Wiltshire county ensign flag
Camilo Pires June 05, 2021 A 3 minute read

June 5th is Wiltshire Day! Here are some fun facts about Wiltshire…

The 5th of June marks Wiltshire Day. As a business in Wiltshire, we just had to mark the occasion with a blog post!

This blog post will highlight the significance of the county flag, as well as some cool Wiltshire facts!

Facts about the Wiltshire flag

The flag for Wiltshire has been flying proudly at County Hall in Wiltshire’s capital town of Trowbridge from Tuesday 5th June 2007.

Designed by flag enthusiast Mike Prior from Trowbridge, it uses the Great Bustard as its centrepiece. The Great Bustard featured on the original Council crest of 1937, and the new flag followed the Wiltshire tradition of highlighting the importance of this bird to the county.

The Great Bustard

Previously extinct, the large bird is now part of a ten-year breeding programme on Salisbury Plain where a flock of around 40 of the birds call their home.

In 2007 Mr Prior told the BBC: “I have always loved flag flying and I thought it would be good to fly something other than the Union Flag or national flags.

“I have done my research and found there wasn’t a flag for the county, so I thought why not design one?”

Representing peace

The white colouring in the flag is to represent peace, while the green can mean joy, hope, or safety.

A circle of six rocks is also featured in the centre of the flag, representing both the stone circles of Avebury and Stonehenge and the six counties on to which Wiltshire borders.

Here are some fun facts about Wiltshire (courtesy of VisitWiltshire and Information-Britain)

  • Did you know another series of Poldark is being filmed this year at Great Chalfield Manor? Other filming includes The White Princess in Lacock and Bradford on Avon and Transformers at Stonehenge. Look out for Wiltshire on your TV/Cinema in 2017!
  • Did you know that Wiltshire has a Grade II Listed Sticke tennis court at Hartham Park, Corsham?
  • In Cricklade, just off the high street, there is a sign that says, “In 1832 on this spot nothing happened!”
  • Did you know that Wadworth Brewery is the only Brewery that has a full time in- house Sign Writing team, who hand-paint all the pub signs in the traditional way!
  • Did you know that Wadworth Brewery still uses traditional Shire Horses to deliver all of the beer locally within a 2.5-mile radius?
  • Did you know Marlborough suffered a disastrous fire in 1653? Cromwell ordered a collection in England and Wales for the sufferers and Thomas Bayly of the Merchant’s House claimed £2,339, the second largest claim in the town.
  • At Stourhead the Temple of Apollo was used in 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice staring Kiera Knightly.
  • The mound in Marlborough College grounds used to be known as Merlin’s barrow and was supposedly where the wizard was buried. We now know that it dates from the same period as Silbury Hill between 4,500 and 4,000 years ago. The old outdoor swimming pool at the college was fed by an underground spring and once formed part of the Norman Castle’s moat – it was freezing at any time of year!
  • Swindon has several James Bond connections! Ian Fleming bought and demolished Warneford Place, a house in Sevenhampton to the north of Swindon, and built a new one – Sevenhampton Place – in its stead, moving in a year before his death in 1964. The novelist is buried in the churchyard of St James’s Church there. And two Bond movies – A View to a Kill and The World is not Enough – had scenes shot at industrial sites in the town. (Information-Britain)

You can find more cool facts about Wiltshire here and facts for different parts of Wiltshire here.

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