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Wiltshire
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d>Ceremonial & (smaller) Non-metropolitan county | | Region: | South West England |
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Encyclopedia
Wiltshire ( or ; also abbreviated Wilts) is a ceremonial county in the south west of England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers 858,931 acres (3,476 kmē). The ancient county town was Wilton, but since 1930 has been Trowbridge, where Wiltshire County Council is based.
Wiltshire is characterised by its high downland and wide valleys. Salisbury Plain is famous as the location of the Stonehenge stone circle and other ancient landmarks and as the main training area in the UK of the British Army.
The city of Salisbury is notable for its medieval cathedral, and important country houses open to the public include Longleat, near Warminster, and the National Trust's Stourhead, near Mere.
Etymology
The county, in the 9th century written as Wiltunscir, later Wiltonshire, is named after the former county town of Wilton, itself named after the river Wylye, one of eight rivers which drain the county.
History
Wiltshire is notable for its pre-Roman archaeology. The Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age people that occupied southern Britain built settlements on the hills and downland that cover Wiltshire. Stonehenge and Avebury are perhaps the most famous Neolithic sites in the UK.
In the 6th and 7th centuries Wiltshire was at the western edge of Saxon Britain, as Cranborne Chase and the Somerset Levels prevented the advance to the west. The Battle of Bedwyn was fought in 675 between Escuin, a Wessex nobleman who had seized the throne of Queen Saxburga, and King Wulfhere of Mercia. In 878 the Danes invaded the county, and, following the Norman Conquest, large areas of the country came into the possession of the crown and the church.
At the time of the Domesday Survey the industry of Wiltshire was largely agricultural; 390 mills are mentioned, and vineyards at Tollard and Lacock. In the succeeding centuries sheep-farming was vigorously pursued, and the Cistercian monasteries of Kingswood and Stanley exported wool to the Florentine and Flemish markets in the 13th and 14th centuries.
In the 17th century English Civil War Wiltshire was largely Parliamentarian. The Battle of Roundway Down, a decisive Royalist victory, was fought near Devizes.
Around 1800 the Kennet and Avon Canal was built through Wiltshire providing a route for transporting cargoes from Bristol to London until the development of the Great Western Railway.
Information on the 261 civil parishes of Wiltshire is available on the website, run by the and services of . This site includes maps, demographic data, historic and modern pictures and short histories.
Tale of Moonrakers
The local nickname for Wiltshire natives is moonrakers. This originated from a story of smugglers who managed to foil the local Excise men by hiding their alcohol, possibly French brandy in barrels or kegs, in a village pond. When confronted by the excise men they raked the surface in order to conceal the submerged contraband with ripples, and claimed that they were trying to rake in a large round cheese visible in the pond, really a reflection of the full moon. The officials took them for simple yokels or mad and left them alone, allowing them to continue with their illegal activities. Many villages claim the tale for their own village pond, but the story is most commonly linked The Crammer in Devizes.
Geology, landscape and ecology
Wiltshire is a mostly rural landscape, two thirds of the county lying on chalk, a kind of soft, white, porous limestone that is resistant to erosion, giving it a high chalk downland landscape. This chalk is part of the Southern England Chalk Formation that underlies large areas of Southern England from the Dorset Downs in the west to Dover in the east. The largest area of chalk in Wiltshire is Salisbury Plain, a semi-wilderness used mainly for arable agriculture and by the British Army as training ranges. The highest point of the county is the Tan Hill-Milk Hill ridge in the Pewsey Vale on the northern edge of Salisbury Plain, at 294m (965 ft) above sea level.
The chalk runs northeast into West Berkshire in the Marlborough Downs ridge, and southwest into Dorset as Cranborne Chase. Cranborne Chase, which straddles the border, has, like Salisbury Plain, yielded much Stone Age and Bronze Age archaeology. The Marlborough Downs are part of the North Wessex Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty), a 1,730 kmē (668 square mile) conservation area.
In the north west of the county, on the border with Gloucestershire and Bath and North East Somerset, the underlying rock is the resistant oolite limestone of the Cotswolds. Part of the Cotswolds AONB is also in Wiltshire.
Between the areas of chalk and limestone downland are clay valleys and vales. The largest of these vales is the Avon Vale. The Avon cuts diagonally through the north of the county, flowing through Bradford on Avon and into Bath and Bristol. The Vale of Pewsey has been cut through the chalk into Greensand and Oxford Clay in the centre of the county. In the south west of the county is the Vale of Wardour. The south east of the county lies on the sandy soils of the New Forest.
Chalk is a porous rock so the chalk hills have little surface water. The main settlements in the county are therefore situated at wet points. Notably, Salisbury is situated between the chalk of Salisbury Plain and marshy flood plains.
Climate
As with the rest of South West England, Wiltshire has a temperate climate which is generally wetter and milder than the rest of England. The annual mean temperature is and shows a seasonal and a diurnal variation. January is the coldest month with mean minimum temperatures between 1 and 2 °C (33-35°F). July and August are the warmest months in the region with mean daily maxima around .
The number of hours of bright sunshine is controlled by the length of day and by cloudiness. In general December is the dullest month, June the sunniest. The south-west of England has a favoured location with respect to the Azores high pressure when it extends its influence north-eastwards towards the UK, particularly in summer. Convective cloud often forms inland, especially near hills, and acts to reduce sunshine amounts. The average annual sunshine totals 1600 hours.
