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“A quiet, dignified, ancient stone-built town, Warminster is attractively situated in the Upper Wylye Valley on the verge of Salisbury Plain, with a background of brooding hills dotted with lonely relics of prehistoric man - a town that weaves its own delightful spell on everyone that visits it,” was how a County Guide described Warminster about 50 years ago. Thankfully, much of the sentiment implied still rings true today, although the town has grown in size, the population rising from 5,547 people in 1901 to over 23,000 residents at the present time. Despite the many changes of recent years - new residents, new housing, new businesses, and new ideas - Warminster retains its dignity and continues to weave its spell.

The County Guide, aforementioned, went on to say of Warminster’s growing residential popularity: “Its beautiful environment in a diversified country of rich meadows, smiling orchards and valleys, and rolling downs; its healthy, invigorating climate; its position as the shopping centre of a wide rural area; and its facilities for every form of outdoor sport and indoor amusement - all these form the basis of Warminster’s popularity as a health and residential resort.” Fortunately, this also still rings true.

This guide focuses attention on what Warminster has to offer today and how its residents are now spending their time at work and play. There are a large number of local clubs and societies, providing opportunities and events for the community. The Town Council, the shopkeepers and the traders are striving to better the commercial side of things, and a glance at the letters’ page of the weekly Warminster Journal newspaper shows how committed and caring the folk of Warminster are when it comes to protecting what is good in the town, but also that they are not averse to accepting and promoting progressive developments when those challenges are for the greater benefit of the people, the town’s trade, the environment, and for the generations that will inherit the town’s legacy.

With so much happening in Warminster at the moment I hope you, the readers, particularly if you are a visitor, will correctly gauge the pleasantness of the residents and agree how lucky they are to live in a lovely little town “with a background o brooding hills” and the continued promise of “facilities for every form of outdoor sport and indoor amusement.” Hopefully this guide will whet the appetite for one and all to sample the varied delights - whether at work here or strolling out in the fresh air on the downs, relaxing down by the river, shopping in the safe environment of the town, enjoying sport, or idling away the leisure hours with family and friends in Warminster.

Danny Howell (Warminster’s Resident Historian).