Wiltshire is widely regarded as the county of archaeology, of ancient history. It boasts the giant stone circles of Avebury and Stonehenge and the greatest concentration of burial mounds in the British Isles. But it is also the county of Salisbury, successor to the ancient centres on the Plain and the most successful of all medieval new towns, of the famous woollen industry of West Wiltshire and of Swindon, the first great railway town. Now it is home to the new industries and to the armed services, though agriculture is still the predominant land use.
It is perhaps the oldest surviving English county, for it was a division of the early West Saxon kingdom at the only one to survive, intact, the brutal reorganisation of local government of 1974. Aubrey called it the county of Chalk and Cheese, contrasting the wide chalk uplands with the heavy, pastoral plain. Leland, called in the ‘mediterranean’ county because of its unique position between the ‘Home’ and the coastal counties. The Domesday scholar, Maitland, described it as the county of small boroughs. It is still all these things today; the greatest change has been in Wiltshire’s relative importance. From being one of the most populated counties, it has become of the least; with only one large town, Swindon, a small, medieval market town ‘exploded’ first by Brunel and then by the former London County Council’s depopulation policy.
This book is the first comprehensive account of the social and economic changes which have affected the county over 6000 years. In chapters on each period of the county’s history, events and personalities are incorporated into a vivid text, splendidly illustrated with a wealth of drawings, photographs and maps, specially commissioned to illustrate the main themes of a book which will strengthen Wiltshire’s pride in its past. It also provides an essential background for further studies while meeting a long-felt need for a readable account of Wiltshire’s evolution and heritage for the general reader, whether resident or visitor.
Contents:
List of Maps
List of Figures
List of Plates
Introduction
1. Ancient Wiltshire
2. Romano-British Wiltshire
3. Anglo-Saxon Wiltshire
4. Under Norman Kings
5. The Late Middle Ages
6. Tudor Wiltshire
7. Stuart Wiltshire: Discord and Rebellion
8. Georgian Wiltshire
9. The Agricultural ‘Revelation’ and the New Poor Law
10. More Revolutions
11. Modern Wiltshire
For Further Study
Index
