DEVIZES

town (parish), Kennet district, administrative and historic county of Wiltshire, England. It lies along the disused Kennet and Avon Canal, at the edge of Roundway Down. It was the site of a Roman fortification, Castrum Divisarum; and Roger, bishop of Salisbury, built a castle there about 1132. The name Devizes possibly came from a medieval Latin reference to the castle ad divisas (at the boundaries). The town that grew around the castle received its first charter in 1141, was represented in Parliament from 1295, and had an important medieval market. The castle was razed in 1645 by the army of Oliver Cromwell. Devizes today is a grain, cattle, and pig market and has bacon and cheese factories, tileworks, and engineering plants; it is also the country's oldest manufacturer of snuff. Pop. (1991) 13,205.