Skip to content
Mixroutes
Devizes
Town in Wiltshire, England

Devizes

Devizes is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England.

Plan a trip to Devizes→From Bristol

It developed around Devizes Castle, an 11th-century Norman castle, and received a charter in 1141. The castle was besieged during the Anarchy, a 12th-century civil war between Stephen of England and Empress Matilda, and again during the English Civil War when the Cavaliers lifted the siege at the Battle of Roundway Down and the Parliamentarian Army of the West under Sir William Waller was routed. Devizes remained under Royalist control until 1645, when Oliver Cromwell attacked and forced the Royalists to surrender. The castle was destroyed in 1648 on the orders of Parliament, and today little remains of it.

Get in

Getting to Devizes

Detailed information about public transport is available from the town website. The town is about 10.5 miles (16.9 km) southeast of Chippenham and 11 miles (18 km) east-north-east of the county town of Trowbridge. Every Easter, hundreds of canoeists set off from Devizes Wharf heading for the Thames at Westminster in the annual Devizes to Westminster International Canoe Race.

See

Worth seeing

  1. 01
    Wiltshire Museum

    41 Long Street (South of the Market Place), hello@wiltshiremuseum.org.uk.

  2. 02
    Kennet and Avon Canal

    The canal runs through the town, with the spectacular flight of 26 locks at Caen Hill.

  3. 03
    Caen Hill Locks are 29 locks
  4. 04
    Pewsey Heritage Centre

    This is the former Whatley Foundry, built around 1870, which made water wheels, pumps and mill gears.

Do

Things to do

The Devizes International Street Festival attracts thousands of visitors to the town for two weeks leading up to August Bank Holiday each year, beginning with a long-standing "confetti battle" where, at a given signal – usually cannons firing confetti hundreds of metres into the air – the public are invited into the Market Place to throw as much confetti as possible at one another.

How locals move

Getting around Devizes the local way

  • Get inEvery Easter, hundreds of canoeists set off from Devizes Wharf heading for the Thames at Westminster in the annual Devizes to Westminster International Canoe Race.

From Wikivoyage: Devizes, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us. Last edited 2026-09.

Text adapted from Wikipedia and Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Wikimedia Commons (see Commons), Wikimedia Commons.