Wiltshire Memories
 Wiltshire remains a county of contrast from the ultra modern business buildings along the M4 corridor to the National Trust village of Lacock. Each market town and village has kept its own identity and reminders of their history.
This look back in photographs is a wonderful opportunity to remember how things were and to marvel that many town and village scenes remain largely untouched by the march of time.
Wiltshire loves its carnivals and processions and this collection of pictures shows how people through the decades have marked special occasions and anniversaries.
Huge celebrations for coronations, jubilees and VE day are all catalogued but there are also the smaller and more personal parties that have marked more individual endeavours of villages and towns.
Many of our towns have military links and marching bands and soldiers on parade have been caught on camera many times.
Thousands of houses have been built, many roads constructed and business parks created by the essence of rural Wiltshire remains.
Pictures of Chippenham
The Bath Road floods outside the Nestle milk factory in the 1890s. The building still exists today, but production ceased at the factory in 1962, when the condensery business was moved to Cumberland.
A hand-tinted postcard view of Chippenham High Street around the 1890s.
Three boys stand at the front of this 1905 view of Chippenham High Street. The town hall can be seen to the right of the picture.
The ground is prepared for the construction of Chippenham’s Borough Parade shopping centre, in the town centre, in 1974. The spire of St Andrew’s Church can be seen in the background, as can the backs of the buildings on the High Street.
Pictures of Corsham
A very early photograph showing the Station Hotel in Corsham from 1865-70. The women in the centre are wearing crinolines in their skirts. The man with the top hat on the left is the station master.
Workmen use a steam roller at the stone wharf at Corsham Station in a picture taken about 1900.
Number 1, the High Street, Corsham, pictured in 1906. The premises were occupied by TF Harding, grocers, at the time.
Pickwick Road gets dressed up for the coming of age of the Hon Paul Ayshford Methuen, in 1907. Paul Methuen, whose family owned Corsham Court, became the Fourth Baron Methuen in 1932.
Pictures of Devizes
A crowd gathers in Devizes Market Place in the early 20th century (note the wide brimmed hat on the woman towards the centre right of the picture). There are pens set up for animals on the left side of the picture, and the New Market Tavern can be clearly seen in the background.
A crowd gathers in Sheep Street in the early 20th century. Most of the original buildings were demolished in the 1950s.
The workforce at F Rendell and Sons, engineers, in the very early 20th century.
Harry and Herbert Bolwell, part of four generations of printers, stand with their mother outside their shop in New Park Street in 1928. The business closed in 1979.
Pictures of Wootton Bassett
A class at the national school with teacher Mr Val Griffiths, in about 1929.
The Wootton Bassett Ladies Cricket Team of 1921. Pictured are Mr Hunt, Mrs Kembrey, Mrs Mewton, Miss K Bennett, Miss D Willis, Mrs Rich, Mr JB Trow, Miss H Chequer, Mrs F Twine, Miss P Hart, Miss Angelinetta, Mrs J Hart, Miss K Hunt, and Miss G Bennett.
Boys watch as a large gun, a relic of the Crimean War, is given up for scrap for the war effort in 1941. In the background is the market hall.
Youths on a job creation scheme at Wootton Bassett lake (now Jubliee Lake) in the early 1970s.
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