Eight hundred years on the hill.

Four thousand years of settlement

People have lived on this hilltop more or less continuously for over 4,000 years. Archaeologists have found Bronze Age remains and evidence of Roman activity in and around the town. It is easy to see why: the hill, about 133 metres (436 feet) up, is a natural place to settle, with farmland and water in the valleys below.

'Wrde' in the Domesday Book

By Saxon times this was the centre of a royal estate, where the courts of the hundred of Worth met every four weeks, and a minster church stood here by the 11th century. The Domesday Book of 1086 records the place as 'Wrde' — from the Old English 'worth', meaning an enclosure — with six households and a church. The 'High' was added around 1200, for the obvious reason: this is a town you climb up to.

The view that drew the Bronze Age settlers is still here, and still free. Our walks page will point you to the best of it.

Warin FitzGerold and the market charter

The charter was granted to Warin FitzGerold, lord of the manor of Sevenhampton, whose family had held the hundred of Highworth since 1156. As hereditary chamberlain to King Richard and then King John — his name appears on Magna Carta — he had the influence at court to secure it. The charter gave Highworth a weekly Wednesday market and an annual fair on the eve and feast of St Michael (29 September). It is among the earliest market charters in Wiltshire, possibly the tenth oldest.

Wool, fairs and a crowded market place

A second fair, on the feast of St Peter ad Vincula (1 August), was granted by Henry III in 1257 to FitzGerold's great-grandson Baldwin de Redvers. The medieval market place was far bigger than today's — the buildings now in its centre are later 'infill', a sign of just how successful the town became. Highworth was busy in the wool and cloth trade too: records mention mercers, staplers, fullers, dyers and shearers, and in 1365 Thomas Hungerford was careful to keep hold of 'a shop called Shereresshoppe in Heygworth' when he gave away his other land.

Boom — then the long slump

By 1607 Highworth had at least twelve inns, and by the mid-1600s its cattle market was the largest in Wiltshire. Then came disaster: plague in the 1630s drove traders to neighbouring towns, and the Civil War finished the job. Writing in 1672, John Aubrey noted that Swindon's 'gallant markett for cattle... increased to its now greatnesse upon the plague of Highworth'.

The most important town in north-east Wiltshire

At the first census in 1801, Highworth had a population of over 2,000 — bigger than Swindon, Wootton Bassett or Cricklade — and was the most important township in this corner of Wiltshire. The town prospered through the Napoleonic Wars, and its fine Queen Anne and Georgian houses date from this confident era. Pevsner singled out early-18th-century Inigo House as 'the finest house in Highworth'.

When Swindon overtook the hill

From the 1840s, the arrival of the Great Western Railway works transformed Swindon and drew people and trade away from Highworth, whose population actually declined. Few new buildings went up in Victorian times — an accident of history that preserved the town centre's pre-1840 character for us to enjoy today.

The Highworth branch line, 1883

Highworth did get its own railway in the end: a branch line from Swindon opened to passengers on 9 May 1883, calling at Stratton, Stanton Fitzwarren and Hannington on its five-mile climb to the town. Passenger services ended on 2 March 1953 and the last goods trains ran in 1962.

Rex Warneford VC and the Warneford name

On 7 June 1915, Sub-Lieutenant Reginald 'Rex' Warneford became the first British pilot to destroy a German Zeppelin in the air, winning the Victoria Cross — and died in a flying accident in France just ten days later. Though born in Darjeeling, he came of the Warneford family of Warneford Place at Sevenhampton, in the old Highworth parish, landowners here since around the 12th century. Public subscription created a Warneford Chapel in St Michael's Church, a memorial to him was placed in the Market Place in 2015 for the centenary of his Zeppelin victory, and Highworth Warneford School (founded 1957) carries the family name. You can pay your respects at the memorial any day — it's right in the Market Place.

Postwar growth

After the Second World War, Highworth grew steadily as Swindon expanded nearby. A town of some 2,000 people in 1801 was home to 8,258 by the 2021 census — though it has kept the feel, and the weekly market, of the small market town it has always been.

A protected, lived-in town centre

The town centre has been a conservation area since 1976, protecting the Queen Anne and Georgian streetscape around the old market square. At the 2021 census, 8,258 people called Highworth home.