Devizes

Devizes is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The town is about 10 mi southeast of Chippenham and about 11 mi east of Trowbridge.

Devizes serves as a centre for banks, solicitors and shops, with a large open market place where a market is held once a week. It has over five hundred listed buildings, a large open Green at the heart of the town, some notable churches and a Town Hall. Its development has grown around the 11th century Norman castle.

History
Devizes Castle was built by Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury in 1080 but the town is not mentioned in the Domesday Book. Because the castle was located on the boundaries of the manors of Rowde, Bishops Cannings and Potterne it became known as the castrum ad divisas or "the castle at the boundaries", hence the name Devizes. The first castle on the site was of the motte and bailey form and was probably constructed from wood and earth, but this burnt down in 1113. A new castle was built in stone by Roger of Salisbury, Osmund's successor. Devizes received its first charter in 1141 permitting regular markets. The castle changed hands several times during the civil war between Stephen of Blois and Matilda in the 12th century. The castle held important prisoners, including Robert Curthose, eldest son of William the Conqueror in 1106. Robert was kept in Devizes for twenty years, before being moved to Cardiff Castle.

The town has had churches since the early 11th century. The town has four Church of England parish churches. The oldest is dedicated to St John the Baptist and was founded in 1130. Pevsner describes it as the second best Norman church in Wiltshire, after Malmesbury Abbey. It was the church intimately associated with the early Castle and its garrison. It is now a middle-of-the-road Church of England Church with a notable interior. The three others are dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, associated in its early days with the growing town of Devizes and now in a partnership with St John's, St James, part of Bishops Cannings until the end of the 19th century and now a low church, evangelical Anglican church, and St Peter's, originally a broad church for the canal side of the town but now a conservative, traditionalist, Anglo-Catholic church. A Roman Catholic church dedicated to Our Lady the Immaculate Conception was built in 1865 and has a Church primary school associated with and adjacent to it.

Devizes has a record of early dissenting preachers and churches. One church St. Mary's Chapel or the Congregational Church was founded on Northgate Street in 1776. It had two early charismatic preachers, the Reverend Robert Sloper and then the Reverend Richard Elliot, the anti-slavery campaigner. They regularly had congregations of over 500 in the early 19th century. This Church has now been converted into one house and six apartments, and the congregation has united with the Methodist church to form St Andrew's United Church, on Long Street. There are two Baptist churches in the town, a Friends meeting house, and an Assemblies of God church.

During the 12th and 13th centuries the town of Devizes developed outside the castle with craftsmen and traders setting up businesses to serve the residents of the castle. The first known market in Devizes was in 1228. The original market was in the large space outside St Mary’s Church, rather than in the current Market Place, which at that time would have been within the castle’s outer bailey. The chief products in the 16th and early 17th centuries were wheat, wool and yarn, with cheese, bacon and butter increasing in importance later.

In 1643 during the English Civil War Parliamentary forces under Sir William Waller besieged Royalist forces under Sir Ralph Hopton in Devizes. However the siege was lifted by a relief force from Oxford under Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester and Waller's forces were almost totally destroyed at the Battle of Roundway Down. Devizes remained under Royalist control until 1645 when Oliver Cromwell attacked and forced the Royalists to surrender. The castle was destroyed in 1648 on the orders of Parliament, a process known as slighting, and today little remains of it.

From the 16th century Devizes became known for its textiles, initially white woollen broadcloth but later the manufacture of serge, drugget, felt and cassimere or Zephyr cloth. In the early 18th century Devizes held the largest corn market in the West Country of England and also traded hops, cattle, horses and various cloth. Before the Corn Exchange was built in 1857 the trade in wheat and barley was conducted in the open, with sacks piled around the market cross. Today's cross displays the salutary tale of Ruth Pierce, accused of cheating some buyers at the market: On Thursday, 25th January, 1753, Ruth Pierce of Potterne in this county, agreed with three other women to buy a sack of wheat in the Market, each paying her due proportion towards the same. One of these women, in collecting the several quotas of money, discovered a deficiency, and demanded of Ruth Pierce the sum which was wanting to make good the amount. Ruth Pierce protested that she had paid her share, and said: ' She wished she might drop down dead if she had not.'She rashly repeated this awful wish, when to the consternation and terror of the surrounding multitude, she instantly fell down and expired, having the money con&fnof;ealed in her hand. The coroner, John Clare, recorded that she had been "struck down dead by the vengeance of God."

