Wiltshire
Flag
Geography
Status	Ceremonial county and (smaller) unitary district
Origin	Historic
Region	South West England
Area - Total - Admin. council - Admin. area	Ranked 14th 3,485 km2 (1,346 sq mi) Ranked 3rd 3,255 km2 (1,257 sq mi)
Admin HQ	Trowbridge
ISO 3166-2	GB-WIL
ONS code	00HY
NUTS 3	UKK15
Demography
Population - Total (2010 est.[1]) - Density - Admin. council	Ranked 34th 459,800 (administrative), 639,500 (ceremonial) 141 /km2 (370 /sq mi) Ranked 8th
Ethnicity	97.5% White (administrative county)
Politics
299px Wiltshire Council http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk
Executive	Conservative
Members of Parliament	7 Claire Perry (C) James Gray (C) Duncan Hames (LD) John Glen (C) Andrew Murrison (C) Robert Buckland (C) Justin Tomlinson (C)
Districts
Wiltshire Council (unitary) Swindon (unitary)

Wiltshire ( /ˈwɪltʃər/ or /ˈwɪltʃɪər/, formerly /ˈwɪlʃər/; or the County of Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West 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 3,485 km² (1,346 square miles).^[2] The ancient county town was Wilton, but since 1930 Wiltshire County Council and its successor Wiltshire Council (from 2009) have been based at Trowbridge.

Wiltshire is characterised by its high downland and wide valleys. Salisbury Plain is famous as the location of the Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles 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 mediaeval cathedral. Important country houses open to the public include Longleat, near Warminster, and the National Trust's Stourhead, near Mere.

Toponymy[link]

The county, in the 9th century written as Wiltunscir, later Wiltonshire, is named after the former county town of Wilton,^[3] itself named after the river Wylye, one of eight rivers which drain the county.

History[link]

Stonehenge

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 West Saxon nobleman who had seized the throne of Queen Saxburga, and King Wulfhere of Mercia.^[4] In 878 the Danes invaded the county. 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 Wiltshire Community History website, run by the Libraries and Heritage services of Wiltshire County Council. This site includes maps, demographic data, historic and modern pictures and short histories.

The Moonrakers[link]

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 with The Crammer in Devizes.^[5][6]

Geology, landscape and ecology[link]

Cherhill White Horse, east of Calne

Two thirds of Wiltshire, a mostly rural county, lies 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 a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and stretching 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 in the county is the Tan Hill–Milk Hill ridge in the Pewsey Vale, just to the north of Salisbury Plain, at 295 m (968 ft) above sea level.

The chalk uplands run 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 km² (670-square-mile) conservation area.

In the northwest of the county, on the border with South 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, in the county's northwestern corner.

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 southeast of the county lies on the sandy soils of the northernmost area 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[link]

Along with the rest of South West England, Wiltshire has a temperate climate which is generally wetter and milder than the rest of the country.^[7] The annual mean temperature is approximately 10 °C (50.0 °F). Seasonal temperature variation is less extreme than most of the United Kingdom because of the adjacent sea temperatures. The summer months of July and August are the warmest with mean daily maxima of approximately 21 °C (69.8 °F). In winter mean minimum temperatures of 1 °C (33.8 °F) or 2 °C (35.6 °F) are common.^[7] In the summer the Azores high pressure affects the south-west of England, however convective cloud sometimes forms inland, reducing the number of hours of sunshine. Annual sunshine rates are slightly less than the regional average of 1,600 hours.^[7] In December 1998 there were 20 days without sun recorded at Yeovilton. Most the rainfall in the south-west is caused by Atlantic depressions or by convection. Most of the rainfall in autumn and winter is caused by the Atlantic depressions, which is when they are most active. In summer, a large proportion of the rainfall is caused by sun heating the ground leading to convection and to showers and thunderstorms. Average rainfall is around 700 mm (28 in). About 8–15 days of snowfall is typical. November to March have the highest mean wind speeds, and June to August have the lightest winds. The predominant wind direction is from the south-west.^[7]

Economy[link]

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added (GVA) of Wiltshire at current basic prices^[8] with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

