Melksham

Excavations in 2021 in the grounds of Melksham House found fragments of locally made pottery from the early Iron Age (7th to 4th centuries BC). There is evidence of settlement continuing into the later Iron Age and Roman periods, including Roman clay roof tiles. Melksham developed at a ford across the River Avon. 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 is also the name of the Royal forest that occupied the surrounding of the area in the Middle Ages.

There are two Grade II* listed structures in the parish: St Michael's Church and one of the chest tombs in its churchyard. Pevsner wrote that "the only rewarding part of Melksham is by the church". Melksham House, south of the church, is early 18th century but largely rebuilt after a 1920 fire and adapted for use as a sports and social club. Southwest of the church, a 15th-century tithe barn was remodelled into a school by G. E. Street in 1878; the school left the premises in 1973 and the building is now residential. The area around Canon Square, north of the church, has several Grade II listed houses and cottages, among them a former vicarage dating from the late 17th century, remodelled…

In 1815 the Melksham Spa Company was formed by a group of 'respectable gentlemen', with names such as Methuen, Long and others, all of whom had done very well from the now declining textile industry. Their aim was to promote a spa, after abortive attempts to find coal had uncovered two springs. As a consequence they built six large three-storeyed, semi-detached lodging houses forming a crescent, a pump room and hot and cold private baths. This suburban area at the southern end of the town is now known as The Spa, belonging to the civil parish of Melksham Without. A plan for a similar crescent on the north side never materialised. Simultaneously an Act was obtained to 'improve the pleasing…