A History of the County of Wiltshire Volume XX: Chippenham and Environs

This volume, the first to be published in the VCH Wiltshire series since 2011, presents histories of Chippenham and six adjacent parishes, Bremhill, Christian Malford, Hardenhuish, Kington Langley, Kington St Michael and Langley Burrell. With the publication of this 20th volume in the Wiltshire series, in progress since 1947, the history of the last of the major towns in the county has been given the standard VCH treatment. It is also the first Wiltshire volume to have been researched and published since local authority and academic funding was withdrawn in 2014, and is the work of five freelance historians contracted by a charitable trust established to continue the project to completion. As well as offering a history of the borough and extensive parish of Chippenham, there are histories of Chippenham hundred and of six rural (or formerly rural) parishes adjacent to the town: Bremhill, Christian Malford, Hardenhuish, Kington Langley, Kington St Michael and Langley Burrell. Chippenham in northwest Wiltshire was an important bridging point across the River Avon, and a market town with manufacturing industries, including railway engineering after the GWR opened a station there in 1841. With good rail and motorway links the town has experienced rapid growth in recent decades, and the other parishes included in this volume, which all lie on or close to the Avon valley clayland, renowned in the past for dairying and cheesemaking, have also proved attractive to a commuting population, while retaining to a large extent their rural character. Natives to the area include historians John Aubrey and John Britton, and the clergyman Francis Kilvert, whose diaries offer a vivid portrait of Victorian life around Chippenham. The principal authors are John Chandler, Mark Forrest, Rosalind Johnson, Matthew Kilburn and Louise Ryland-Epton.