Melksham Timeline

A polished stone axe found in the C20th suggests possible early settlement

There is a settlement around the site of the present parish church

A hundred and a royal manor. According to the Domesday Book it is valued at £111.11s and comprises 84 hides (approx 10,000 acres), including 130 acres of meadow, 8 leagues of pasture and 4 leagues of woodland. There are 8 mills

The chancel of St. Michael's and All Angels parish church dates from this time - it is not known when the earliest church on this site was built

A Friday market and Michaelmas fair granted to the town

20 oak trees from Melksham Forest are used to make the stalls in Salisbury Cathedral

A Tuesday market and 3 day Michaelmas fair granted to the town

St. Michael's church is enlarged

There are weavers working in the town

St. Michael's church is remodelled and many additions made

First documented reference to the bridge over the River Avon when William Honeston bequeaths a sum towards its maintenance

Thomas Trewin bequeaths money for the maintenance of Lowbourne bridge

The Prioress of Amesbury, who holds the Melksham manor, obtains a 2 day fair for 15th and 16th July

Clothing industry at its peak in Melksham producing white undyed broadcloth

About this time the central tower of St. Michael's church is built

Place House built between the church and the market place by Henry Brouncker about this time

There are 2 fulling mills in the town

First documented reference to Melksham House (originally named The Grove) west of the Church

A parish constable in the town - the churchwardens pay his expenses; a poor house in existence

All of the Royal forest has now been sold off following an authorisation to disforest in 1618

Woolmore House at Bowerhill built by George Hulbert

The bridge is in a bad state and the Quarter Sessions order the townspeople to repair it under penalty of a £40 fine

About this time weavers are producing medley broadcloth and trade improves

First recorded meeting of Quakers (Society of Friends) in Melksham at the home of Robert Marshman at Shaw Hill - 80 people attended

A census by Bishop Compton shows that there are 100 nonconformists and 1865 conformists in Melksham

The Chirurgions Arms public house in existence (no longer exists)

A Quaker boarding school is established

Melksham House is bought by Sir Walter Long

A licence is issued for Baptist meetings to be held at the house of James Webb in Melksham; Shaw House is rebuilt by Thomas Smith

First Baptist chapel built in Melksham

The George Inn in existence (no longer exists)

The Quaker school is no longer in existence

The Friends' Meeting House in King Street is built

Local weavers riot and wreck the house and mills of clothier Henry Coulthurst during a wages dispute

The poor are to be employed on public works

By this time Fox's charity school is open - established by Rev. Bohun Fox who on his death in 1750 bequeaths £135 for educating and clothing poor children in the parish; Wesley preaches in Melksham

Following turnpiking the road from London to Bath is re-routed through Melksham

Jacob Selfe bequeaths the interest on £100 for bread and meat at Christmas for 8 poor householders in Beanacre

The Society of Cloth Workers and Others for the support of sick and infirm workmen meets at the King's Arms

A poor house with brew-house and bake-house is built in King Street

A new Baptist church is built in Old Broughton Road

A Post Office is in existence

Congregational Church in Market Place is built

The Ark cloth factory is built

There are daily coach services to and from London and Bath

Melksham Bank is established by Messers Awdry, Long & Bruges

The large fulling mill is converted to a corn mill; there is a fire engine in the town owned and operated by the vestry

Private subscription enables the footways to be paved; galleries are built in the Baptist church to accommodate the increasing number of worshippers

The King's Arms Hotel is built

C. W. Maggs & Company, manufacturers of mats, rope and twine, founded at Spa Road

Melksham Methodist Chapel is built in the High Street

Melksham bridge is swept away by a flood and replaced with the present stone bridge

By this time the Wilts. & Berks Canal is open - raw materials are offloaded at Melksham and finished products collected

A spa, comprising a pump room and houses for visitors, is opened; a reading room and circulating library is in existence

The spa closes - too much competition from Bath

John Fowler, inventor of the steam plough, is born in Melksham

Melksham General School for the Education of Poor Children (the British school) is founded at Lowbourne

Private gas company formed (becomes public in 1885)

Thomas Bruges bequeaths £10 per year for the provision of blankets at Christmas to the poor of Melksham and Seend; Ebenezer chapel near Union Street built; Melksham Union formed

Christ Church at Shaw is built

First Chartist meeting is held in Melksham

National School (later St. Michael's Church of England School) founded on site by the churchyard

St .Michael's church is restored at a cost of £1,895 - works include rebuilding the tower at the west end, a new vestry and a north chapel

