Church
St John's Church dates from 1130 when it was constructed as a chapel to
the new Castle recently completed at Devizes. The church is dedicated to
St John the Baptist.
It is rumoured that the altar relic at
its foundation was a feather from the wing of the Angel Gabriel. The feather
has yet to be discovered...
Town
The name Devizes is thought to be a corruption of the
Latin "ad divisas", meaning 'at the divisions or boundaries'. The boundaries
were those of the three adjoining manors, Rowde, Cannings and Potterne,
which met precisely at the point where Devizes Castle built by
Osmund, Bishop of
Salisbury in about 1080 was constructed.
Castle
The original castle, built of wood, was destroyed by
fire in 1113 and was rebuilt in 1120 by
Roger,
Bishop of Salisbury, who was Chancellor and Treasurer to
Henry I
and whose other castles were those of Old Sarum, Sherborne and Malmesbury.
Henry of Huntingdon,
writing of it twenty years later, describes it as "a noble castle...
of good strength and beauty... the most splendid castle in Europe".
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