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International Melksham - industry, and beautiful countryside

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2013-06-15 07:36:22 - Graham Ellis

International business in Melksham? Yes indeed; I was musing this morning as to our visitors this week from Singapore, the USA, Estonia, Finland, Germany and Essex, Herefordshire and Swindon. And the map shows the identifiable locations of people on our web site over a 15 minute period - a snapshot taken about an hour ago. I'm invited to a business breakfast on 28th June and - guess what - the boot is on the other foot and I'll be in Dublin that morning, exporting Melksham's skills and services to Ireland.

This town thrives on trade and commerce - and on technical industries too. We have three "Queen's award to Industry" companies on the Bowerhill Industrial area, and a whole raft of smaller operations scattered through the town. It's a great, friendly place to live and work and with one exception all the visitors listed above are in Melksham for business rather than pleasure. Mind you, some of that's because at Well House Manor we're a Business Hotel, and our main training business - Well House Consultants - is business to business, specialising in niche subjects for which people have to gather from a long distance to make up enough people to teach. Which is why we're the hotel in the second place.


Don't let me put you off visiting Melksham as a tourist. The town was the largest urban area for many, many miles some 200 years ago, and many of the historic buildings remain. The blue plaque trail highlights some (but not all) of the key sites, and there's lovely countryside around and a wide variety of shops - a bit of an "antiques corner" at one end, and all sorts of specialists.

And the surrounding countryside is gorgeous! The picture here - at 06:30 this morning - was taken in the field behind "The Spa" - at the top of Spa Road, where the hotel's located. You can walk for miles across simple countryside - we have maps to hand - or take in the river and its bridges, the historic town, or the Kennet and Avon Canal if you wish - or be more adventurous and drive out or take the bus to Lacock, to Devizes, to the Marlborough Downs which we can see in the distance.