Longleat.

Two-thirds of Wiltshire lies on chalk, giving rise to rounded hills known as downland. The chalkland is well suited to growing crops, and most of the land is arable.

The chalk allows water to sink into it and so the number of surface streams is small compared to other parts of the country. The valleys without streams for most of the year are known as 'dry valleys'. Chalk is called a permeable rock, and the water that seeps down into it is used as a water supply.

The largest area of chalk downland in Wiltshire is misleadingly called the Salisbury Plain. It is well know for its army as training ranges. The highest point in the county is just to the north of Salisbury Plain, at 295m (968ft) above sea level.

The chalk downlands were important places of pilgrimage in Stone Age and Bronze Age times, the most famous are Stonehenge and Avebury.

The western part of Wiltshire lies on limestone, a hard rock used for building stone. It is hilly land, with deep valleys.

Through Iron Age times, many tribes lived in Wiltshire, and Iron Age forts were built on many hills. One of the most famous is at Old Sarum, just outside modern Salisbury.

Roman roads criss-cross Wiltshire, including the famous Fosse Way going SW to NE. Another Roman Road followed the Kennet valley. This was fine farming land and many Roman villas (country estates) were developed. In the grounds of Littlecote House, just NE of Hungerford but in Wiltshire, there is the best-preserved Roman villa in Britain.

Wiltshire became an important part of the Saxon kingdom, with the capital in neighbouring Winchester. In the 6th and 7th centuries Wiltshire was at the western edge of Saxon Britain – Wessex. Bradford on Avon has a famous Saxon church dating from this ancient time.

In 878 the Danes invaded the county and Wiltshire was part of the land fought over by Alfred the Great and King Guthram's army of Danes. After retreating west to the Somerset Levels, Alfred pushed back east again, and eventually it became an established part of the Saxon lands again.

As part of this expansion, and to prevent the Danes from pushing back, Alfred built some new fortified towns called burhs. Cricklade was an important one of these. It was a new town at the point where the Ermin Way Roman road  crossed the River Thames. Cricklade was a short distance along  Ermin Way  from Cirencester , where the Vikings made their base for a year. Malmesbury was another.

Following the Norman Conquest, everything changed in terms of landholding. One of the main features of Norman times was the way land was given out to the lords who helped William win England. He also gave large areas to the church. The lords had the responsibility of keeping control, and so they built forts across the county. The for built inside the Iron Age fort at Old Sarum later developed into a tiny cathedral city, all still inside the Iron Age ditch and bank.

The church – in the form of monasteries – were great farmers, and among other, the Cistercian monastery of Stanley exported wool to Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. One of the best surviving examples of a wool town that grew up around an important medieval abbey is Malmesbury.

At this time Salisbury grew as one of the main centres of England. Its famous cathedral spire, at 123m, is the tallest in the country. But it was not where the cathedral started out. Salisbury is also famous for having moved its cathedral – from Old Sarum on the downs, to close to the river where there was far more space.

In many ways, Wiltshire, and especially western Wiltshire is a Georgian county. Its traditional wool industries provided wealth to many towns, and in the early years of the Industrial Revolution – which were Georgian times – this allowed many fine houses, and even factories, to be built from creamy limestone.

While west Wiltshire took part in the early Industrial Revolution, most of the rest of the county did not. Eastern Wiltshire did not have suitable rivers for water power or coal for steam power. So when the Kennet and Avon Canal was built in 1800 it simply went through most of Wiltshire, as its job was to connect Bristol to London. Only Bradford benefited, as it was supplied from Bristol with coal for its mills. Otherwise, it was the products of the fields, such as wheat, that were carried by the canal, and this did not create many opportunities for new towns. But that would change with the development of the Great Western Railway.

Up to this time, Swindon has been a small agricultural village. It was founded by the Saxons and its name means "The hill on which swine (pigs) are reared". It was on the chalk downland, and close to many ancient prehistoric remains, but through Medieval times it did not develop. Its main activity was limestone quarrying. But this was to change dramatically with the coming of the Great Western Railway, turning Swindon from the smallest to the largest settlement in the county.

In 1835 parliament approved the construction of a railway between London and Bristol. The long stretch of railway between Reading and Bristol was a problem. There had to be some kind of workshop and engineering facility half way. The Great Western Railway was originally planned to cut through Savernake Forest near Marlborough. However, the Marquess who owned the land objected.

With the Railway needing to run near to a canal at this point, and as it was cheaper to transport coal for trains along canals at this time, Swindon was the next best choice for the works.

The engineering works grew to cover 1.3 sq km, and its need for workers pulled people into a "New Swindon" to the north of the old town. Ten thousand people came to live there in the next half century. By the end the 19th century, Swindon was one of the largest industrial complexes in the country. Its main locomotive workshop was one of the largest covered areas in the world.

But the growth of Swindon after the Second World War was due to something completely different and would set Swindon apart from the rest of the county even more. It was to be part of the relocation of people (overspill) from London.

New estates appeared throughout the 1950s and at the same time incentives to build new factories away from London meant that a factory to produce sheet metal was built. At first the sheet metal was used for railways, but then it switched to cars (Rover).

Gradually the work available in railway repair faded away and was replaced by companies connected to distributing goods. W H Smith was one of the first to use the location of Swindon for this. Today there are many more, especially after the M4 motorway was built in the early 1970s to provide quick and easy access from the region into London.

The railway works finally closed in 1986 but by then Swindon was a centre for making cars and other high tech equipment. This has made Swindon by far the biggest and most industrial town in Wiltshire.

Wiltshire in 1611 by John Speed.

© Curriculum Visions 2021