The Yelde Hall is a public facility in the Market Place, in

Chippenham Chippenham is a market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

, England. The building, which was the meeting place of Chippenham Borough Council, is a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

The building was built in around 1450. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage facing onto the Market Place with the right hand section projected forward; the right hand section, which consisted of two bays, featured a short flight of steps leading up to a doorway in the left bay with a horizontal window above the doorway and two small gables above that. The left hand gable contained a carving of the town arms with the inscription "JS 1776": the initials refer to John Scott who was the

bailiff A bailiff (from Middle English baillif, Old French ''baillis'', ''bail'' "custody") is a manager, overseer or custodian – a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. Bailiffs are of various kinds and their offi ...

at that time. The right hand gable at one time contained a clock which was taken down in 1851. The building was originally used as a jail (in the cellar), as a courtroom (on the ground floor) and as a council chamber (upstairs). The Chippenham Savings Bank operated an office in the building on Saturday mornings from 1822. Following the relocation of the town council and

burgess __NOTOC__ Burgess may refer to: People and fictional characters * Burgess (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Burgess (given name), a list of people Places * Burgess, Michigan, an unincorporated community * Burgess, Missouri, U ...

Chippenham Town Hall Chippenham Town Hall is a 19th-century municipal building in the High Street, Chippenham, Wiltshire, England. The town hall, which was the headquarters of Chippenham Borough Council, is a Grade II listed building. History After significant popu ...

in 1834, the building became the drill hall for the Chippenham Volunteer Rifle Corps in 1846. The unit evolved to become B Company, 2nd Volunteer Battalion, The

Wiltshire Regiment The Wiltshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 62nd (Wiltshire) Regiment of Foot and the 99th Duke of Edinburgh's (Lanarkshire) Regiment of Foot. The r ...

in 1881 and B Company, 4th Battalion, the Duke of Edinburgh's Wiltshire Regiment in 1908. The regiment vacated the building when it relocated to the Little Ivy in 1911. However, the building was also used as the headquarters of the

Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry (RWY) was a Yeomanry regiment of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom established in 1794. It was disbanded as an independent Territorial Army unit in 1967, a time when the strength of the Territorial ...

at this time, and continued to be a yeomanry drill hall until the yeomanry moved its headquarters to

Trowbridge Trowbridge ( ) is the county town of Wiltshire, England, on the River Biss in the west of the county. It is near the border with Somerset and lies southeast of Bath, 31 miles (49 km) southwest of Swindon and 20 miles (32 km) southe ...

in 1920. The Fire Brigade used the east end of the building from 1870 and then almost the whole building from 1911 to 1945. After some restoration work in the 1950s, the building served as the Chippenham Museum from October 1963 until it relocated to the Market Place in 1999. Following a refurbishment, the building then became the North Wiltshire Tourist Information Centre in March 2003 although that concern relocated to a unit adjacent to the town hall in February 2012. It underwent a further refurbishment in March 2012 and then re-opened to the public as an extension of the Chippenham Museum and Heritage Centre in April 2012.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in the 15th century City and town halls in Wiltshire Chippenham Grade I listed buildings in Wiltshire Drill halls in England

History

See also

References