The manor of Westbury on the Wiltshire border with Somerset lay at the heart of the hundred of the same name. By the mid fifteenth century, the town, in common with many of its neighbours, was becoming prominent as a centre of cloth manufacture, VCH Wilts. iv. 134; viii. 168. and as a consequence of growing commercial importance its markets and fairs proliferated.
New Sarum had grown up on the banks of the Avon around the foundations of the new cathedral, built by the bishops of Salisbury in the early thirteenth century to replace the one on the hill-top site at Old Sarum, some two miles away. Destined to be an important route centre, it was situated on the principal highways from Exeter and the south-west to London, and from the Midlands to Southampton and the Channel. Early on, the bishops introduced a weekly market and annual fair, adding a second fair in 1270 and a third in 1315.
The site of Old Sarum (Old Salisbury), a natural fortress, had been occupied since the Iron Age, and in the eleventh and twelfth centuries attained some importance as containing a royal castle and mint as well as the cathedral of a newly-created see.
Marlborough had been built on the north bank of the river Kennet, within a large royal estate on the downs of north-east Wiltshire and at the junction of two important routes, from Bath to London and from Cirencester to Salisbury and on to the south coast. A market centre for the surrounding countryside, much of the town’s trade came by way of Bristol and Southampton.
Occupying a natural defensive site on high ground and possessing a major bridge over the Avon, Malmesbury had grown up around the local abbey for which it was famous. In spite of the Black Death, it had a taxable population of 402 in 1377, indicating that it was significantly larger than four other Wiltshire boroughs, Devizes, Chippenham, Calne and Cricklade, and only slightly smaller than a fifth, Marlborough. By the later Middle Ages its main industry was the production of woollen cloth, a source of considerable prosperity by the early 1540s.
Situated on the eastern edge of Salisbury Plain on Wiltshire’s border with Hampshire, Ludgershall was scarcely more than a village. It depended for its survival upon trade, but was far from prosperous: in 1379 only two men (one a merchant and the other the royal parker of Ludgershall) had paid more than 6d. towards the poll tax. There were then only 135 tax-payers, and these included inhabitants of nearby Biddesden. VCH Wilts. iv.
In a county where the deserted ruins of Old Sarum possessed the parliamentary franchise, the village of Hindon could not be said to be the most rotten of boroughs, but in commercial or political importance it nevertheless fell far behind most other urban constituencies of fifteenth-century England. The vill of Hindon had been founded by the bishops of Winchester in the early thirteenth century in the north-eastern corner of their manor of East Knoyle.
The three manors at Heytesbury (East Court, West Court and South Court) were all held by the prominent family of Hungerford, having been acquired by Sir Thomas Hungerford† (d.1397) the Speaker in the ‘Bad Parliament’ of 1377 and chief-steward of the duchy of Lancaster, The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 411; iii. 444, 446. and his wife Joan (d.1412). Feudal Aids, v.
Situated some six miles from Marlborough and fewer than five from Hungerford in Berkshire, Great Bedwyn was overshadowed by both urban communities. Its taxable population of just 87 adults in 1377 indicates that it was among the smallest and least important of the Wiltshire boroughs represented in the period here under review. VCH Wilts. iv.
Although by the fifteenth century the Wiltshire borough of Downton could look back on a long history of parliamentary representation, it was hardly a township of demographic or economic importance. While its taxable population of more than 200 in 1377 made it a more substantial settlement than the neighbouring constituencies of Cricklade, Calne and Ludgershall, it was far smaller than Wilton or Devizes and positively dwarfed by the cathedral city of Salisbury, a short distance to the north.