Wool merchants were able to build prosperous town houses in St. John's and Long Street and around the market place. From the end of the 18th century the manufacture of textiles declined, but other trades in the town included clock making, a bell foundry, booksellers, milliners, grocers and silversmiths. In the 18th century brewing, curing of tobacco and snuff-making were established in the town. Brewing still survives in the Wadworth Brewery, but the tobacco and snuff trades have now died out.

A new Devizes Prison, or "County House of Corrections", was opened in 1817. This replaced the Old Bridewell that had been built in Bridewell Street in 1579. The new prison was built of brick and stone, it was designed by Richard Ingleman as a two-storey polygon surrounding a central governor's house and reflected the panopticon principle. It had an operational life of more than ninety years and was closed in 1922. It stood on the north side of the Castle's Old Park, across the Kennet and Avon canal by way of a bridge still called the Prison Bridge. The House of Corrections was demolished by 1928.

Devizes has more than 500 listed buildings - a very large number for such a small town. The Trust for Devizes has a Town Map which provides a guide to many of them. Brownston House is a grade 1 listed building on New Park Street. It has been a home to four MPs, two Army Generals from 1700 and a young ladies' boarding school from 1859 to 1901. It was conserved in 1976 by Wiltshire Council and is now a business head office. Heathcote House on the Green in Devizes is a grade 2 * listed building. Its history is associated with the church and education. No 8 Long Street was the house of the clothier Samuel Powell, as well as Admiral Joseph Needham Tayler, one of the inspirations for C.S. Forester's fictional hero Horatio Hornblower. Southbroom House close to the Green was built in 1501. It burnt down and was rebuilt by the Eyles family in 1772. Southbroom House is now at the heart of Devizes School, a large comprehensive School in Devizes.

The town was a coaching stop for Mail coaches and stagecoaches on the road from London to Bristol, as evidenced by the number of coaching inns in the town, especially the Bear Hotel.



The Kennet and Avon Canal was built under the direction of John Rennie between 1794 and 1810 to link Devizes with Bristol and London. Near Devizes the canal rises 237 ft by means of 29 locks, 16 of them in a straight line at Caen Hill. In the early days the canal was lit by gas lights at night, enabling boats to negotiate the locks at any time of day. The canal fell into disuse after the coming of the railway in the 1850s, but has been restored for leisure uses. There is a canal museum at Devizes Wharf.

In 1853 the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society was founded in the town, and later opened a museum in Long Street. Now called the Wiltshire Heritage Museum, the collections are designated as being of national significance. The Museum has Bronze Age collections and include finds from the World Heritage Site of Stonehenge and Avebury, including West Kennet Long Barrow and Bush Barrow.

In 1857 the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway opened Devizes railway station and the branch line from Holt Junction, on its line between Chippenham and Weymouth. In 1862 the Great Western Railway extended its Reading to Hungerford line to meet this line, providing a direct line between Paddington and the West Country through Devizes. However the building of a by-pass line through Westbury removed most traffic from the Devizes line and British Rail closed it in 1966. Today the nearest railway stations are at Chippenham and Pewsey.

The town is experiencing rapid housing growth, especially on its eastern fringe towards Andover.

In 1999, a hill figure of a white horse was cut onto a hill close to Roundway Hill. Known as 'The Devizes White Horse', it replaced an earlier one which was cut in 1845.

Governance
Devizes is a civil parish with an elected town council. It is in the area of Wiltshire Council, on which all three elected members for Devizes belong to a local political party, the Devizes Guardians, led by Nigel Carter. The two councils are responsible for different aspects of local government. Prior to the Local Government Act taking effect in 1974, Devizes was a municipal borough. It then became the administrative centre for the much larger Kennet District Council until the district was abolished as part of the 2009 structural changes to local government in England.

Devizes is part of the Devizes constituency, represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. The current MP is Claire Perry of the Conservatives. Devizes is also part of the South West England constituency of the European Parliament which elects six MEPs using the d'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation.

Economy


Devizes has a small and steady economy mainly made up of manufacturing, retail, services and a small amount of tourism. Devizes has always traditionally been a market town, the market square still exists today; markets are held every Thursday. The town attracts some tourism due to its proximity to Avebury, Stonehenge and Salisbury. Local attractions include Caen Hill Locks, Kennet and Avon Canal, local crop circles, Devizes White Horse Wadworths Brewery, and the shire horses from Wadworths Brewery. Wadworths allow a small number of tourists to tour their brewery every year, an event which remains ever more popular. The manufacturing industry also includes Wadworth Brewery which produces real ale for Wiltshire and the West Country.