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 known as Cardinal Health), Becton-Dickinson, WHSmith, Early Learning Centre and Nationwide, with Dyson located in nearby Malmesbury. Wiltshire’s 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. There are sizeable British Army barracks at Tidworth, Bulford and Warminster. Further north RAF Lyneham was home to the RAF's Hercules C130 fleet until 2011, though RAF operations are due to cease by late-2012, to be partially replaced by a defence training centre. 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.^[13]

Education[link]

Wiltshire has twenty-nine county secondary schools, publicly funded, of which the largest is Warminster Kingdown, and another thirteen independent secondaries, including Marlborough College, St Mary's Calne, and Dauntsey's, near Devizes. The county schools are nearly all comprehensives, with the older pattern of education surviving only in Salisbury, which has two grammar schools (South Wilts Grammar School for Girls and Bishop Wordsworth's School) and three secondary moderns. All but two of the county secondary schools in the former districts of West Wiltshire and North Wiltshire have Sixth forms, but only half of those in the rest of the county.

Wiltshire Council operates Urchfont Manor College, which is a residential adult education college. There are also three further education colleges, New College, Swindon, Wiltshire College and Swindon College, providing some higher education.

As yet there are no universities within Wiltshire, except that Bath Spa University has a centre at Corsham Court in Corsham, and Oxford Brookes University maintains a minor campus in Swindon (almost 50 km from Oxford). Outline plans for a projected University of Swindon or University of Wiltshire were announced by the Borough of Swindon in November 2008, but the scheme remains uncommitted. Swindon is the UK's largest centre of population without its own university. The closest university to Wiltshire's county town of Trowbridge is the University of Bath. Wiltshire is therefore one of the few remaining English counties without a university or university college.

Demographics[link]

The county registered a population of 613,024 in the Census 2001. The population density is low at 178 inhabitants per square kilometre (460 /sq mi). 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.^[14]

Population of Wiltshire:

• 1801: 185,107
• 1851: 254,221
• 1901: 271,394
• 1951: 386,692
• 2001: 613,024

Politics and administration[link]

The ceremonial county of Wiltshire consists of two unitary authority areas, Wiltshire and Swindon, governed respectively by Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council.

Until the 2009 structural changes to local government in England, Wiltshire (apart from Swindon) was a two-level county, divided into four local government districts, Kennet, North Wiltshire, Salisbury and West Wiltshire, which existed alongside Wiltshire County Council, covering the same area and carrying out more strategic tasks, such as education and county roads. However, on 1 April 2009 these five local authorities were merged into a single unitary authority called Wiltshire Council. With the abolition of the District of Salisbury, a new Salisbury City Council was created at the same time to carry out several city-wide functions and to hold the City's charter.

As a result of elections held in 2009, Wiltshire Council comprises 61 Conservatives, 24 Liberal Democrats, eight Independents, three Devizes Guardians and two Labour members. The council is led by Jane Scott (Conservative), who had previously led the former Wiltshire County Council since 2003.

At the parliamentary level, rural Wiltshire is represented by four Conservative and one Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament, while the predominantly urban area of Swindon is represented by two Conservative Members.

Sport[link]

The county is represented in the Football League by Swindon Town, who play at the County Ground stadium 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 and the Anglo-Italian Cup in 1970, two successive promotions in 1986 and 1987 (taking them from the Fourth Division to the Second), promotion to the Premier League as Division One play-off winners in 1993 (as inaugural members), the Division Two title in 1996, and their promotion to League One in 2007 after finishing third in League Two.

Salisbury City played in the Conference Premier League however they entered administration in the Summer of 2009 and now play in the Southern League Premier Division as of Summer 2010 due to a breach of Conference rules. They are currently two leagues under Conference National Level.

Swindon Robins Speedway team, who compete in the Sky Elite League, have been at their track at the Blunsdon Abbey Stadium since 1949.

Rich Benke, the international snowboarder, hails from Chippenham in Wiltshire. He currently resides in Whistler, Canada.

Principal settlements[link]

Wiltshire has twenty-one towns and one city:

A bridge over the River Avon at Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire

A list of settlements is at List of places in Wiltshire.

Places of interest[link]

The flight of 16 locks at Caen Hill on the Kennet and Avon Canal.