Rainfall tends to be associated with Atlantic depressions or with convection. The Atlantic depressions are more vigorous in autumn and winter and most of the rain which falls in those seasons in the south-west is from this source. In summer, convection caused by solar surface heating sometimes forms shower clouds and a large proportion of rainfall falls from showers and thunderstorms at this time of year. Average rainfall is around . About 8–15 days of snowfall is typical. November to March have the highest mean wind speeds, with June to August having the lightest winds. The predominant wind direction is from the South West.
Economy
This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added (GVA) of Wiltshire at current basic prices with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.
| Year | Regional gross value added | Agriculture | Industry | Services |
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| 1995 | 4,354 | 217 | 1,393 | 2,743 | | 2000 | 5,362 | 148 | 1,566 | 3,647 | | 2003 | 6,463 | 164 | 1,548 | 4,751 |
The Wiltshire economy benefits from the "M4 corridor effect", which attracts business, and the attractiveness of its countryside, towns and villages. The northern part of the county is richer than the southern part, particularly since Swindon is home to national and international corporations such as Honda, Intel, Motorola, Alcatel-Lucent, Patheon, Catalent (formerly know as Cardinal Health), Becton-Dickinson WHSmith, Early Learning Centre and Nationwide, with Dyson (company) located in nearby Malmesbury. Wiltshires employment structure is distinctive in having a significantly higher number of people in various forms of manufacturing (especially electrical equipment and apparatus, food products, and beverages, furniture, rubber, pharmaceuticals, and plastic goods) than the national average.
In addition, there is higher than average employment in public administration and defence, due to the military establishments around the county, particularly around Amesbury and Corsham. Wiltshire is also distinctive in having a high proportion of its working age population who are economically active (86.6% in 1999-2000), and its low unemployment rates. The Gross domestic product (GDP) level in Wiltshire did not reach the UK average in 1998, and was only marginally above the rate for South West England.
Education
Wiltshire has a mostly comprehensive education system with two grammar schools and three secondary modern schools in the Salisbury district. There are 29 state and 13 independent secondary schools - notably Marlborough College, not including the three further education colleges - Wiltshire College, Salisbury College and Swindon College, all of which provide limited levels of higher education. There is also a sixth form college (New College) in Swindon. All schools in West Wiltshire have sixth forms, and only two in North Wiltshire do not. For the other two districts, it is half-and-half.
North Wiltshire has the largest school population, with Kennet the smallest. West and North Wiltshire have school year sizes around 200-250, whereas the other districts have school year sizes around 120.
As yet there are no universities within Wiltshire, although both the University of Bath and Oxford Brookes University both maintain minor campuses in Swindon. Outline plans for a possible University of Swindon/Wiltshire campus were announced in November 2008, although these are still at the drawing-board stage.
Demographics
The county registered a population of 613,024 in the Census 2001. The population density is low at . In 1991 there were 230,109 dwellings in the county. In 1991 98.3% of the population was indigenous and 17.9% of the population were over 65.
Population of Wiltshire:
- 1801: 185,107
- 1851: 254,221
- 1901: 271,394
- 1951: 386,692
- 2001: 613,024
Politics and administration
Wiltshire is a shire county, mostly the responsibility of Wiltshire County Council. This area is divided into four local government districts, Kennet, North Wiltshire, Salisbury and West Wiltshire. Swindon Borough is a unitary authority that is part of the county for various functions but is outside the County Council's area of responsibility . The Department for Communities and Local Government announced on 25 July 2007 that Wiltshire County Council would become a unitary authority, replacing the four district councils of West Wiltshire, North Wiltshire, Kennet and Salisbury as part of the 2009 structural changes to local government in England, however Salisbury will have a city council by April 1 2009.
Following the elections in May 2005, and subsequent by-elections, 30 Conservatives, 14 Liberal Democrats, three Labour members and two Independents are members of Wiltshire County Council. Conservatives hold most of the more rural areas while the Liberal Democrats hold several towns, including Trowbridge, Chippenham and Bradford-on-Avon. The county divisions of Westbury Ham with Dilton and 'Holt and Paxcroft' elected the two Independents, while the three Labour members hold their seats in the towns of Salisbury, Melksham and Devizes.
The county council has been led by Jane Scott (Conservative) since 2003.
At the parliamentary level Wiltshire is represented entirely by Conservative Members of Parliament, except for the predominantly urban area of Swindon which is represented by Labour. Since 1992 Devizes has been represented by the front bench Conservative Michael Ancram.
Sport
The county is represented in the Football League by Swindon Town, who play at the County Ground near Swindon town centre. They joined the Football League on the creation of the Third Division in 1920, and have remained in the league ever since. Their most notable achievements include winning the Football League Cup in 1969, two successive promotions in 1986 and 1987 (taking them from the Fourth Division to the Second), promotion to the Premier League as Division One playoff winners in 1993 (as inaugural members), the Division Two title in 1996, and their recent promotion to League One in 2007 after finishing third in League Two.
Principal settlements
Wiltshire has twenty-one towns and one city
*Melksham
A list of settlements is at List of places in Wiltshire.
Places of interest
Places of interest in Wiltshire include:
Areas of countryside in Wiltshire are:
Routes through Wiltshire include:
See also
- Category:Grade I listed buildings in Wiltshire
External links
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