• Swindon & Wiltshire Culture
• Wednesday June 5 2024
• Author Name: Peter Davison

Happy Wiltshire Day! June 5 is the county’s special day

Happy Wiltshire Day! June 5 is the county’s special day – a tradition dating all the way back to… 2007.

It marks the date when the ‘Great Bustard Flag’ was first flown over County Hall in Trowbridge.

The flag is partly based on the emblem of Wiltshire Council. The alternating green and white stripes represent the grass of the downs and the chalk beneath.

In the centre of the flag is a Great Bustard – the world’s heaviest flying bird. The large bird became extinct in 1832, but in the 1990s a flock from Russia were secretly imported back to the county as part of an intensive breeding programme.

Surrounding the bustard is a circle representing the neolithic stone circles of Stonehenge and Avebury. The circle is divided into six alternating green and white sections to represent the surrounding counties of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hampshire, Dorset and Somerset.

The Wiltshire Flag

Fun facts about Wiltshire:

• Wiltshire is named after Wilton near Salisbury, once the county’s principal town. It lost this honour in 1889 when Trowbridge – which was easily accessible from all parts of the county by train – was named county town.
• People from Wiltshire are referred to as Moonrakers. A legend dating from before 1787 – the first written record of the tale – suggests that local people smuggling barrels of French brandy were surprised by customs officers and submerged the barrels into the water of a village pond. When challenged by the excise men, the smugglers pointed to the reflection of the moon and claimed they were trying to rake in a round of cheese. Dismissing the ‘yokels’, the officials went on their way.
• Moonraker is the third novel by Ian Fleming to feature his secret service agent James Bond. Fleming lived at Warneford Place in the north of the county for many years and is buried at St. James’s church in Sevenhampton. Swindon features several times in the film franchise. Roger Moore filmed scenes from A View to a Kill at the iconic Renault building in 1984. And in 2000 Pierce Brosnan brought the spy back to Swindon, where the Motorola factory featured in The World is Not Enough.
• The phrase ‘as different as chalk and cheese’ is a reference to Wiltshire. With its southern chalk downs and the lush green pastures of the clay soil in the north of the county, Wiltshire was a centre for cheese-making and the Wiltshire Loaf is mentioned in not one, but two of Jane Austen’s novels.
• Amesbury is thought to be Britain’s oldest settlement, dating back to 8820 BC. The Neolithic monument of Stonehenge is two miles to the west. Incidentally, Stonehenge has its own resident Great Bustard, Gertrude. In the north of the county, The Ridgeway – Britain’s oldest road – starts at Avebury. Swindon – the county’s largest town with a population of around 184,000 – gets a mention in the Domesday Book but owes its modern status to the establishment of Brunel’s railway works in 1841.
• Modern Wiltshire is a hive of economic activity. Swindon and Wiltshire’s 30,000 businesses contribute £20.6 billion to the UK economy annually. Fifty-nine per cent of the area’s economic activity comes from the M4 corridor in the north. Its principal sectors are manufacturing, real estate, and retail and wholesale.
• Swindon is Schrödinger’s town – both in, and not in, Wiltshire at the same time. In 1997 the borough broke away from Wiltshire Council and Swindon became a unitary authority – ‘Swexit’, if you like. In the same year it gained a second parliamentary seat – previously much of what is now Swindon was part of the Devizes constituency. Swindon Day is celebrated on January 22 in a tradition dating back to… 2021. You can read all about Swindon Day here.
  

  Gertrude the Great Bustard at Stonehenge