Melksham Tourist Information Centre .....

Melksham, with its good road network, makes an ideal touring centre for the South West. There is an excellent range of accommodation in the area, ranging from bed and breakfast in private homes to country house hotels, farmhouse accommodation and self-catering.

The Tourist Information Centre in Church Street, is open Monday to Friday (9.00am to 5.00pm) and Saturday (9.30am to 4.30pm, closed for lunch) apart from Bank Holidays and will be pleased to help you in any way. It also acts as a ticket agency for many local and national events.

Contact:
Melksham Tourist Information Centre,
Church Street,
Melksham,
Wiltshire.
Telephone 01225 707424.
Email:

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Wiltshire .....

Wiltshire is a fascinating county with numerous sites of interest ranging from prehistoric Stonehenge in the south of the county to the Science Museum situated at Wroughton in the norh-east. Whatever your interests there will be something to catch your imagination in the county.

For further information on what Wiltshire has to offer contact Melksham Tourist Information Centre or visit the links below.
 

Melksham extends south from the railway and the river, alongside which are the extensive buildings of the rubber factory, towards the High Street and the Market Place. This is the heart of the town’s shopping centre with a good mix of multiple stores and independent traders, with a pleasant modern post office, a number of cafes, several pubs whose range of real ale is first class.

The Parish Church ..... Away to the west of the shopping centre and in a quiet and pleasing corner of Melksham is the Parish Church, a building that can trace its history back to before the Norman priest called Rumoldus. The Norman church was rebuilt around 1300 and 150 years later was enlarged and the Lady Chapel added for the nuns of Amesbury who had a house in the town. The former central tower was pulled down and replaced by the present west tower during the rather drastic restoration in 1845 by the architect Wyatt and the chancel was restored in 1881 by G.E. Street.

Features of interest in the church (St Michael and All Angels) include the north porch (1460) with its vaulted roof and parvis (priests room) above; the Lady Chapel with its battlements and pinnacles and high above the nave, the clerestory with its range of stained glass windows. There are other fine windows through the church and above the chancel arch, a huge wall painting of the Transfiguration. The church contains several interesting memorials including a brass of 1612 to Ambrose Dauntesey; another of John Buckley who was a friend of William Penn and followed him across to Pennsylvania; and a rather sad memorial to Frederick and Augusta Goodwin and their six children who were lost with the Titanic when she sank in 1912.   

Churches ..... Melksham has several churches, of more than passing interest including one, now the Spiritualist place of worship, that dates from 1734 when it was built as the Friends Meeting House. Baptists first met in the town in 1669, the present church in Old Broughton Road was built in 1776 and restored in 1879. In the High Street, the United Church of 1872 has an impressive frontage with giant Corinthian columns beneath a large pediment - and with Italiante decorations carved round the doors. 

The Town Hall ..... Situated on the Market Place, an ashlar-faced building of 1847 and one of quiet pleasing design. The building was first used as a cheese market but, with the police station next door, was bought by the then Urban District Council in 1914. It has been the home of local administration ever since. 

Melksham House ..... The oldest and architecturally most rewarding buildings in Melksham are close to the parish church. The 17th century Melksham House, now surrounded by playing fields, has been much altered after a fire. On its west side is the former tithe barn which was made into a schoolroom in 1878 by G.E. Street and was used as such until 1974. On the other side of the church is Canon Square, a quiet enclave of houses and gardens including the former vicarage and one or two Georgian houses. Farther along, in Church Street, is the old Roundhouse, a building once used for drying cloth, later in the 19th century an ammunition store for the local volunteers.    

Place Road ..... Leading from the High Street to the churchyard is Place Road with, at the entrance the re-erected gate piers of the former Place House (Melksham Manor) that stood in the Market Place from about 1560 to its demolition in 1864. Lloyds Bank on the corner of Place Road, although only built in 1922 is said to be a copy of the design of Place House.

Place Road itself, is a private road and a delightful cul-de-sac, leafy from nearby trees and lined with detached and semi-detached Neo “Gothic” villas. The road still has a rare atmosphere of Victorian “gentility”.   

Rachel Fowler Centre ..... In the Market Place is the Rachel Fowler Centre, a building in constant use for meetings and other activities and whose name is that of a local benefactress whose family once lived in a large house now used by Gompels the chemist. Miss Fowler set up several charities in the town, her great concern being the welfare of local people especially unmarried women like herself. She founded the Melksham Almshouses (then named after her) which still survive at the back of The City. She also founded the New Hall for use as a lecture and reading room.

The Bridge ..... A bridge has long been sited where the present day bridge stands. The river at this point was fordable, a wooden bridge was swept away by floods in 1804. The present bridge with its four arches, dates from 1809 and since it was built has been widened in 1929 by the addition of one footpath width.

River Avon ..... The Bristol Avon has a large catchment area. The river rises far away in Lechlade and running through Malmesbury, Chippenham, Lacock, Melksham, Bradford-on-Avon, Bath, Bristol out to the Severn Channel at Avonmouth. Because of flooding a new weir was built in 1959 and the river was diverted from its original course by the Avon factory to flow in a reasonably direct line to the new weir. Flooding in the town now rarely occurs.
From the river bridge the Bath Road, Bank Street and High Street are one continuous street leading to the Market Place, the original hub of the town centre. The above-named streets are lined with shops, banks, building societies, clubs and public houses, completing a typical central town area.   

Church Street ..... As its name implies Church Street is the street leading from the High Street to the Church of St Michael and All Angels. Shops line the street, but just before the street enters Canon Square, one or two interesting buildings can be seen. The Round house once a wool drying room built in the late 18th Century, another octagonal drying room is sited in Lowbourne and has been converted into a house. Another building of interest in Church Street is the Freemasons Hall, built in 1897 by the brethren of the Chaloner Lodge No. 2644 as a memorial of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.   

Canon Square ..... Leaving Church Street one enters Canon Square with its modern Post Office, but otherwise the remaining buildings belong to a much older era including the Tourist Information Centre in an old grain store. The south side of the Square are sited clothiers houses dating from Melksham’s days of prosperity in the early 18th century. Opposite is Canon House, part sixteenth and part eighteenth century, now fronting a new development of houses and flats appropriately called Canon Court.