Place:Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, England

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source: Family History Library Catalog

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Royal Wootton Bassett , formerly Wootton Bassett, is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, with a population of 11,043 in 2001, increasing to 11,385 in 2011. Situated in the north of the county, it lies to the west of the major town of Swindon and northeast of Calne.

From 1447 until 1832 Wootton Bassett was a parliamentary borough which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. In 1832 it was deemed a rotten borough and abolished by the Great Reform Act.

The town was granted royal patronage in March 2011 by Elizabeth II in recognition of its role in the early-21st-century military funeral repatriations, which passed through the town. This honour was officially conferred in a ceremony on 16 October 2011 – the first royal patronage to be conferred upon a town (as distinguished from a borough or county) since 1909.^[1]

Suburbs of Royal Wootton Bassett include Noremarsh, Coped Hall, Woodshaw and Vastern (a small hamlet to the south). Bishop Fowley is shown, on the Andrews' and Dury's Map of Wiltshire, 1810[8] as being an outlying hamlet SW of the town; the location is now known as Vowley Farm.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Wootton Bassett from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"WOOTTON-BASSETT, a small town, a parish, and a [registration] sub-district, in Cricklade [registration] district, Wilts. The town stands near the Great Western railway and the Wilts and Berks canal, 5¾ miles W by S of Swindon; was known, at Domesday, as Wodeton; belonged anciently to the Bassets; passed to the Despencers, Edmund de Langley son of Edward III, and others; sent two members to parliament from the time of Henry VI till disfranchised by the reform act of 1832.

"It is governed, under charters of Henry VI and Charles II, by a mayor, 2 aldermen, and 12 burgesses; had anciently an hospital which, in the time of Henry IV, was given to Bradenstoke priory; possessed once a famous broadcloth manufacture, which is now extinct; consists chiefly of one street, about ½ a mile long, and recently much improved; and has a post-office under Swindon, a [railway] station with telegraph, two banking offices, a good inn, a town hall, a market house, a good ancient church, three dissenting chapels, an endowed school with £25 a year, charities £44, a weekly market on Tuesday, a cattle market on the second Tuesday of every month, and two annual fairs.

"The parish comprises 4,778 acres. Real property: £10,489. Population: 2,191. Houses: 461. The manor belongs to the Earl of Clarendon. The manor-house was once a royal residence, and is now a farmhouse. There is a chalybeate spring. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Salisbury. Value: £461. Patron: the Earl of Clarendon."

Research Tips

• Victoria County History - Wiltshire - Vol 9, pp186-205 - Parish: Wootton Bassett. British History Online. University of London.
• From this Ancestry page you can browse the Wiltshire parishes which have parish register transcripts online, quite often from very early dates. However, reading the early ones requires skill and patience. Transcriptions should also be in FamilySearch.
• A further collection of online source references will be found on the county page for Wiltshire.