Key
	Abbey/Priory/Cathedral
	Accessible open space
	Amusement/Theme Park
	Castle
	Country Park
	English Heritage
	Forestry Commission
	Heritage railway
	Historic House
	Museum (free/not free)
	National Trust
	Theatre
	Zoo

Places of interest in Wiltshire include

Areas of countryside in Wiltshire include

• Cranborne Chase
• Marlborough Downs
• Salisbury Plain
• Vale of Pewsey

Transport[link]

Road[link]

Roads running through Wiltshire include The Ridgeway, an ancient route, and Roman roads the Fosse Way, London to Bath road and Ermin Way. National Cycle Route 4 and the Thames Path, a modern long distance footpath, run through the county.

Routes through Wiltshire include:

• A4 road
• M4 motorway / M4 Corridor
• A303 trunk road
• A350 road
• A417 road

Canal[link]

• Kennet and Avon Canal

Rail[link]

Three main railway routes, all of which carry passenger traffic, cross Wiltshire.

• Great Western Main Line (Swindon & Chippenham)
• Wessex Main Line (Bradford on Avon, Melksham, Trowbridge, Westbury, Warminster, Salisbury & Connects to Chippenham)
• West of England Main Line (Salisbury)

Other routes include:

• Reading to Taunton Line
• Heart of Wessex Line
• Golden Valley Line
• South Wales Main Line (Swindon & connects to Chippenham)

The major junction stations are Salisbury and Westbury, and important junctions are also found at Swindon, Chippenham and Trowbridge.

Air[link]

Airfields in Wiltshire include Old Sarum Airfield, Clench Common Airfield and Redlands Airfield. RAF Lyneham is an air transport hub for British forces. Airports for scheduled airlines near Wiltshire include Bristol International Airport, Bristol Filton Airport, Gloucestershire Airport, London Oxford Airport, London Heathrow Airport and Southampton Airport.

See also[link]

	Geography portal
	Europe portal
	United Kingdom portal
	England portal
	Wiltshire portal

• Outline of England
• Flag of Wiltshire
• List of civil parishes in Wiltshire
• List of places in Wiltshire
• Category:Grade I listed buildings in Wiltshire
• Wiltshire Historic Buildings Trust
• List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Wiltshire
• Wiltshire local elections
• Swindon local elections
• List of Lords Lieutenant of Wiltshire
• List of Deputy Lieutenants of Wiltshire
• List of High Sheriffs of Wiltshire
• Custos Rotulorum of Wiltshire – Keepers of the Rolls
• List of Parliamentary constituencies in Wiltshire
• List of MPs for the former Wiltshire constituency
• List of Chairmen of Wiltshire County Council
• Wiltshire Horn breed of sheep
• "The Vly be on the Turmut"

References and footnotes[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Wiltshire

• Wiltshire Council
  • Merlin local information (Wiltshire council)
  • Wiltshire Community History (Wiltshire council)
  • Geology map of Wiltshire (PDF) (Wiltshire council)
• Wiltshire Tourist Office
• Wiltshire Intelligence Network
• Wiltshire at the Open Directory Project

Neighbouring counties

	Gloucestershire	Gloucestershire	Oxfordshire
	Somerset		Berkshire Hampshire
		Wiltshire    East
	Dorset	Dorset, Hampshire	Hampshire

Coordinates: 51°19′11″N 2°12′32″W / 51.31972°N 2.20889°W / 51.31972; -2.20889

v t e Unitary authorities of England Districts Bath and North East Somerset Bedford Borough Blackburn with Darwen Blackpool Bournemouth Bracknell Forest Brighton and Hove Bristol Central Bedfordshire Cheshire East Cheshire West and Chester Cornwall County Durham Borough of Darlington Derby East Riding of Yorkshire Borough of Halton Borough of Hartlepool Herefordshire Isle of Wight Kingston upon Hull Leicester Luton Medway Middlesbrough Borough of Milton Keynes North East Lincolnshire North Lincolnshire North Somerset Northumberland Nottingham Peterborough Plymouth Poole Portsmouth Reading Redcar and Cleveland Rutland Shropshire Slough Southampton Southend-on-Sea South Gloucestershire Borough of Stockton-on-Tees Stoke-on-Trent Borough of Swindon Telford and Wrekin Thurrock Torbay Warrington West Berkshire Wiltshire Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Wokingham Borough York Councils Bournemouth Cornwall Herefordshire Isle of Wight Kingston upon Hull Leicester Middlesbrough Northumberland Nottingham Poole Rutland Shropshire Slough Thurrock Wiltshire

Stephen Wiltshire receives MBE for services to art

Stephen Wiltshire MBE, (born 24 April 1974) is a British architectural artist of West Indian ancestry who has been diagnosed with autism.^[1][2] He is known for his ability to draw from memory a landscape after seeing it just once. His work has received worldwide popularity.

