former professional footballer who played as a winger, spending most of his career at
Swansea City, where he made over 300 appearances. He started playing as a teenager at Southamp ...
(who played for
Leicester City in the 2015 season when they won the Premier League), disgraced snooker player
Stephen Lee, and
Daniel Talbot, winner of the relay at the
2017 World Athletics Championships
Seventeen or 17 may refer to:
*17 (number), the natural number following 16 and preceding 18
* one of the years 17 BC, AD 17, 1917, 2017
Literature
Magazines
* ''Seventeen'' (American magazine), an American magazine
* ''Seventeen'' (Japanese m ...
in a time of 37.47sec – the third fastest time in history.
The
Oliver Twins, who created the
Dizzy
Dizziness is an imprecise term that can refer to a sense of disorientation in space, vertigo, or lightheadedness. It can also refer to disequilibrium or a non-specific feeling, such as giddiness or foolishness.
Dizziness is a common medica ...
series of games amongst others, and in 1990 founded
Interactive Studios
Blitz Games Studios Limited was a British video game developer based in Leamington Spa. Founded in 1990 by the Oliver Twins, who ran the company until its closure in 2013, it is best known for producing games such as ''The Fairly OddParents'', ...
(later Blitz Games), grew up in Trowbridge. A building at
the Clarendon Academy is named after the brothers.
Town redevelopment
Since 2002, there have been plans in place to redevelop significant town centre sites. Trowbridge Community Area Future (TCAF) produced a Community Area Plan in 2004, to guide future development.
In the early 1990s the supermarket chain
Tesco moved from St Stephen's Place to a site adjoining the A361 on County Way. The former site remained dormant for a decade. The building was demolished but a pile of rubble, nicknamed 'Mount Crushmore' by local media, remained.
Legal & General acquired the land and construction of St Stephen's Place Leisure Park began in 2012. A seven-screen
Odeon
Odeon may refer to:
Ancient Greek and Roman buildings
* Odeon (building), ancient Greek and Roman buildings built for singing exercises, musical shows and poetry competitions
* Odeon of Agrippa, Athens
* Odeon of Athens
* Odeon of Domitian, Rome
...
cinema and
Nando's restaurant opened to the public in October 2013. A
Premier Inn,
Frankie and Benny's
Frankie & Benny's (now trading as Frankie's) is a chain of Italian-American-themed restaurants in the United Kingdom run by The Restaurant Group. , it had 90 outlets nationwide.
History
In 1924, at the age of 10, Frankie Giuliani left Sicily wit ...
and
Prezzo followed in 2014.
The former
Usher's brewery site has also undergone redevelopment over a number of years, with Newland Homes building town centre flats incorporating the frontage of the Usher's building.
In April 2009, building work started on one of the town's biggest brownfield sites, the former Usher's bottling plant. This was developed into a
Sainsbury's supermarket, a public square and housing.
Sport and leisure
The town 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,
Trowbridge Town F.C.
Trowbridge Town Football Club is a football club based in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England. They are currently champions of the and play at The Daykin Estates Ground, Woodmarsh, on the southern edge of the town.
History
A Trowbridge Town team ...
, who play at Woodmarsh to the south of the town, near
North Bradley
North Bradley is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, between Trowbridge and Westbury. The village is about south of Trowbridge town centre. The parish includes most of the village of Yarnbrook, and the hamlets of Brokerswood, Cu ...
.
Trowbridge Cricket Club play at
Trowbridge Cricket Club Ground which is also used by
Wiltshire County. The town's 1st XI play in the Wiltshire division of the
West of England Premier League.
Trowbridge Rugby Football Club, whose ground is at
Hilperton
Hilperton is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The village is separated by a few fields (the Hilperton Gap) from the northeastern edge of the town of Trowbridge and is approximately from Trowbridge town centre.
South of Hil ...
to the northeast of the town, play in
Southern Counties South
Counties 1 Southern South (formerly known as Southern Counties South) is a level 7 league in the Rugby Football Union South West Division, the rugby union governing body for South West England, part of the Rugby Football Union. When league rug ...
.
Trowbridge Sports Centre, on the same site as
The Clarendon Academy, has the town's only indoor swimming pool.
A
greyhound racing
Greyhound racing is an organized, competitive sport in which greyhounds are raced around a track. There are two forms of greyhound racing, track racing (normally around an oval track) and coursing; the latter is now banned in most countries. Tra ...
track was opened around the Frome Road ground used by Trowbridge Town F.C. from 3 July 1976 until July 1979. The racing was independent (not affiliated to the sports governing body the
National Greyhound Racing Club) and was known as a flapping track, which was the nickname given to independent tracks. A series of meetings were also held during 1953.
Town twinning
Trowbridge is
twinned
Twinning (making a twin of) may refer to:
* In biology and agriculture, producing two offspring (i.e., twins) at a time, or having a tendency to do so;
* Twin towns and sister cities, towns and cities involved in town twinning
* Twinning inst ...
with four towns:
Oujda
Oujda ( ar, وجدة; ber, ⵡⵓⵊⴷⴰ, Wujda) is a major Moroccan city in its northeast near the border with Algeria. Oujda is the capital city of the Oriental region of northeastern Morocco and has a population of about 558,000 people. It ...
, the area of Morocco where most of the town's immigrant population originate,
since 2006;
Leer
Leer may refer to:
* Leer, Lower Saxony, town in Germany
** Leer (district), containing the town in Lower Saxony, Germany
** Leer (Ostfriesland) railway station
* Leer, South Sudan, town in South Sudan
** Leer County, an administrative division of ...
in Germany, since 1989;
Charenton-le-Pont in France since 1996;
and
Elbląg
Elbląg (; german: Elbing, Old Prussian: ''Elbings'') is a city in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland, located in the eastern edge of the Żuławy region with 117,390 inhabitants, as of December 2021. It is the capital of Elbląg County.
...
in Poland, as 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 twinning, since 2000.
The town was the first in England to twin with an Arab Muslim country.
See also
*
List of places in Wiltshire
References
External links
*
Trowbridge Town CouncilTrowbridge history (Wiltshire Council)Out and about in Trowbridge– Ken Rogers, ''The Historian'', Summer 2010 pp.28–31
*
{{Authority control
County towns in England
Towns in Wiltshire
Civil parishes in Wiltshire