Trowbridge, United Kingdom

The most notable member of the family was Henry de Bohun, born around 1176, who became lord of the manor when he was about 15 years of age. It was he who began to shape the medieval town. In 1200, he obtained a market charter, arguably the earliest for a town in Wiltshire, and one of the earliest in England. His officials were to lay out burgage plots for traders, artisans, and shopkeepers. The outline of these plots can still be seen today in the footprints of some of the present shops in Fore Street.

Within Trowbridge Castle was a 10th-century Anglo-Saxon church. Henry de Bohun converted it to secular use and built a new church outside the Castle, the first St James's Church. The Romanesque architecture of the period can be seen in the base of the tower of the present-day church, below the subsequently added spire.

In 1200, Henry de Bohun was created Earl of Hereford by King John. Like other barons, Henry was later threatened by King John and his caput of Trowbridge was taken from him. Henry then joined with the other barons to oppose John's arbitrary rule and forced him to seal Magna Carta (the Great Charter) at Runnymede. He was elected as one of the 25 enforcers of the charter. Some years after Runnymede, Henry regained control of Trowbridge.

Trowbridge developed as a centre for woollen cloth production from the 14th century. Thus, before the start of the Tudor period, the towns of south-west Wiltshire stood out from the rest of the county with all the signs of increasing wealth and prosperity during the period of trade recovery led by exports begun under Yorkist Edward IV and, still more, during expansion under Henry VII, when England's annual woollen exports increased from some 60,000 to some 80,000 cloths of assize.

During the 17th century, the production of woollen cloth became increasingly industrialised. However, workers resisted mechanisation in traditional trades; there were riots in 1785 and 1792, and again in the era of Luddism (1811–1816) owing to the introduction of the flying shuttle. Thomas Helliker, a shearman's apprentice, became one of the martyrs of the Industrial Revolution in 1803 when he was hanged at Fisherton Jail, Salisbury. Nevertheless, at one point in 1820, Trowbridge's production was on such a scale that it was described as the "Manchester of the West." It had over 20 woollen cloth producing factories, making it comparable to northern industrial towns such as Rochdale.

The woollen cloth industry declined in the late 19th century with the advent of ring-spinning, and this decline continued throughout the 20th century, although Trowbridge's West of England cloth maintained a reputation for excellent quality until the end. The last mill, Salter's Home Mill, closed in 1982 and is now the home of Boswell's Café and Trowbridge Museum and Art Gallery, integrated into the Shires Shopping Centre. There are also working looms on display. Clark's Mill is now home to offices; straddling the nearby River Biss is the "Handle House," formerly used for drying and storage of teazles used to raise the nap of cloth. This is one of the few such buildings still known to exist in the United Kingdom.

In its place, a bedding industry developed, initially using wool cast off from the mills; the company now known as Airsprung Furniture Group was started in the town in the 1870s. Food production also developed in the town when Abraham Bowyer started his business in 1805. Eventually, as Pork Farms Bowyers, it became one of the largest employers in the town until its closure in April 2008, when production moved to the Shaftesbury and Nottingham factories.

The town became the county town of Wiltshire in 1889 when Wiltshire County Council was formed and sought a place which representatives from Swindon and Salisbury, among others, could reach and return home from in one day. Trowbridge fulfilled this criterion by its railway connections and thus was chosen as the county town, further reinforced by the construction of County Hall in 1939.

The brewing company Ushers of Trowbridge opened in 1824 and had a brewery in a central part of the town. This was shut in 2000 following several changes of ownership, and its equipment was sold to North Korea, where it forms the core of the Taedonggang brewery, just outside Pyongyang.

Since 2002, plans have been in place to redevelop significant town centre sites. Trowbridge Community Area Future (TCAF) produced a Community Area Plan in 2004 to guide future development.