Imber

Imber is the ghost village of the Salisbury Plain. Kelly's directory for 1939 tells us it has an ancient church and a Baptist Chapel, that it has an area of 3,052 acres and in 1931 its population was 152. It also says that the soil is flinty, the subsoil chalk and that the chief crops are wheat, oats, barley and pasture. Ominously it also records that the principal landowner is the War Office.

Although there is evidence of prehistoric and Roman settlement in the area, the first documentary mention of Imber is in 967, when it was part of an endowment to the Abbess of Romsey. It is mentioned in Domesday as being held by Ralph of Mortimer, but this probably only referred to that part of the village not held by Romsey Abbey. It has been estimated that the population at that time was about 50. By 1377 the population had risen to 250, probably remaining at that level till the nineteenth century. By 1801 it had risen to 331, by1851 it had reached a peak of 440. Then it commenced a decline, to 339 in 1881, 261 in 1901, till by 1931 there were just 152 inhabitants.

Imber was a community dependent upon agriculture. Those who were not directly employed on the land were in trades dependent upon it. The decline in population is also reflected in a decline in activity. The directory of 1867 lists 6 farmers, a tailor (and shopkeeper), a miller (and Innkeeper), a boot and shoemaker and a blacksmith (and shopkeeper). Whereas the 1939 directory lists 4 farmers, a smallholder, an innkeeper, a carpenter and a blacksmith.

The village was in quite an isolated position, sheltering in a fold in the downs some four miles from the nearest village. It was elongated in shape, its main street following the course of a stream known as “Imber Dock”. The only building still more or less intact is the church. This was described in the 1939 directory as “an ancient and beautiful stone building of various dates, mainly in the decorated and perpendicular styles. It has an embattled western tower with five pinnacles and containing five bells”. The description of the interior mentions the effigies of two knights (now to be seen in Edington church). The Baptist chapel, built in 1839, is also mentioned (this was demolished some time ago and only the graveyard remains). Besides a number of substantial farmhouses, the main building of note was Imber Court. This was the manor house, rebuilt in the eighteenth century, burnt down in 1920 and subsequently restored. Refreshment was supplied by the Bell Inn.

What happened to Imber? From the late nineteenth century military manoeuvres had been held on parts of the Salisbury Plain and in 1897 the War Office began purchasing land in the South East of the plain. The first world war and after saw and increase in the need for such land and between 1927 and 1932 the War Office purchased a substantial part of the north and west of the plain. This included most of the village of Imber and its inhabitants became tenants of the military. In the Second World War the need for training areas intensified, especially in the preparations for D-Day. On the 1st November 1943 the tenants were given just 47 days notice to quit. Many of them left believing that they had been promised a return after the war. This was not to happen, it has been a training area ever since. Much of the old village has since disappeared. In a final irony the army has built a mock village, for training purposes, on the edge of the old one.

Imber is now a part of the parish of Heytesbury Imber and Knook.