Dilton Marsh | |
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Village centre |
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Dilton Marsh shown within Wiltshire | |
Population | 1,934 (in 2011) |
OS grid reference | ST850498 |
Unitary authority | |
Ceremonial county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | WESTBURY |
Postcode district | BA13 |
Dialling code | 01373 |
Police | Wiltshire |
Fire | Dorset and Wiltshire |
Ambulance | South Western |
EU Parliament | South West England |
UK Parliament | |
Website | Parish |
Dilton Marsh is a village and civil parish in the county of Wiltshire, in the southwest of England. The village is about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) southwest of the centre of the town of Westbury; expansion of the town has brought its Westbury Leigh suburb almost to the parish boundary.
The parish is on the county border with Somerset. It includes the small settlements of Penknap (east of Dilton Marsh village); Stormore (now contiguous with the west of the village); Clearwood (a little further west); and the rural hamlets of Fairwood (north) and Hisomley (southwest).
To the west is the Somerset town of Frome, the garrison town of Warminster is to the southeast, and Wiltshire's county town of Trowbridge is to the north. The Somerset border is some 1.5 miles (2.4 km) to the west of Dilton Marsh village.
The original settlement, Old Dilton, is some 3⁄4 mi (1.2 km) southeast of the present village centre at grid reference ST860490, on the banks of the Biss Brook. It now consists of a couple of farm houses and the ancient St Mary's Church. As fewer workers were needed in the local woollen industry after the introduction of greater mechanisation, many moved to the common land of the drained marsh on the northern side of the ridge. By the early 19th century, Dilton Marsh had outgrown the older settlement.
Dilton Marsh was a tithing of the ancient parish of Westbury, and the church at Dilton (now Old Dilton) was a chapelry of the parish church at Westbury. Dilton Marsh civil parish was created in 1894, bounded on the east by the Biss Brook and on the west by the county boundary; the southern extent of the new parish was reduced in 1934 when Chapmanslade civil parish was created.