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Melksham
Melksham (/ˈmɛlkʃəm/) is a town and civil parish on the River Avon in Wiltshire, England, about 4.5 miles (7 km) northeast of Trowbridge and 6 miles (10 km) south of Chippenham. The parish population was 18,113 at the 2021 census.
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.
In 1268, Henry III of England gave the manor of Melksham to Amesbury Abbey for the souls of his late cousins Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany and Arthur I, Duke of Brittany.
In 1539 the prioress and nuns of Amesbury surrendered to the king their Melksham estates, which they had held for some 250 years. This property, which consisted of the lordship of the manor and hundred, was in 1541 granted to Sir Thomas Seymour. He then sold it to Henry Brouncker, who also had lands nearby at Erlestoke. At some uncertain date, perhaps about 1550, Brouncker built a residence for himself near Melksham church on the site of an earlier mansion. This was known as Place House.
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 1812, when the bank was listed on a Parliamentary Paper of the House of Commons under the title "Country Banks Becoming Bankrupt".
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Melksham AI simulator
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Melksham
Melksham (/ˈmɛlkʃəm/) is a town and civil parish on the River Avon in Wiltshire, England, about 4.5 miles (7 km) northeast of Trowbridge and 6 miles (10 km) south of Chippenham. The parish population was 18,113 at the 2021 census.
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.
In 1268, Henry III of England gave the manor of Melksham to Amesbury Abbey for the souls of his late cousins Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany and Arthur I, Duke of Brittany.
In 1539 the prioress and nuns of Amesbury surrendered to the king their Melksham estates, which they had held for some 250 years. This property, which consisted of the lordship of the manor and hundred, was in 1541 granted to Sir Thomas Seymour. He then sold it to Henry Brouncker, who also had lands nearby at Erlestoke. At some uncertain date, perhaps about 1550, Brouncker built a residence for himself near Melksham church on the site of an earlier mansion. This was known as Place House.
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 1812, when the bank was listed on a Parliamentary Paper of the House of Commons under the title "Country Banks Becoming Bankrupt".