New cheese market opens

Town Hall is built at a cost of £3,350; a lock-up is built in the Market Place

Railway line connecting Melksham to Thingley Junction, south of Chippenham, and Westbury, is opened by the Wilts. Somerset and Weymouth Railway Company; Shaw School founded

The Ark cloth factory is closed

The Melksham Mutual Improvement Society with a reading room opens in Bank Street

A timber mill is established by Hurn Bros. by the railway station

Rachel Fowler founds and endows 5 almshouses

Volunteer Force ( later known as the Melksham Rifle Corps (12th Wilts)) is raised

Place House and orchards auctioned off by local syndicate - Place House is demolished and Place Road and villas are built on the site

Hustings riots around the Bear Hotel

A Cottage Hospital is built south of Lowbourne

The Ladies High School is open in Spa Road

Post Office telegraph service introduced

From this time the Melksham General School for the Education of Poor Children is known as the Lowbourne School

The United Reformed Church built; Melksham Methodist Chapel is rebuilt in Market Place

Rachel Fowler gives £266.13s.4d the income from which is to provide blankets and flannels for the poor; a church school opens at Forest

The last cloth factory is closed

Rachel Fowler gives New Hall in the Market Place to trustees as a reading room and accomodation for religious and philanthropic meetings; the Old Crown Inn built in Market Place

Lowbourne Infant and Nursery School is separated from Lowbourne Junior School

A piped water supply is provided by Trowbridge Water Company and a fountain is built in the market square in celebration; the Post Office is now in Bank Street

St. Barnabas church at Beanacre is built; St. Andrew's church at Forest is consecrated

Matravers Mill, the last cloth mill, is sold to Avon India Ribber Company Ltd following a century of decline in the clothing industry; Wilts United Dairies, founded by Charles Maggs at West End Farm, moves to New Broughton Road

Melksham Rifle Corps is integrated into the 2nd Volunteer Batallion, Wiltshire Regiment

Straw dealers B. Sawtell & Sons start up business in Old Broughton Road

The Cottage Hospital is rebuilt in Bank Street

Chaloner Lodge of Freemasons founded

Freemasons' Hall in Church Street built

Spencer & Co. Engineering Works established at the corner of Bath Road and Union Street; National Telephone Co. provides a telephone service

B. Sawtell & Sons commence a business cleaning feathers used for bedding at their factory in Old Broughton Road

Spencer & Co. move to Beanacre Road and become experts in mechanical handling; the organ at St. Michael's Church is rebuilt

Lord Methuen provides £4 per year for the distribution of meat and grocery vouchers to 24 poor persons of Beanacre

Christ Church at Shaw is rebuilt

By this time the Post Office has moved to High Street

Lowbourne School is rebuilt adjacent to the old school

Melksham Fair, held in the Market Place on 27 and 28 July each year, is closed by an Act of Parliament because it encourages undesirables to the town

The Picture Hall (later named Maxime Cinema) opens in the High Street

A Red Cross hospital opens; an estate of 48 houses is built at Roundponds; Atworth and District Agriculture Society is founded in Atworth (now Countryside Farmers and situated in Melksham)

War Memorial built in Canon Square

The Co-operative Society establish a creamery opposite the railway station; Melksham House is virtually destroyed by fire leaving only the front of the house intact

A cross is built in Canon Square in memory of those from Melksham who died in World War 1

Electric light and power is supplied by the Western Electricity Distribution Corporation

Eight bells at St. Michael's Church are re-cast

The Salvation Army acquire an old malt house in Union Street as their Citadel; new police station built in Semington Road

The Cottage Hospital is rebuilt in Spa Road

The market is closed; the Roman Catholic church of St. Anthony of Padua is built in West Street

RAF camp either side of Berryfields Lane

RAF station built at Bowerhill

Melksham Urban District Council build over 1000 new houses to the east of the town

New post office built on site of Church House

The Friends' Meeting House closes

Shurnhold Secondary Modern school opens - it is the first new post-war secondary school in Wiltshire (later replaced by the George Ward School)

Spencer & Co. bought out by Elliot-Automation Group of Companies, later GEC

Wiltshire County Council's first purpose-built library is opened in Melksham; Maxime cinema in High Street demolished and replaced by Avon shopping precinct

RAF station decommissioned

A ring road is built around the town

St Michael's Church of England Primary school, a purpose built school, is opened on its present site

By this time Spencer & Co., now part of GEC, is closed