Imber, Wiltshire
Historical Description
Imber, a parish in Wilts, in Salisbury Plain, 4½ miles NE by N of Heytesbury station on the G.W.R., and 6½ ENE of Warminster. Post town, Codford St Mary. Acreage, 3047; population, 292. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Salisbury; gross value, £230 with residence. Patron, the Bishop of Salisbury. The church contains two effigies of Knights Templars, and is good. There is a Baptist chapel. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners are lords of the manor and chief landowners.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Wiltshire | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Imber St. Giles | |
| Hundred | Heytesbury | |
| Poor Law union | Warminster |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register dates from the year 1707.
Findmypast, in association with the Wiltshire Record Office, have the following parish records online for Imber:
| Baptisms | Banns | Marriages | Burials |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1623-1917 | 1754-1813 | 1623-1933 | 1624-1976 |
Churches
Church of England
St. Giles (parish church)
The church of St. Giles is a building of stone, in the Decorated and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel, nave of three bays, aisles, north porch and an embattled western tower with five pinnacles and containing 5 bells: there was a piscina at the east end of the south aisle, and in the porch a mutilated stoup: two recumbent stone effigies of knights lie in the church, one being within a 14th century arched recess in the south aisle: the font is Early Norman, with herring-bone work round the top, but has been removed to Brixton Deverill: the chancel was rebuilt in 1849, at a cost of £630 10s. by the Marquess of Bath, and the church was thoroughly restored in 1895 at a cost of £1,000, and afforded about 200 sittings. The church is now redundant, the whole village having been taken over by the British Army in 1943 to provide a training ground for American forces in the second World War. Access to the church is strictly controlled, and opening times can be found on the Imber Church website.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Imber from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Imber (St. Giles))
Maps
Online maps of Imber are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Wiltshire papers online: