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Melksham
The town hall is in Market Place
Melksham  Melksham shown within Wiltshire
Population	21,000 (2001 Census)
OS grid reference	ST9063
Parish	Melksham
Unitary authority	Wiltshire
Ceremonial county	Wiltshire
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Melksham
Postcode district	SN12
Dialling code	01225
Police	Wiltshire
Fire	Wiltshire
Ambulance	Great Western
EU Parliament	South West England
UK Parliament	Devizes
List of places: UK • England • Wiltshire

Melksham

It is situated 19 km (12 miles) southeast of the city of Bath, 11 km (7 miles) south of Chippenham, 8 miles (13 km) west of Devizes and 14 miles (21 km) north of Warminster on the A350 national route. The 2001 UK census cited Melksham as having 20,000 inhabitants, including sizeable environs such as Bowerhill and Berryfield. As such it is Wiltshire's fifth-largest town by population after Swindon, Salisbury, Chippenham and Trowbridge.^[1]

The town of Melksham developed at a ford across the River Avon and the name is presumed to derive from MEOLC, the Old English for milk and from "ham", a village. It was a royal estate at the time of the Norman Conquest^{[citation needed]}

In 1539 the prioress and nuns of Amesbury surrendered their Melksham estates to the king^{[citation needed]} which they had held for about 250 years. This property, which consisted of the Lordship of the Manor and Hundred, was in 1541 granted to Sir Thomas Seymour. Seymour then sold it to Henry Brouncker, who had already made purchases of real estate in the neighbourhood. At some uncertain date, perhaps about 1550, Brouncker built a residence for himself on the site of an earlier mansion. This was known as Place House, built in a style suitable to that of a resident lord, who was also a man of considerable wealth.

Three generations of the family lived here: Henry Brouncker the founder, (d.1569), his son, Sir William, and his grandson Henry. On the death of this last Henry, about 1600, it became manifest that the Brouncker estate was heavily encumbered, and in the course of the next twenty or thirty years, all the property was alienated with the exception of Erlestoke, where William Brouncker, the heir, retired with his wife Anne, daughter of Sir John Dauntesey. Meanwhile, Place House was occupied for ten or eleven years by Henry Brouncker’s widow and her second husband, Ambrose Dauntesey. After their death, in 1612, the house apparently was occupied by the steward, and afterwards it was conveyed to Sir John Danvers, who married into the family, in 1634. Danvers died in 1655 and the lordship of Melksham passed to his son, who then conveyed the estate to Walter Long the Younger, of Whaddon. The lordship remained in the Long family, who were descended from the first Henry Brouncker, until the early part of the 20th century, having passed to the 1st Viscount Long of Wraxall.

An announcement was made in the Bath Chronicle in June 1792 of the establishment of the Melksham Bank by the firm of Awdry, Long & Bruges. In November 1813 the misquoting of part of an advertisement in two London newspapers caused panic amongst the bank customers, many of whom quickly withdrew their money, reportedly causing "some bustle" among the partners of the bank. There was further trouble in 1824, when the bank was listed on a Parliamentary Paper of the House of Commons under the title "Country Banks Becoming Bankrupt". John Long, one of the original partners, had by then become sole proprietor with the financial backing of his elder brother Richard Godolphin Long MP. The elder Long lost a considerable amount of money, which his brother John had to repay him at the rate of £3,000 a year for the rest of his life. Later proprietors Moule, Son & Co announced a re-opening of the bank 12 January, 1826.

Freemasonry first came to Melksham in 1817^{[citation needed]}, when a former Lodge of Westbury was transferred, and the first meeting was held in Melksham at The King's Arms on 9 September that year. In 1829, because of opposition by the inhabitants of Melksham, the lodge had to move to a neighbouring village, and for nearly 70 years masonry was not practised in Melksham until the formation of the Chaloner Lodge.

The Chaloner Lodge of Freemasons (no.2644) was named after its first Worshipful Master Richard Godolphin Walmesley Chaloner, 1st Baron Gisborough, who, when not in London, resided at Melksham House. He was the brother of the 1st Viscount Long. The lodge was consecrated on 27 February, 1897, with the first meeting scheduled for 4 p.m. March 19, held at the town hall. Writing from London while attending his Parliamentary duties as MP for Westbury, he complained that this date was inconvenient due to his having to be at Melton Mowbray to ride in the House of Commons Point to Point Steeplechase the next day. Despite this, the meeting went ahead and Chaloner initiated 13 of the candidates, returning to London overnight by train, getting virtually no sleep before his ride in the steeplechase early the next morning, resulting in him twice falling heavily from his horse.^[2] Later while deciding what extra furniture the lodge required, he asked that he have a special footstool, as his chair was high and his feet "dangled unpleasantly".^[2] By November 1897 a new masonic lodge was built in Melksham at Church St.

