Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2009-08-08 19:43:49 - Graham Ellis
Well - I enjoyed - thoroughly enjoyed - my time in Guadalajara (see blog entry and more pictures) but it's lovely to be back home in Melksham. Looking through a few pictures today for images to illustrate specific articles, I have come across all of these recent ones that I haven't published before, and give you a taste of the town and its character from the local viewpoint. My 'headline' - the welcome the town marquee gave to visitors at the recent West Wilts show.
Melksham is an area of gentle residential housing, with plentiful areas of open space. 200 years ago, it was the largest town for many miles, but then it was something of a quiet backwater through the Victorian era and 20th Century - but now it's growing again. Current population - around 22,000; expected to grow to around 32,000 in the next 15 years.
Although many of the homes are modest, owners proudly look after their houses and gardens, and the quiet streets are ideal for more sheltered living in an area that is broadly crime free, quiet, and where there's a neighbourly sense of community too.
The Riverside Walk, Conigre Mead nature reserve, King George V's field, and the park alongside Clackett's Brook (pictured here) all enhance the spacious feeling that you'll get even just a few hundred yards from the Town Centre.
Melksham Is a town that dates back to the Domesday Book, and it does have its history. You'll find medieval buildings on Church Walk, you'll find an early Victorian Masonic Lodge in the town centre, you'll find a selection of different churches, and to the South of the town you'll find the Georgian "Melksham Spa"; Melksham was going to be a Spa town to rival Bath, but it didn't quite take off in the same way; these former lodging houses are now private homes, but if you're curious and ask me nicely I can show you around one of them, as I live there.
On the back road towards Lacock, the strip development of Woodrow lies alongside agricultural line with a variety of public footpaths and bridle ways. Some are what I describe as "doggable" (in other words, you can take a dog without having to lift it over styles and gates), others are passable but require you to have strong arms if you've got (as we have) a Greyhound / Staffordshire Bull Terrier cross with you, and others are expeditionary in their use. Here are the "come'omes" as we call them ["wait till the cows come home"] alongside a 'doggable' path in Woodrow.
"The people make the Town". That's the case with Melksham, for sure. Where I used to live, they were just about saying a grudging "Good Morning" back to me when I had lived there for 25 years, but here everyone says a cheery "Good Afternoon". Lisa kids me that a 10 minute bank run in London becomes 2 hours here. The picture... shows crowds watching the Melksham Carnival floats go by.
It's known as "The Avon", or Avon Rubber. These days, it's actually Cooper Avon Tires - the town's industrial plant beside the river Avon, making rubber tyres for road and racing vehicles. Long established, employees have gone off during the major wars of the last 100 years, and some have given their lives, commemorated in this stone book of remembrance in front of the art deco 1950's building which I think houses the canteen.
Melksham has a variety of bus routes, ranging from Route 14 around the town twice an hour (the ususal service run by this unique minibus), through to the X96 bus to Bradford-on-Avon and Frome, run by the self same bus bus just once a day (and in reallity a service to get it back to its depot at night and back in again in the morning). Hourly service from Chippenham to Trowbridge and from Bath to Devizes form a cross at Melksham (and actually both routes are duplicated by two operators, both running within a few minutes of each other, on Monday through Friday). Oh - the town bus also runs a daily trip to Trowbridge, shown here!
The Kennet and Avon Canal passes near to Melksham - a few hundred yards south of the Bowerhill suburb. Passing from the Thames to the Severn, this canal formed the major transit route from east to west before the coming of the railways, but fell into dereliction by around 1950, and was closed for 40 years. It's now well and truly open again... here's a scene near Seend.
Looking around, you'll find some things in Melksham that aren't quite the things you'll find in every town ...
... and you'll also find some things that are gems, but not really that unusual - such as our Well House Manor hotel - where we welcome visitors who come to do business in our town, meet the people who live there, and see some of the things we have on offer.
Well - I enjoyed - thoroughly enjoyed - my time in Guadalajara (see blog entry and more pictures) but it's lovely to be back home in Melksham. Looking through a few pictures today for images to illustrate specific articles, I have come across all of these recent ones that I haven't published before, and give you a taste of the town and its character from the local viewpoint. My 'headline' - the welcome the town marquee gave to visitors at the recent West Wilts show.
Melksham is an area of gentle residential housing, with plentiful areas of open space. 200 years ago, it was the largest town for many miles, but then it was something of a quiet backwater through the Victorian era and 20th Century - but now it's growing again. Current population - around 22,000; expected to grow to around 32,000 in the next 15 years.
Although many of the homes are modest, owners proudly look after their houses and gardens, and the quiet streets are ideal for more sheltered living in an area that is broadly crime free, quiet, and where there's a neighbourly sense of community too.
The Riverside Walk, Conigre Mead nature reserve, King George V's field, and the park alongside Clackett's Brook (pictured here) all enhance the spacious feeling that you'll get even just a few hundred yards from the Town Centre.
Melksham Is a town that dates back to the Domesday Book, and it does have its history. You'll find medieval buildings on Church Walk, you'll find an early Victorian Masonic Lodge in the town centre, you'll find a selection of different churches, and to the South of the town you'll find the Georgian "Melksham Spa"; Melksham was going to be a Spa town to rival Bath, but it didn't quite take off in the same way; these former lodging houses are now private homes, but if you're curious and ask me nicely I can show you around one of them, as I live there.
On the back road towards Lacock, the strip development of Woodrow lies alongside agricultural line with a variety of public footpaths and bridle ways. Some are what I describe as "doggable" (in other words, you can take a dog without having to lift it over styles and gates), others are passable but require you to have strong arms if you've got (as we have) a Greyhound / Staffordshire Bull Terrier cross with you, and others are expeditionary in their use. Here are the "come'omes" as we call them ["wait till the cows come home"] alongside a 'doggable' path in Woodrow.
"The people make the Town". That's the case with Melksham, for sure. Where I used to live, they were just about saying a grudging "Good Morning" back to me when I had lived there for 25 years, but here everyone says a cheery "Good Afternoon". Lisa kids me that a 10 minute bank run in London becomes 2 hours here. The picture... shows crowds watching the Melksham Carnival floats go by.
It's known as "The Avon", or Avon Rubber. These days, it's actually Cooper Avon Tires - the town's industrial plant beside the river Avon, making rubber tyres for road and racing vehicles. Long established, employees have gone off during the major wars of the last 100 years, and some have given their lives, commemorated in this stone book of remembrance in front of the art deco 1950's building which I think houses the canteen.
Melksham has a variety of bus routes, ranging from Route 14 around the town twice an hour (the ususal service run by this unique minibus), through to the X96 bus to Bradford-on-Avon and Frome, run by the self same bus bus just once a day (and in reallity a service to get it back to its depot at night and back in again in the morning). Hourly service from Chippenham to Trowbridge and from Bath to Devizes form a cross at Melksham (and actually both routes are duplicated by two operators, both running within a few minutes of each other, on Monday through Friday). Oh - the town bus also runs a daily trip to Trowbridge, shown here!
The Kennet and Avon Canal passes near to Melksham - a few hundred yards south of the Bowerhill suburb. Passing from the Thames to the Severn, this canal formed the major transit route from east to west before the coming of the railways, but fell into dereliction by around 1950, and was closed for 40 years. It's now well and truly open again... here's a scene near Seend.
Looking around, you'll find some things in Melksham that aren't quite the things you'll find in every town ... 
... and you'll also find some things that are gems, but not really that unusual - such as our Well House Manor hotel - where we welcome visitors who come to do business in our town, meet the people who live there, and see some of the things we have on offer.