FANCY A DRINK?

Where to go for quick drink in Warminster during the 1700s would have entailed making a difficult decision.  In the centre of the town there were over 40 pubs from which to choose.

Retired Headteacher, Mike Ednay, led a group of about 15 people around the sites of some of the inns and pubs of Warminster on Tuesday evening.  This event was part of the Wiltshire Words initiative and the group was accompanied by librarian, Richard Violet, who stopped us at intervals to read carefully selected, alcohol related poems.

Mike explained that Warminster, being about halfway between Salisbury and Bath, was an ideal overnight stopping place for people, and most of the pubs had stabling for the horses.  We found that there is evidence for many of these hostelries if you look closely at the buildings in town.

He had many other interesting snippets of information as well.  Did you know, for instance, that publicans who brewed their own beer had to have it quality tested and licensed?  And the body responsible for the licensing was the Church.  The churchwardens were the people who had to go around tasting and granting licences to the beers.

Of course, some of the pubs still exist.  We learned that the Farmers was once a Temperance hotel, the Organ Inn had a schoolroom at the back and the Weymouth Arms provided cheap lodging for itinerant travellers and entertainers, and was thus known as the Drum and Monkey.