5 June: Wiltshire Day

Today is Wiltshire Day. 10 things you might not know about the county of Wiltshire.

1. The county is named after Wilton, the former capital of Wessex, which used to be the county town. Today the county town is Trowbridge. Wiltshire’s largest town is Swindon. Wiltshire is landlocked and borders Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire.
2. A local nickname for Wiltshire residents is “Moonrakers”. This is the result of a tale of smugglers who used to hide their contraband in a village pond. They were almost caught by the excise men one night, but they thought quickly and began disturbing the surface of the pond with rakes to hide what was in there. When challenged, they said they were trying to rake in a large cheese from the pond, actually a reflection of the full Moon. The excise men took them for stupid yokels and left them alone. It’s not known which village pond it was – many Wiltshire villages claim it was theirs although the story is often linked with The Crammer in Devizes. The story is also the origin of the name of a pub in Swindon.
3. Famous “Moonrakers” include actresses Diana Dors and Billie Piper, model Melinda Messenger, and Nick Hewer, former advisor to Alan Sugar on The Apprentice and now presenter of Countdown. In the music word, Gilbert O’Sullivan, Rick Davies, founder and member of the band Supertramp, Justin Hayward, lead guitarist, vocalist and composer for The Moody Blues and the rock band XTC.
4. Wiltshire has an unofficial county song. It’s called The Vly be on the Turmut and is sung in local dialect. It is traditional for the winner of parliamentary elections in Salisbury to sing it from the balcony of the White Hart Hotel in St John's Street.
5. The county flag was adopted in 2009. It was designed by Helen Pocock, a graphic designer. It consists of stripes of Green and White which represent the grass of the downs and the underlying chalk. The colours also represent hope, joy and safety (green) and peace (white). In the middle of the flag is a bird, the great bustard (Otis tarda) which was extinct in England since 1832, but has been re-introduced and there is now a breeding programme on Salisbury Plain. The bird stands in a green circle with a green and white border – the border represents the two great stone circles in Wiltshire, Stonehenge and Avebury.
6. Wiltshire has been a filming location on many occasions. Even though it’s landlocked, it was a location for Poldark – the market town of Corsham stood in for Truro. Castle Combe was the location for the village scenes in the 1968 Doctor Dolittle film. Lacock Abbey was a location for the first two Harry Potter films, providing the cloisters and various other Hogwarts interiors. Two Bond movies - A View to a Kill and The World is not Enough - had scenes shot at industrial sites in Swindon. On the subject of James Bond, Ian Fleming lived in Sevenhampton, north of Swindon for a year before he died and is buried there.
7. Wiltshire brewery Wadworth is the only brewery to employ a team of sign writers who hand paint all their pub signs. The pubs within a two and a half mile radius of the brewery still get their deliveries by shire Horse drawn carts.
8. The world’s oldest surviving photograph was taken at Lacock Abbey by William Fox Talbot in 1835. It is of the Oriel Window in the library.
9. It could be argued that Swindon was the birthplace of the NHS. The Great Western Railway works was based in the town and from 1871, the company came up with a way to take care of its workers. A small amount was deducted from their salaries and put into a fund which paid for dentists and doctors who could prescribe not only medicines but baths and haircuts. The fund even provided artificial limbs made by craftsmen from the carriage and wagon works. This service was later used as a blueprint for the NHS. It wasn’t just health services these people had access to - The Mechanics' Institute had the UK's first lending library. There was also a theatre and a range of activities including xylophone lessons.
10. Swindon is currently the location of the UK Space Agency headquarters and the head office of the National Trust.

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