All the best towns come from Wiltshire!

      Why is it Wiltshire?

The name Wiltshire was derived from our former county town of Wilton. It was first recorded as Wiltunscir in an 870AD document (they weren't great at spelling in those days). It may therefore be regarded as a shortened form of Wiltonshire. It isn't clear when it was shortened from Wilton to Wilts.

The town of Wilton apparently acquired its name from the river on which it stands, the Wylye, which itself is derived from a Celtic word meaning tricky, a reference to its habit of unpredictable flooding.

Local Geography

Most of the county consists of chalk hills, which on a map mark a broad strip across the county from north east to south west, with lower lying land to the north west and south east. The higher hills are in the north, with a steep escarpment overlooking the Vale of the White Horse and an infant Thames river in the very north of the county. Further west the escarpment, still high and steep, looks over the somewhat broader lush valley of the Bristol Avon. As you head south, the altitude drops across the Salisbury Plain. Tributaries cut through the chalk hills to the north and west of Salisbury. From Salisbury, the now combined river flows, as the Salisbury or Hampshire Avon, to the sea at Christchurch.

The high land of the Salisbury Plain is divided from the even higher Marlborough Downs to its north by the Vale of Pewsey, which runs roughly west to east across the county to merge with the valley of the River Kennet as it continues eastwards.

Wiltshire is larger than the average English county in area, but smaller than average in population. This is a direct result of its largely agricultural based industry and the inhospitable nature of the chalk hills. It has been referred to as the county of chalk and cheese, the latter being a reference to the traditional dairy farming of the lower lying areas. The uplands have been traditionally used for sheep farming, the basis of the county's  cloth based prosperity in years gone by. From the early times, wool was one of the main exports, following which manufacture of woollen goods became the staple industry on which many of Wiltshire's towns became prosperous, especially those in the west such as Trowbridge, Devizes, Melksham, Bradford-on-Avon and  Westbury.

Because chalk is porous, water has always been a scarce commodity in Wiltshire. All the main towns are in the lowland areas, mostly in the band round the north and west, with Salisbury and Wilton in the smaller piece of lowland in the south east corner. Villages are found in lines along the fringes of the hills where springs emerge at the junction of the porous chalk and the lower lying impermeable clays, and along the rivers that cut through the hills. The hilltops are mostly uninhabited.

To zoom to Westbury, click on the map of Wiltshire above.