Wick is a suburb of

Devizes Devizes () is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It developed around Devizes Castle, an 11th-century Norman architecture, Norman castle, and received a charter in 1141. The castle was besieged during the Anarchy, a 12th-cent ...

in the English

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

. Until around 1800, when expansion of Devizes turned it into a suburb, Wick was a village. The area is in the south of Devizes and lies west off the A360, which passes from Devizes to

Salisbury Salisbury ( , ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers River Avon, Hampshire, Avon, River Nadder, Nadder and River Bourne, Wi ...

History

There was a Roman settlement at Wick apparently from the 2nd to the 4th century, around the area once occupied by Pans Lane Halt. There are also faint indications of another settlement on the green, and a cemetery on the site of Southbroom junior school. Wick is first mentioned in 1249 and is called 'the Weke' in 1542. In 1736–7 the settlement consisted of Upper Wick and Wick but in 1759 Upper Wick no longer existed. In 1773 Wick was renamed Devizes Wick, to distinguish it from Potterne Wick, further to the south. In 1795–6 the hamlet contained between 30 and 33 assessable houses. Wick was later known for its dairy industry, none of which exists today. Until its closure in 1964, Pans Lane Halt on the

Devizes Branch Line The Devizes branch line was a railway line from Holt Junction (south-west of Melksham) to Patney and Chirton (south-east of Devizes), in Wiltshire, England. It was named after Devizes, the largest town on the line. The branch was opened by the ...

served Roundway Hospital, a mental hospital which closed in 1995. The former hospital was converted for housing and

Green Lane Hospital Green Lane Hospital may refer to: * Green Lane Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand * Green Lane Hospital, Wiltshire, England {{disambiguation ...

was built on part of its site.

Today

Today Wick is an entirely residential area, including a school and hospital. The original housing was built around the 1900s and most of the new housing was developed in the 1950s and 1960s. The newest housing development in the Drews Pond area was built in 2007. There is little room for any more housing due to the awkward geography that situates Wick on the edge of Devizes hill. It is roughly 1 mile from the centre of town. Most of the land surrounding Wick is

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with woody plants (trees and shrubs), or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunli ...

and

arable Arable relates to the growing of crops: * Arable farming or agronomy, the cultivation of field crops * Arable land, land upon which crops are cultivated * Arable crops program, a consolidated support system operated under the EU Common Agricultura ...

. To the south of Wick is Drews Pond Forest, a popular place for walking.

References

Villages in Wiltshire Devizes {{Wiltshire-geo-stub