The Westbury Area

A clothmaking town like its neighbours, Westbury retains its gargantuan Angel and Bitham Mills near its centre, and informal weavers' settlements on the former wastes and commons at Westbury Leigh and Dilton Marsh. An important railway junction, the town has expanded westwards towards its station and the long-established trading estate, as well as southwards, to engulf Westbury Leigh in suburban bungalows, and now northwards, with starter homes facing Trowbridge. Away from the town to the east, Westbury's area has two large villages, Bratton and Edington, with their own strong sense of community, the former (historically) a centre of nonconformity, the latter renowned for its priory church and annual music festival. West of Westbury, beyond the railway tracks at Brokerswood and Brook, is an almost inaccessible pocket of Wiltshire where hardly anybody lives.