Venues in Wiltshire; hire a String Quartet
Corsham
A small town on the southernmost point of the Cotswolds. The Flemish-gabled cottages on the cobbled street and the honey-coloured, baroque-pedimented Hungerford almshouses all derive from its wealthy past as a weaving village. The school adjoining the alms-houses has its original seating arrangement, with the master's pulpit desk of 1668 still in place.
Corsham Court, an Elizabethan mansion of 1582, has an impressive pedi-mented gateway. Capability Brown, the famous 18th-century landscape gardener, laid out the fine park with its elm avenue. The state rooms are filled with old masters and superb furniture.
String Quartets at Abbey House, Malmesbury, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Angel Hotel, Chippenham, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Blunsdon House Hotel, Swindon, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Bowood Golf & Country Club, Calne, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Bradley House, Maiden Bradley, Warminster, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Chippenham Town Council, Chippenham, Wiltshire
Great ChalfieJd Manor
A moated, late Gothic house with Tudor overtones, 2^ miles north-east of Bradford-on-Avon. The house is approached through an arched gateway, and its oriel windows reflect the sunlight on to the courtyard's polished yellow-grey stones. The great hall and screen remain as Thomas Tropenell built them in 1480. The house is owned by the National Trust.
String Quartets at Chiseldon House Hotel, nr Swindon, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Civic Offices, Swindon, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Coach House, The, Avebury, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Cricklade Hotel & Country Club, Cricklade, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Crudwell Court Hotel, nr Malmesbury, Wiltshire
String Quartets at George Hotel, Amesbury, Wiltshire
Holt
Here, set in beautifully laid-out gardens, is The Courts, where local weavers, until the end of the i8th century, came to settle their disputes by arbitration. The elaborate facade dates from c. 1700, though the mansion itself is in the neo-Gothic style of a century later.
String Quartets at Goddard Arms Hotel, Swindon, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Grasmere House Hotel, Salisbury, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Grittleton House, Chippenham, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Grittleton House, Chippenham, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Guildhall, The, Salisbury, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Guyers House, Corsham, Wiltshire
Amesbury
A town set in a bend of the River Avon, which is crossed by a five-arched bridge built in Palladian style. Amesbury Abbey is built on the site of the priory to which, according to Thomas Mallory, Queen Guinevere withdrew when she heard of King Arthur's death. West of the Avon, on the border of Amesbury Park, are the outlines of prehistoric earthworks which are named Vespasian's Camp after the Roman Emperor, but date from a much earlier age. The large military and R.A.F. camps near Ames-bury include the important experimental flying base of Boscombe Down, where new aircraft are tested.
String Quartets at Hamptworth, Salisbury, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Hilton National Swindon, Swindon, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Lackham House, Chippenham, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Luckington Court, Chippenham, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Lucknam Park Hotel, Colernie, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Manor House Golf Club, Chippenham, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Manor House Hotel, & Golf Club, The, Near Bath, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Marlborough Golf Club, Marlborough, Wiltshire
Codford St Mary
A typical small village of the Wylye Valley, on the edge of Salisbury Plain, joined by a single street to the even smaller village of Codford St Peter. The plain sweeps up behind the two villages towards the 6i7-ft prehistoric Codford Circle. Inside Codford St Peter's church is an unusually beautiful piece of stone carving, in the form of part of a cross showing the figure of a man dressed in a short, draped tunic and performing a ritual dance.
String Quartets at Marsh Farm Hotel, Swindon, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Milford Hall Hotel, Salisbury, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Newhouse, Salisbury, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Old Bell, The, Malmesbury, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Old Lane Public House, Chippenham, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Old Wardour Castle, near Tisbury, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Pear Tree at Purton, Swindon, Wiltshire
Devizes
A pleasant old market town with some fine Georgian houses and a castle that stands on the site of a Norman stronghold built by the Bishop of Salisbury. On the market cross is an inscription telling the salutary story of the sudden death in 1753 of one Ruth Pierce, after cheating at the local market. The museum has collections of finds from Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age sites in Wiltshire.
String Quartets at Pheasant, The, Chippenham, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Post House Hotel, Swindon, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Rollestone Manor, Shrewton, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Royal Oak, The, Marlborough, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Rudloe Hall, nr Corsham, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Shaw Ridge, De Vere Venues, Swindon, Wiltshire
Longleat House
One of Britain's great Elizabethan mansions, begun in 1568 for Sir John Thynne, an ancestor of the Marquess of Bath who owns it today. The lions roaming among visitors' cars in the park draw the weekend crowds; and the house itself—symmetrical except for its great hall at one side—has a rich collection of furniture, paintings and books. Near the park, which was landscaped by-Capability Brown, is Heaven's Gate, a
half-mile walk through woodlands bright with azaleas and rhododendrons in June, to a superb viewpoint looking down on Longleat in the valley below. In the village of Horningsham, i mile south, is a thatched Nonconformist chapel—one of the oldest in Britain— built in 1568 by the Scottish builders who worked on Longleat.
String Quartets at Sign of the Angel, Chippenham, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Stanton House Hotel, Swindon, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Stanton Manor, Chippenham, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Swindon Marriott Hotel, Swindon, Wiltshire
String Quartets at The Radstock Hotel, Radstock, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Thistle Hotel, Swindon, Wiltshire
Pewsey
William Cobbett, in his Rural Rides published in 1830, was attracted to the Vale of Pewsey's 'villages, hamlets, large farms, towers, steeples, fields, meadows, orchards and very fine timber trees scattered over the valley'. Little has changed since Cobbett's day in the green valley of which Pewsey is the centre. Pewsey has a mixture of Wiltshire thatched cottages and Georgian houses, and at the crossroads a statue of King Alfred looks across the River Avon. Attractive villages surround the town, arid prehistoric barrows line the high southern escarpment of the Marl-borough Downs to the north.
String Quartets at Town Hall, Calne, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Town Hall, Marlborough, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Trafalgar Park, Salisbury, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Wellington Barn, Calne, Wiltshire
String Quartets at Whatley Manor, Malmesbury, Wiltshire