In 1815 the Melksham Spa Company was formed by a group of 'respectable gentlemen', with names such as Methuen, Long and others, all of whom had done very well from the now declining textile industry. Their aim was to promote a spa, after abortive attempts to find coal had uncovered two springs. As a consequence they built six large three-storeyed, semi-detached lodging houses forming a crescent, a pump room and hot and cold private baths. This suburban area at the southern end of the town is now known as The Spa, belonging to the civil parish of Melksham Without. A plan for a similar crescent on the north side never materialised. Simultaneously an Act was obtained to 'improve the pleasing town of Melksham' by paving and improving its footways and cleansing, lighting and watching the streets. The spa was not as successful as had been hoped, due in part to the popularity of the waters at nearby Bath.

West Wiltshire Council election, 1999

West Wiltshire Council election, 2003

West Wiltshire Council election, 2007

Wiltshire Council election, 1993

Wiltshire Council election, 1997

Wiltshire Council election, 2001

Wiltshire Council election, 2005

Melksham Forest

Bowerhill (a small residential satellite town generally considered as part of Melksham, housing a large industrial area.)

Berryfield (a village south of and adjacent to Melksham, often considered part of the town)

Beanacre (a village to the north, again often considered as a northern suburb of the town)

Hunter's Meadow (a relatively new district north of Bowerhill).

Out-migration of the talented and most able people has left the town with an elderly and predominantly working-class population, but despite this, the town is still growing, with major new developments expanding in the Bowerhill/Hunter's Meadow district to the southeast.^{[citation needed]}

Located between Bath, Trowbridge and Chippenham, Melksham has many varied industries including Avon Rubber, which previously owned the Avon Tyre plant in the town centre. Cooper Tire & Rubber Company now operates the plant, and is still a major employer in the town, producing Cooper Avon and Avon Tyres brands. In 2000, Avon Rubber plc moved to a large purpose-built facility just 3 km (2 miles) to the south of the town near Semington, employing over 300 people. Melksham is also home to Knorr-Bremse, a designer and manufacturer of railway braking systems, at a modern purpose-built facility in south Bowerhill.

The town has a thriving business district and is also close to the retail centres of Bath, Bristol, Chippenham, Trowbridge and Swindon and is surrounded by beautiful villages such as Lacock, Holt, Seend and Semington. Substantial funding has allowed a variety of dynamic expansion and enhancement programmes, including improvement of the town centre. To cater for the unprecedented growth and attraction in recent years, there are new schools and improved infrastructure although small pockets of Melksham town centre, including a 1960 shopping parade, await redevelopment.

Melksham has a number of pharmacies, high street clothes shops, charity shops and privately run individual stores. It has four medium-sized supermarkets: Sainsbury's, Somerfield, Lidl and Aldi, with permission for a fifth granted during 2009 by the local planning authority on a site controlled by Asda. The Somerfield store has been reported to be transferring to Waitrose, with the rebranding expected in 2010.

Melksham has been commended for a high level of social solidarity and community coherence.^{[citation needed]} This is particularly notable at sporting events, at which the citizens of Melksham excel.^{[citation needed]} The George Ward Technology College, the only secondary school in the Melksham catchment area, has provided education for the people of Melksham for many decades, with several athletes graduating from its ranks, such as Fitzroy Simpson. The town has an annual 'Party in the Park', which usually takes place in the summer in July. It includes a fair, with rides and amusements, fireworks display, a stage hosting musical and dance acts and a carnival parade through the town with floats promoting local businesses and clubs and raising money for charity.

The town is served by Melksham railway station, on the branch of the Wessex Main Line from Chippenham to Trowbridge, and currently it is served by two trains in either direction each weekday, operated by First Great Western.

Melksham is on the north-south A350 main road from the M4 motorway (Junction 17, near Chippenham) to Poole on the south coast. It is served by bus companies including Faresaver and FirstGroup plc. The A350 stretch directly to the south of the town has been designed to allow for possible future expansion to dual-carriageway status if required.

Aloeric Primary School

The Manor C of E Primary School — Formerly Lowbourne Junior and St Michaels School

King's Park Primary School — Formerly Lowbourne Infants School

Churchfields Primary School Atworth

Seend C of E Primary School

Bowerhill Primary School

Shaw C of E Primary School

St Mary's C of E Primary School

Forest & Sandridge C of E Primary School

Matthew Bound, footballer

Edmund Wright Brooks (1834–1928), Quaker philanthropist

John Fowler (1826-1864), agricultural engineer

James Hurn, cricketer

Ken Gill (1927-2009), trade union leader; caricaturist

Sidney Leslie Goodwin, child victim of the sinking of the RMS Titanic

Robert Martineau, Anglican bishop; curate in Melksham

Henry Moule (1801-1880), pioneer of the earth closet^[3]

Andy Park, known as "Mr. Christmas"

Diana Ross, children's author, lived at Shaw for many years

John Dunlop Southern, cricketer

George Thicknesse, 19th Baron Audley, died, and is buried, in Melksham

Ann Yearsley (ca. 1753-1806), poet; died in Melksham