Rail
Devizes railway station was opened in 1857 and initially served as a main stop on the line that was named after the town: the Devizes Branch Line. In 1862 the line was extended to create a direct link from London to the West Country. The improvement saw increased traffic for Devizes until 1900 when a faster line through Westbury was built, and the Devizes was returned to a local branch line status. The station and line remained open until 1966 when its was closed under British Rail's modernisation plans. The station was destroyed in 1970. Pans Lane Halt railway station in the south east of Devizes, in the suburb of Wick, opened in 1929. It suffered the same fate as Devizes station, and was closed in 1964 and destroyed in 1970.

Bus
Due to being in the centre of Wiltshire, Devizes has a many connections to surrounding towns including Swindon, Salisbury, Bath and Chippenham. Devizes also has local buses provided by Bodmans Coaches that provide smaller buses to all parts of Devizes.

Road
Devizes is a fair distance from any motorways but many main roads pass through the town, including the A360, A361 and A342.

Water
Devizes is famous for its canal waterway which was restored between 1970 and 2003, the Kennet and Avon Canal runs through Devizes and the Caen Hill Locks are located in Devizes. The Kennet and Avon Trust run a museum at The Wharf in Devizes. Devizes is the starting point to the Devizes to Westminster International Canoe Marathon.

Education
Devizes has one comprehensive school, Devizes School, which has specialist Sports College status. It is situated in the grounds of the Southbroom House estate and the grade 2 listed house forms its administrative core.

The town's primary schools include Nursteed, Southbroom, Wansdyke, St Peter's and St Joseph's Roman Catholic School.

The town has a significant history of private schools. Long Street has had a substantial number of private schools, beginning in the 18th century and proliferating in the 19th. Brownston House, a Grade I listed building, was the home of Miss Bidwell's Ladies Boarding School from 1859 to 1901. A private Devizes Grammar School was established in Heathcote House in 1874 by the Reverend S.S. Pugh and carried on until 1919 by his twin sons.

Police
Devizes is policed by Wiltshire Police, who also hold their headquarters in Devizes. Policing of Devizes was the responsibility of the City of Salisbury Police until Wiltshire Constabulary was founded in 1839 under the County Police Act 1839, it was the first county police force founded in the country, hence its motto 'Primus et Optimus'- The First and The Best. Due to the location of their headquarters and a station in Devizes, Wiltshire Police is one of the largest employers in the town. It employs people for the Wiltshire Police Helicopter/Ambulance, police training grounds, Wiltshire Emergency Services building, all the administrative roles for headquarters and officers for the station.

Ambulance
Healthcare and Ambulance response services in Devizes are provided NHS Wiltshire, part of NHS South West and Great Western Ambulance Service respectively. They have an ambulance station in Devizes, and their emergency communications centre is based in the Wiltshire Emergency Services building.

Fire and Rescue
Fire and Rescue Services in Devizes are provided Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service, who have a fire station with a retained staff. They also have the counties training centre on the Hopton Estate and their emergency communications centre is based in the Wiltshire Emergency Services building.

Location
Position:.

Devizes lies almost 2° west of the Greenwich Meridian, with the two-degree line running through the western edge of the town, just a few hundred yards west of the castle. As this is the centre of the east-west extent of the Ordnance Survey mapping grid, True North and Grid north align exactly in Devizes.

Suburbs
Hartmoor, Jump Farm, Nursteed, Roundway, Southbroom, Wick.

Sport
Each year at Easter the 125 mile Devizes to Westminster International Canoe Marathon is held on a course between Devizes and Westminster in London. First contested in 1948, the event was one of the first to be included on the international race calendar when marathon canoeing gained worldwide popularity in the 1960s.

The local football (soccer) team is Devizes Town F.C. who play in the Western Football League.

The local rugby union team is Devizes R.F.C. founded in 1876, known as the 'Saddlebacks' (after the Wessex Saddleback) who play in the Southern Counties (South) League.

Devizes Cricket Club was founded in 1850.

Devizes Hockey Club plays in the Premier 1 Hockey League. Under the chairmanship of Toby Gilliat Brown - grandson of Sidney Gilliat - the club has played its way up the hockey league winning successive promotions over nine seasons.

Devizes Netball Club was founded in 1979. It has six teams in the Moonraker Netball Leagues. The A Team was champion of the Premier Division in 2007-08.

Moonrakers Athletics Club is based at Devizes School. It provides coaching in throws, sprints, long distance and jumps.

Twin towns

 * 🇫🇷 Mayenne, France
 * 🇳🇿 Oamaru, New Zealand
 * 🇫🇮 Tornio, Finland
 * 🇩🇪 Waiblingen, Germany
 * 🇭🇺 Baja, Hungary
 * 🇮🇹 Jesi, Italy