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Melksham
Melksham () is a town and civil parish on the Bristol Avon, River Avon in Wiltshire, England, about northeast of Trowbridge and south of Chippenham. The parish population was 18,113 at the 2021 census. History Early history Excavations in 2021 in the grounds of Melksham House found fragments of locally made pottery from the early British Iron Age, Iron Age (7th to 4th centuries BC). There is evidence of settlement continuing into the later Iron Age and Roman Britain, Roman periods, including Roman clay roof tiles. Melksham developed at a ford across the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon. The name is presumed to derive from "''meolc''", the Old English for milk, and ''"ham"'', a village. On John Speed's map of Wiltshire (1611), the name is spelt both ''Melkesam'' (for the hundred (county subdivision), hundred) and ''Milsham'' (for the town itself). Melksham is also the name of the Royal forest that occupied the surrounding of the area in the Middle Ages. Landowners In 126 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melksham House
Melksham House is an 18th-century Listed building#Categories of listed building, Grade II listed house in the centre of Melksham, Wiltshire, England. It is owned by Wiltshire Council and is the home of Melksham House School, for children and young people with complex needs. The house stands west of the Market Place. It was built in the early 18th century, although records show a building on this site from about 1608. In 1699, Richard Coxeter sold the property to Sir Walter Long, 2nd Baronet of Whaddon, Sir Walter Long, after which time various replacements and extensions were added over the years, while the house continued in the ownership of the Long family. During the 19th century the house had a succession of owners, including (from 1866) Edward Barnwell, schoolmaster, archaeologist and antiquarian, who financed the building of St Andrew's church in the Forest area of the town. After the house was bought in 1895 by Charles Awdry of Shaw, Wiltshire, Shaw Hill House, the Blat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melksham Town Hall
Melksham Town Hall is a municipal building in the Market Place in Melksham, Wiltshire, England. The structure, which was built as a cheese market and is now the home of Melksham Town Council, is a Grade II listed building. History The west side of the Market Place had originally formed part of the orchard of Place House, a manor house which had been erected by Henry Brouncker in the mid-16th century. His son, also named Henry Brouncker, became member of parliament for Westbury in 1572, for Devizes in 1584, 1586 and 1589, and for Dorchester in 1601. The house itself was completely demolished in 1864. The orchard site was acquired by the directors of the Melksham Market Company in 1846 as the proposed location for a cheese market. The new building was designed by D. Jones of Bradford-on-Avon in the Italianate style, built in ashlar stone at a cost of £3,350 and was completed in 1847. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto the Market Place; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melksham And Devizes (UK Parliament Constituency)
Melksham and Devizes is a constituency of the House of Commons in the UK Parliament. Further to the completion of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, it was first contested at the 2024 general election, when it was won by Brian Mathew of the Liberal Democrats. He defeated Conservative former cabinet minister Michelle Donelan, who had been MP for Chippenham from 2015 to 2024. Boundaries The constituency is composed of the following electoral districts of Wiltshire (as they existed on 4 May 2021): * Bowerhill; Box & Colerne; Bradford-on-Avon North; Bradford-on-Avon South; Bromham, Rowde & Roundway; Calne South; Devizes East; Devizes North; Devizes Rural West; Devizes South; Holt; Melksham East; Melksham Forest; Melksham South; Melksham Without North & Shurnhold; Melksham Without West & Rural; The Lavingtons; Urchfont & Bishops Cannings; Winsley & Westwood. It comprises the following areas: * The towns of Melksham and Bradford-on-Avon, transferred from Chi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bristol Avon
The River Avon ( ) is a river in the southwest of England. To distinguish it from a number of other rivers of the same name, it is often called the Bristol Avon. The name 'Avon' is loaned from an ancestor of the Welsh word , meaning 'river'. The Avon rises just north of the village of Acton Turville in South Gloucestershire, before flowing through Wiltshire into Somerset. In its lower reaches from Bath (where it meets the Kennet and Avon Canal) to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth near Bristol, the river is navigable and is known as the Avon Navigation. The Avon is the 19th longest river in the United Kingdom, at , although there are just as the crow flies between the source and its mouth in the Severn Estuary. The catchment area is . Etymology The name "Avon" is loaned from the Common Brittonic , "river", which survives in the Welsh word ''afon'' . " River Avon", therefore, literally means "river river"; several other English and Scottish rivers share the name. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to the west. The largest settlement is Swindon, and Trowbridge is the county town. The county has an area of and a population of 720,060. The county is mostly rural, and the centre and south-west are sparsely populated. After Swindon (183,638), the largest settlements are the city of Salisbury (41,820) and the towns of Chippenham (37,548) and Trowbridge (37,169). For local government purposes, the county comprises two unitary authority areas: Swindon and Wiltshire. Undulating chalk downlands characterize much of the county. In the east are Marlborough Downs, which contain Savernake Forest. To the south is the Vale of Pewsey, which separates the downs from Salisbury Plain in the centre of the county. The south-west is also downland, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chippenham
Chippenham is a market town in north-west Wiltshire, England. It lies north-east of Bath, Somerset, Bath, west of London and is near the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The town was established on a crossing of the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, where some form of settlement is believed to have existed since before Roman Britain, Roman times. It was a royal vill and probably a royal hunting lodge, under Alfred the Great. The town continued to grow when the Great Western Railway arrived in 1841. It had a population of 36,548 in 2021. History Etymology The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' records the town as ''Cippanhamme'': this could refer to a person called Cippa who had his hamm, an enclosure in a river meadow. An alternative theory suggests that the name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word ''ceap'', meaning 'market'. The name is recorded variously as Cippanhamm (878), Cepen (1042), Cheppeham (1155), Chippenham (1227), Shippenham (1319) and Chippyngham (1541). In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Forest
A royal forest, occasionally known as a kingswood (), is an area of land with different definitions in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The term ''forest'' in the ordinary modern understanding refers to an area of wooded land; however, the original medieval sense was closer to the modern idea of a "preserve" – i.e. land legally set aside for specific purposes such as royal hunting – with less emphasis on its composition. There are also differing and contextual interpretations in Continental Europe derived from the Carolingian and Merovingian legal systems. In Anglo-Saxon England, though the kings were great huntsmen, they never set aside areas declared to be "outside" (Latin ''foris'') the law of the land. Historians find no evidence of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs (c. 500 to 1066) creating forests. However, under the Norman kings (after 1066), by royal prerogative forest law was widely applied. The law was designed to protect the " venison and the vert". In this sense, '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whaddon, Wiltshire
Whaddon is a small village in the civil parish of Hilperton in Wiltshire, England. Location The settlement is northeast of the county town of Trowbridge. By road, it is only accessible along Whaddon Lane, which connects it to the centre of Hilperton. The River Avon (Bristol), River Avon and the Kennet and Avon Canal, half a mile apart, define the natural boundaries of the settlement. The river separates Whaddon from the village of Holt, Wiltshire, Holt, and the canal separates it from Hilperton and Semington. History Archaeological finds indicate occupation of Whaddon in the British Iron Age, Iron Age, lasting into the time of Roman Britain. Under the name of ''Wadone'', the village is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, when it was held by a Saxon called Alvric and had two plough teams, with both meadow and pasture recorded. The Saxons used wood both for their buildings and their utensils, leaving little evidence of either in the archaeological record, but a possible ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
