Trowbridge

Trowbridge stands on the River Biss in western Wiltshire. Henry de Bohun obtained a market charter for the settlement in 1200, and plots were laid out for traders and craftspeople. From the fourteenth century Trowbridge developed as a centre of woollen cloth production. Spinning, weaving and finishing linked the town to the sheep-raising countryside and wider trade. Mechanisation brought conflict: workers rioted in 1785 and 1792, and again during the Luddite years of 1811–1816. By 1820 the town had more than twenty woollen cloth factories. The Kennet and Avon Canal helped carry coal from Somerset, supporting the introduction of steam power to the mills.