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Moving further down the High Street, we take a second look at a building which has returned to use as a public house after a break of nearly 100 years.

We are looking at the Organ Inn in the High Street, Warminster.

The inn at the lower end of the High Street dates back several hundred years.

In 1801 it is listed in the Survey of Warminster with a Samuel Provis as landlord.

At one time a carrier service ran from the Organ to Chippenham railway station By 1911, when the licensing authorities were trying to reduce the abundance of public houses in the town, it was owned by Barletts Brewery and the landlord was Thomas Whatley.

At that time there was a compensation fund which provided money paid by the government to local authorities to encourage closures of pubs.

As the compensation fund was so small the threatened closure did not proceed.

However the Organ Inn closed two years later, on August 13 1913, by order of the Wiltshire Compensation Authority with the owners awarded £1,230 compensation.

Fred Francis took over the premises as a butchers shop and in 1924 sold it to Sam and Harold Bishop.

Our archive picture was taken in 1927, with Sam and Harold Bishop advocating Buy British.

That year the Bishop family formed the Warminster Fish and Fruit Company.

Sam Bishop's son Terry was three at the time. He worked at the shop all his life, and it finally closed in 2000.

The building was then left unused until a few years ago.

Daniel Keene and his partner Carly Edwards had the building restored and transformed it back into the Organ Inn, keeping the historic building as traditional as possible.

It reopened on July 21 2006, 93 years after it had ceased to be a public house.

9:14am Thursday 17th April 2008

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