Welcome to the Wroughton History Group website
History Group Museum – Exciting news – with support from Wroughton Parish Council, WHG have now opened a museum to display our collection of Wroughton related items. Many thanks to the Parish Council who have agreed to lease WHG the Maunsell Way pavilion to be a museum.
We opened on 4th April 2026 at 2pm until 5pm and had lots of visitors. Thank you to the Chair of the Parish Council, John Hewer who formally opened the new museum.
We are open most Saturday afternoons 2pm to 5pm weekends – dates can be seen our Museum page. Due to budget constraints we have started with one display room and temporary displays in the second room. However the photobooks will be available to view.
We are delighted that so far, three village businesses have agreed to sponsor the new museum – Southby & Co, Haskins/Cross Street Garage, Mead Family Funerals. Thank you for your support. Thank you also to Wroughton Country Market who donated their raffle proceeds from 27th March to the museum funds.
If any other businesses would like to sponsor the museum please contact Diane Archer (contact details can be found on the Contacts page)
Programme
Evening meetings are held at 7.30 at St Joseph’s Church Hall Devizes Road Wroughton, SN4 0RZ (3words///cried.member.left).
The next talk is on 16th July – our speaker will be John Farrow “The Wilts and Berks Canal”
John is an active supporter of The Trust which aims to restore the Canal for the benefit of the whole community. The Canal originally ran over 50 miles from Semington, south of Melksham to Abingdon on the Thames with a major branch from Swindon to the Thames and Severn Canal at Latton. John will bring us up to date with the work that has been ongoing and tell us the plans for the future.
We then have a summer break – back on Sept 10th with a speaker – David Dawson – “Un/Common People: Folk Culture in Wiltshire”
Wiltshire is rich in folklore with songs, stories, customs and folk crafts scattered across the landscape. David, Director of the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes, will explore the folk lore of Wiltshire’s History and the vibrant traditions and customs taking place in Wiltshire today.
Everyone is welcome – non-members are charged £3
Open evenings are for everyone to get together over tea/coffee and chat about events – members often bring items of interest, such as old photographs, for a group discussion. The next open meeting after the summer break is 24th September.
We have a Facebook group and reminders about the talks and events are added there.
We do have some social events – days out (see programme for details), Christmas Crimble and an annual dinner
Oral History project
We are compiling a Social History record of the village from people’s stories, recollections and memories. Were you born in Wroughton, did you grow up here or have you lived in the village a long time? Then maybe you would like to take part. This will be in the form of an informal interview with a couple of our members, where an audio recording will be taken and maybe they can copy some of your photos to use.
If you are interested in taking part then talk to Doug Sleeth at the Friday Market or contact Adrian Marsh on 07791041672
Membership
Anyone is welcome to join – the annual subscription is currently £20, from April 2026. Please contact the committee or come along to a meeting if you want to join the group. Our simple constitution can be viewed here.
Donations
WHG is always grateful for donations of Wroughton related items. Recently Bob Habgood donated two local Victorian ginger beer bottles and some Swan Inn items (including an IOU from 1939). Ida Morton (a previous Swan landlady) also donated some Swan Inn items. All these items are on display in the museum – thanks to Bob and Ida.
The Allen family have recently given us a set of photos of the Wroughton Fire Brigade and the Duvall family memorabilia of the 1977 carnival (including a carnival tea towel). Again many thanks.
All donated items are recorded and put into our Maunsell Way Pavilion store/museum or Ellendune Centre store. If anyone wants to carry out out any research we are happy for documents and research to be borrowed or viewed.
Please do not throw away any documents, photos or items relating to the history of Wroughton – all donations help us record the history of an ever changing village.
Walks
The history group have produced a walk booklet that features many of buildings mentioned on the site (including racing stables, mills, manor houses and ‘lost’ pubs). The walk is a booklet that can be downloaded and printed: Wroughton Village Walk.
We also occasionally run guided walks – look out on Facebook for details of these.
AGM
Our 2026 AGM was held on 9th April. Details of the committee can be found on the contacts page.
Wroughton – then and now
WHG have started a new project of photographing parts of Wroughton undergoing changes, so that we have a record of how the village is changing. If you know of any planned changes please let us know so that we can capture the view before it changes. We were able to take some pictures of Haskins before it closed in 2025.
Visit our ‘now and then’ page where we will add the pictures.
Books and activities
Details of all our books can be found on our books for sale page.
Although we are very serious about our research but we do have a lot of fun too. We never fail to have a laugh at our meetings and we very much enjoy our annual outing and trips to local villages and places of interest in the summer, not to mention our pleasure in taking members of other history groups round the older parts of Wroughton.
Members enjoy our annual croquet lesson August 2024
Members enjoying dinner in January 2024