Warminster
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Warminster | |
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| Population | 20,100 |
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| OS grid reference | |
| District | West Wiltshire |
| Shire county | Wiltshire |
| Region | South West |
| Constituent country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Warminster |
| Postcode district | BA12 |
| Dial code | 01985 |
| Police | Wiltshire |
| Fire | Wiltshire |
| Ambulance | Great Western |
| UK Parliament | Westbury |
| European Parliament | South West England |
| List of places: UK • England • Wiltshire | |
Warminster is a town in western Wiltshire, England, by-passed by the A36, and near Frome and Westbury. It has a population of about 20,000 and is part of the West Wiltshire district.
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The town was first settled in the Saxon period, though there are the remains of numerous earlier settlements nearby, including the Iron Age hill fort Battlebury Camp and Cley Hill, the latter a site operated by the National Trust.
In the North-west of the Diocese of Salisbury Warminster is a minster town in Rural Wiltshire. The three Parish Churches in the town are all in the Episcopal Area of Ramsbury served by the Bishop of Ramsbury (Anglican) currently the Rt Rev'd Stephen Conway.
The town's prosperity following the growth of the wool trade in the Late Middle Ages caused the erection of many magnificent structures, including the Minster Church of Saint Denys, in a yew grove sacred from pre-Christian times, and including an organ originally destined for the then under-construction Salisbury Cathedral.
In the 1960s and early 1970s Cradle Hill became famous as the centre of a flap surrounding UFOs and crop circles with at least one author claiming that as many as 5000 UFOs had been witnessed in the area.
Warminster has strong military connections. It is the home of the Land Warfare Centre — formerly the Army's School of Infantry — and abuts the Salisbury Plain Training area (SPTA), which is large enough to exercise a Battlegroup and which is dotted with Royal Artillery live-firing ranges. The Small Arms School Corps and Headquarters Infantry are also based in the town.
During a training exercise in WW2, the future Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie MC crashed his tank into a house.
The town is served by Warminster railway station.
- Shuttlewood, Arthur (1978). The Flying Saucerers. London: Sphere Books.
- Rogers, Ken (1994). The Warminster Triangle. Warminster: Coates and Parkers. ISBN 0-9531753-3-2.
- Dewey, Steve and John Ries (2006). In Alien Heat: The Warminster Mystery Revisited. San Antonio, Texas, US: Anomalist Books. ISBN 1-933665-02-5.