A walk around the town.

Chippenham from the air.

A good place to start a walk around Chippenham is the Butter Cross in the Market Place. Not a "cross" at all but a large stone roof sitting on six pillars, the Butter cross once stood a few yards away on the site of Barclay's Bank. It was taken down in 1889 and moved to the grounds of the Manor in Castle Combe where it remained until 1996. Chippenham Civic Society brought it back and had it restored.

Look up towards the Bear Hotel, on your right the Angel Hotel one of Chippenham’s oldest coaching inns. Next door is the Museum And Heritage Centre, for many years the Magistrates Court the building stands on the site of King Alfred’s hunting lodge. Facing the Bear once more, the Market Place continues through the roadway just to the left, on the corner stands the Ashoka Indian Restaurant.. The building has changed little in the last hundred years, until the summer of 2002 it was the Waverley, a temperance hotel and restaurant standing alone against the thirty or so pubs and licenced hotels in the Market Place. The pubs were for the benefit of the farmers attending Chippenham's weekly cattle market here. Like the market the pubs have mostly gone, while the number of café's and restaurants has increased.

The Waverley (Ashoka) is on the corner of The Shambles, a block of buildings that stand in the middle of the Market Place as a whole and which built up around the Yelde Hall. Walk now around the corner you will find around the corner the Yelde Hall, recently restored and now serving the town as a Tourist Information Centre. Hopefully they are open, go in, have a look at the inside and take the chance to pick up a few leaflets about the many attractions in the area.

The Yelde Hall is just about the oldest building in the town, over five hundred years. It served as council chamber, court room general meeting room and underneath, the town jail.

By the end of the sixteenth century the other buildings that comprise The Shambles had grown up around it and only the section of the Yelde Hall with the two gables showed from the roadway. The town Coat of Arms is over the door, but the date with the initials JS refers to the time of a repair. The building later served as a Fire Station. It was not until the 1950s that the surrounding buildings were demolished and the hall underwent restoration. It then served as the town Museum. In March 2000 the museum closed and moved to the new Heritage Centre This restoration did not last that well and the building has one again been refurbished for yet another lease of life.

Cross over the road and turn to the left, then around the corner of the Post Office, into St. Mary's Street. A couple of hundred yards along, the road turns sharply left into the modern shopping centre. You should miss this and go straight on, but cross over to the opposite pavement. The route takes you past some of the best houses in Chippenham.

For a many years St Mary's Street. was the main road into town as The Causeway, or more exactly the road alongside of it, had fallen into such disrepair coaches could not use it. On the right is a high wall behind which is St Andrew’s Church. You can is you wish go up the flight of steps along the church yard which affords a better view of the houses in the street below and back down a similar set of steps at the other end.

Carry on along the road until you find a steep path leading down to your left. The path runs between new red brick buildings and under an arch that joins them. This takes you across a pedestrian bridge over the river Avon. Turning to the right will take you along the river path with rough ground and pleasant enough views, to another foot/cycle bridge. Do not cross here but turn and retrace your steps. Turning to the left, takes you through Monkton Park. Monkton House is in front of you as you leave the bridge, up on the top of the hill. Walk back along the path beside the river. The gardens of St. Mary's Street come down to the water here.

At the far end of the park is the Olympiad Leisure Centre. Avoid the wooden footbridge back over the river, which leads to the Island Park and stay on the bank side until you reach the town bridge. At the point where you meet the road there is a short run of stone balustrade on your right by the end shop. This is all that remains of the original bridge. It once stretched as far to your right as the length you can see over the river today. Cross over the road and take the road towards Bath. Before you do that look over the crossing to the red brick building (Mail Boxes Etc) until very recently the Tourist Information Centre and with the exception of the Olympiad, it is the newest of building pointed out on this tour. It was built in 1903 as a Salvation Army Citadel. It was for a few years, a print works and then an indoor market before TIC took over. The Salvation Army meanwhile moved a street away into Foghamshire into the old Co-Op Hall. In March 2003 the TIC relocated to the Yelde Hall, in the Market Place.

Cross back and continue along towards Bath. The building on your left is the old Nestlé Condensed Milk Factory it was the first stainless steel condensing factory in the world but closed when traffic flow along this road made business unviable. The factory had a similar building the other side of the road where the covered car park is now. In its early years farmers would unload milk churns from their carts in the road. then collection became motorised and as vehicles got bigger and traffic more dense, access became too difficult.

At the end of the factory, sorry office block!, turn left into the path that takes you back to the river. A footbridge takes you over the weir, pause and look downstream at the new Gladstone bridge. Opened only a couple of years back, it has even less style than the sixties construction you just left upstream! The most recent phase of the towns modernisation scheme has been to replace the steel guard rails on the sixties town bridge with a new prize winning design for the 21st century. Sadly that too lacks the style of the old stone balustrade it had had for hundreds of years. An excellent chance was lost. No excuses are available for the new Gladstone bridge.

On leaving the river turn left through the car park and into Borough Parade shopping centre. Save the shopping for another day and walk through into the High Street. Cross straight over and look back. you have just passed under an arch with the Coat of Arms on again. The small shop immediately to its left was for some years a bank. It is built into the corner of the Town Hall built by the towns benefactor Joseph Neeld in 1835 The Neeld Hall was added on to the Town Hall some fifteen years later, again paid for by Joseph Neeld. Built to replace the old Yelde Hall the front was once three open arches where cheese was sold. These sales moved back into the newer building which also had a corn exchange room and an open yard. The Hall was used as a military hospital in the Great War. Now make your way up the High Street back to your starting point. You can then take a break in one of several cafés or one of the remaining pubs while you look through the leaflets you picked up at the TIC. You did remember to pick some up, didn't you? More photographs from this walk around the town. Map of town centre with points on this walk marked

I have been asked why I chose the shot of the viaduct to go on my front page. Take another look at the aerial photograph, what dominates the picture? I could have turned to face the other way and used the front of Bewley House one time HQ of NWDC, but believe me you wouldn't have liked it! There's another picture of the viaduct here. Printer friendly version of this page.

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