Central Car Park, Station Rd, Warminster - 01985 218548 visitwarminster@btconnect.com

The town's name is sometimes claimed to refer to the River Were, which runs through the town, and a supposed Saxon minster, or monastery. However, the first record of any version of the name Warminster is in a document dating from about the year 900, in the form 'Worgemynster', and there is no evidence of any minster or monastery anywhere in the neighbourhood at that time. The Domesday Book has 'Guerminstre'. One historian of Warminster concluded that "...the conjecture is admissible that WORGEMYN or GUERMIN is the name of an ancient Wiltshire chief, and that as Biscop-tre (Bishopstrow) means "the place of the bishop", so Warminster means "the head-quarters of Worgemyn, or Guermin".

The town was first settled in the Saxon period, though there are the remains of numerous earlier settlements nearby, including the Iron Age hill fort Battlesbury Camp and Cley Hill, the latter a site operated by the National Trust.

There are indications that a Middle Iron Age settlement may also have been situated just west of the town.

The town's prosperity following the growth of the wool trade in the Late Middle Ages caused the erection of many magnificent structures, including the Minster Church of Saint Denys, in a yew grove sacred from pre-Christian times, and including an organ originally destined for the then under-construction Salisbury Cathedral.

During the Middle Ages the town became famous not only for its wool and cloth trade but also for its great prosperity as a corn market (it was second only to Bristol in the West of England). Many of the buildings which survive in the Market Place owe their origin to the great corn market days when they were used as stores and warehouses, or as inns and hostelries for the buyers and sellers who came from many miles around.

During the English Civil War (1642-1645) the town is thought to have changed hands at least four times between the Royalist and Parliamentary supporters. When James II came to the throne in 1685 the local gentry and the Wiltshire Militia supported him against the Duke of Monmouth who was defeated.

During the First World War thousands of soldiers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada were camped in the villages around Warminster.

In the 1960s and early 1970s Cradle Hill became famous as the centre of a flap surrounding UFOs and crop circles with at least one author claiming that as many as 5000 UFOs had been witnessed in the area.

Warminster is close to Stonehenge and may have some pre-Christian roots; however the modern town was founded in Anglo-Saxon times. In the north-west of the Diocese of Salisbury, Warminster is a minster town in rural Wiltshire. The town is divided into three Church of England Parishes, and is also served by other traditions and denominations. The three parish churches in the town are all in the episcopal area of Ramsbury, served by the Bishop of Ramsbury (Anglican), currently the Rt Rev'd Stephen Conway.