In 2006, Wiltshire was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to art.^[1] In the same year, he opened a permanent gallery on the Royal Opera Arcade in London.^[3]

Early life and education[link]

Wiltshire was born in London, England, in 1974 to West Indian parents.^[1] Wiltshire was mute when young. At age three, he was diagnosed as autistic. The same year, his father died in a motorcycle accident.^[1][2]

At age five, Stephen was sent to Queensmill School in London where he expressed interest in drawing. He began to communicate through his art. His teachers encouraged his drawing, and with their aid Wiltshire learned to speak at the age of five.^[2] At the age of eight, he started drawing imaginary post-earthquake cityscapes and cars. When he was ten, Wiltshire drew a sequence of drawings of London landmarks, one for each letter, that he called a "London Alphabet".^[3]

In 1987, Wiltshire was part of the BBC programme The Foolish Wise Ones.^[3] Drawings, a collection of his works, was published that same year.^[3]

Big Ben on a rainy evening by Stephen Wiltshire (2008)

Between 1995 and his graduation in 1998, Wiltshire attended the City and Guilds of London Art School^[4] in Kennington, Lambeth, South London.

Career[link]

Wiltshire can look at a target once and then draw an accurate and detailed picture of it. He once drew the whole of central London after a helicopter trip above it.^[5] He also draws imaginary scenes, for example, St. Paul's Cathedral surrounded by flames.

Wiltshire's early books include Drawings (1987), Cities (1989), Floating Cities (1991), and Stephen Wiltshire's American Dream (1993). His third book, Floating Cities (Michael Joseph, 1991), was number one on the Sunday Times bestseller list.

In 2003, a retrospective of his work was held in the Orleans House gallery in Twickenham, London.

In May 2005 Stephen produced his longest ever panoramic memory drawing of Tokyo on a 32.8-foot-long (10.0 m) canvas within seven days following a helicopter ride over the city. Since then he has drawn Rome, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Madrid,^[6] Dubai,^[7][8] Jerusalem^[9][10] and London^[11][12] on giant canvasses. When Wiltshire took the helicopter ride over Rome, he drew it in such great detail that he drew the exact number of columns in the Pantheon.^[13]

In October 2009 Stephen completed the last work in the series of panoramas, an 18-foot (5.5 m) memory drawing of his "spiritual home", New York City.^[14][15] Following a 20-minute helicopter ride over the city he sketched the view of New Jersey, Manhattan, the Financial District, Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn over five days at the Pratt Institute college of art and design in New York City.

In 2010, he made a series of drawings of Sydney,^[16][17] and visited Bermuda National Gallery where the sale of his drawing of Hamilton^[18] broke auction records. In June 2010, Christie's auctioned off^[19] an iconic oil painting of his "Times Square at Night".

Wiltshire started a tour of China in September 2010, with a first project taking him to Shanghai.^[20]

A 2011 project in New York City involved Wiltshire's creation of a 250 feet (76 m) long panoramic memory drawing of New York which is now displayed on a giant billboard at JFK Airport. It is a part of a global advertising campaign^[21] for the Swiss bank UBS that carries the theme "We will not rest", The New York Times reported.^[22]

Recognition[link]

Stephen's work has been the subject of many TV documentaries. Renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks writes about him in the chapter "Prodigies" in his book An Anthropologist on Mars.

In 2006, Stephen Wiltshire was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to art.^[1] In September 2006 Stephen opened his permanent gallery in the Royal Opera Arcade, Pall Mall, London.^[3]

On 15 February 2008, ABC News named him Person of the Week.^[23] In his first intimate interview with The Independent^[24] in 2009 he revealed his dreams, aspirations, idols and biggest regrets.

In July 2009 he acted as ambassador of the Children's Art Day in the United Kingdom.

In 2011, Stephen Wiltshire has been made an honorary Fellow of the Society of Architectural Illustration (SAI).

See also[link]

• Beautiful Minds: A Voyage Into the Brain, a documentary on a number of similarly gifted people, including Wiltshire
• Richard Wawro

References[link]