Melksham, Wiltshire - Bridge - postcard by Wilkinson, 1924 pmk

• Postcard

   

• Picture / Image:  The Bridge, Melksham [Wiltshire]
• Publisher:  R. Wilkinson & Co., Trowbridge
• Postally used:  yes
• Stamp:  George V 1d red
• Postmark(s):  Melksham 13 Aug 1924 cds
• Sent to:  Mrs Johnson. 'Vevey', 51 Atbara Road, Geddington, Middx.
• Notes / condition: 

 

 

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Melksham (/ˈmɛlkʃəm/) is a medium-sized English town, on the River Avon in the county of Wiltshire.

It is 10 miles (16 km) east of the city of Bath, 6 mi (10 km) south of Chippenham, 6 mi (10 km) west of Devizes and 12 mi (19 km) north of Warminster on the A350 national route. The 2001 UK census recorded Melksham as having 20,000 inhabitants, including sizeable environs such as Bowerhill and Berryfield; as such it is Wiltshire's fifth-largest town by population after Swindon, Salisbury, Chippenham and Trowbridge.^[2]

The town of Melksham developed at a ford across the River Avon and the name is presumed to derive from "meolc", the Old English for milk, and "ham", a village. On John Speed's map of Wiltshire (1611), the name is spelt both Melkesam (for the hundred) and Milsham (for the town itself). Melksham was a royal estate at the time of the Norman Conquest^{[citation needed]}

Melksham is also the name of the Royal forest that occupied the surrounding of the area in the middle ages.^[3]

In 1539 the prioress and nuns of Amesbury surrendered their Melksham estates to the king^{[citation needed]} which they had held for about 250 years. This property, which consisted of the Lordship of the Manor and Hundred, was in 1541 granted to Sir Thomas Seymour. Seymour then sold it to Henry Brouncker, who had already made purchases of real estate in the neighbourhood. At some uncertain date, perhaps about 1550, Brouncker built a residence for himself on the site of an earlier mansion. This was known as Place House, built in a style suitable to that of a resident lord, who was also a man of considerable wealth.

Three generations of the family lived here: Henry Brouncker the founder, (d.1569), his son, Sir William, and his grandson Henry. On the death of this last Henry, about 1600, it became manifest that the Brouncker estate was heavily encumbered, and in the course of the next twenty or thirty years, all the property was alienated with the exception of Erlestoke, where William Brouncker, the heir, retired with his wife Anne, daughter of Sir John Dauntesey. Meanwhile, Place House was occupied for ten or eleven years by Henry Brouncker’s widow and her second husband, Ambrose Dauntesey. After their death, in 1612, the house apparently was occupied by the steward, and afterwards it was conveyed to Sir John Danvers, who married into the family, in 1634. Danvers died in 1655 and the lordship of Melksham passed to his son, who then conveyed the estate to Walter Long the Younger, of Whaddon. The lordship remained in the Long family, who were descended from the first Henry Brouncker, until the early part of the 20th century, having passed to the 1st Viscount Long of Wraxall.

An announcement was made in the Bath Chronicle in June 1792 of the establishment of the Melksham Bank by the firm of Awdry, Long & Bruges. In November 1813 the misquoting of part of an advertisement in two London newspapers caused panic amongst the bank customers, many of whom quickly withdrew their money, reportedly causing "some bustle" among the partners of the bank. There was further trouble in 1824, when the bank was listed on a Parliamentary Paper of the House of Commons under the title "Country Banks Becoming Bankrupt". John Long, one of the original partners, had by then become sole proprietor with the financial backing of his elder brother Richard Godolphin Long MP. The elder Long lost a considerable amount of money, which his brother John had to repay him at the rate of £3,000 a year for the rest of his life. Later proprietors Moule, Son & Co announced a re-opening of the bank 12 January 1826.

The civil parish of Melksham includes Melksham Forest, formerly a separate settlement 0.8 miles (1.3 km) to the northeast and now a suburb of the town. It has an Anglican church (St Andrew)^[5] and a Methodist church^[6] Based upon its overall road length, the shortest street in Melksham is aptly called "Short Street", situated at the top of Melksham Forest.

The parish of Melksham Without includes several villages and suburbs of Melksham:

Bowerhill, a large residential community generally considered as separate from Melksham, with a large industrial area Hunter's Meadow, a relatively new district north of Bowerhill Berryfield, a village south of and adjacent to Melksham, often considered part of the town Beanacre, a village to the north, again often considered as a northern suburb of the town.