Here's a page for the visitor. By that I mean I am going to try and give you a bit of background to the town and any locals reading this will probably be able to spot a flaw or two! For those I apologise. When I was much younger I was told that the name of the town probably came from the Saxon Meoc Ham. A ham being a piece of low lying ground in the bend of a river and Meoc being the name of the owner (Michael). Or possibly Meolc (ham) meaning "milk producing" Thus becoming "a piece of land where your dairy herd would flourish" Two things are certain, the Saxons couldn't spell and they certainly could fit a whole lot of meaning into a few words!

Whatever. While nearby Chippenham was an occasional country base for King Alfred, who had a hunting lodge there, Melksham was the place where he did the business, it was but a small place in the middle of Chippenham Forest. Not only a great place for hunting but also a useful hiding place from marauding Danes. Later as Melksham grew it became increasingly known as Melksham Forest.

A couple of hundred years later Harold handed over the Kingdom without so much as batting an eye to the Normans. They were an orderly folk and having gained so much new land set about compiling a great asset list, the Domesday Book. Orderly, but they couldn't spell either as here it appears as Melcham or Melchesham.

The forest must have been cleared a bit by then as there were listed several farms and mills. In a big share out of their newly gained wealth the Normans apparently gave the town (manor) and the land around it to one Aloeric, one of their own. The area remained in the hands of the new aristocracy for several hundred years and was a regular hunting place, but the forest dwindled and farming took over.

Prior to the War Memorial being built this piece of ground in the centre of Canon Square was a garden. It is reputed to be coffin shaped due to its being the site of a plague pit! Possibly the work of a vivid (and macabre) imagination. That anyone would dig a plague pit in the square outside their houses . . . my imagination doesn't stretch that far.

As the forest made way for pasture and the town gradually began to grow, the cloth mills took on a greater importance. The area around Canon Square was formerly cottages for the weavers the church of St Michael is to one side and Church Walk the other, leads towards the river, which powered the mills.

John Fowler was born in Melksham in 1826, the son of a Quaker merchant. He started his working life at a corn merchants, but on reaching 21 left to work at a Middlesborough engineering company. He invented a stationary steam hauled plough for land drainage and later set up his own engineering business in Leeds. He died at an early age in an accident, but the Fowler Company continued for many years and became world renowned for its steam traction engines. Rachel Fowler is better known to the locals perhaps, as she stayed in the town, lived longer and became one of its greatest patrons, founding at her own expense almshouses and a hall for a reading room and meeting place. Some authorities have this Rachel as John's sister, but if my reading is correct, she was his aunt. (Harold Fassnige - The Quakers of Melksham) The history of the Fowler family is difficult to follow as not only were they a large family but each generation seemed to have several Johns, Rachels, Roberts and Thomases!

Gradually the weaving died out. The cloth makers of Melksham found it increasingly difficult to compete with more intensively mechanised mills of the north yet were unable, or unwilling to produce cheaper quality cloth. They resorted to paying their outworkers less, which led to street fighting as the workers protested at their poverty.

As the mills fell silent agriculture and engineering grew. Along came the canal of the Wilts & Berks Co. Followed by the railway. Neither made as great an impression on the town as the motor car and the Avon Rubber Company who set up a tyre manufacturing plant. During the last war giant grain silos were built between the railway and the Holt road. The railway had private sidings serving this and engineering works. The sidings are gone and now the most prominent feature is the roundabout, testament to the rise in road transport and the decline of rail.

The railway had already killed off the canal, but its route can still be traced through parts of the town. The most obvious point being the remains of a humped bridge in Spa Road.

Speaking of which . . . . Melksham once had pretensions of being a Spa town. Further on out of town is the Spa itself, now no more that a group of over large houses, built to accommodate visitors that never materialised. Apparently the Melksham waters were even more foul tasting than most, but that did not prevent a local pharmacist from bottling it and selling it as a cure-all for several years. In Spa Road are several fine houses built at the same time and for the same reasons. They are somewhat smaller but have the merit of being rather more elegant in design. Several continue in use as Hotels and Guest Houses.

Melksham's Spa Houses remain, they're just rather shy, you nead to creep up on them!

The town has continued to grow, and during the last sixty years or so has diversified greatly in the types of businesses. It was at one time described as being only second to Swindon in its industry, before the coming of the Great Western Railway, Melksham was some five times the size of the little village of Swindon! Much of the building that took place in the middle 1900's was pretty dire. Several fine buildings in Church Street were pulled down. Though in fairness, they were probably near to falling down and the restoration/conservation movement, listing of buildings and grants for repair had hardly begun. The Christie Miller Sports Complex must rank as the ugliest leisure centre in the county, but it was also one of the first. If it is judged on the facilities it provides rather than its architecture then Melksham can be justly proud of its achievement.

Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure that the information contained in yourguide to Melksham is correct, neither the guide nor its contributors can be responsible for any loss due to errors or omissions.