North Wiltshire was a

local government district The districts of England (also known as local authority districts or local government districts to distinguish from unofficial city districts) are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. As the st ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, formed on 1 April 1974, by a merger of the

municipal borough Municipal boroughs were a type of local government district which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002. Broadly similar structures existed in S ...

s of

Calne Calne () is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire, southwestern England,OS Explorer Map 156, Chippenham and Bradford-on-Avon Scale: 1:25 000.Publisher: Ordnance Survey A2 edition (2007). at the northwestern extremity of the North Wessex Downs h ...

Chippenham Chippenham is a market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village ...

, and

Malmesbury Malmesbury () is a town and civil parish in north Wiltshire, England, which lies approximately west of Swindon, northeast of Bristol, and north of Chippenham. The older part of the town is on a hilltop which is almost surrounded by the upp ...

along with

Calne and Chippenham Rural District Calne () is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire, southwestern England,OS Explorer Map 156, Chippenham and Bradford-on-Avon Scale: 1:25 000.Publisher: Ordnance Survey A2 edition (2007). at the northwestern extremity of the North Wessex Downs ...

Cricklade and Wootton Bassett Rural District Cricklade is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in north Wiltshire, England, midway between Swindon and Cirencester. It is the first downstream town on the Thames. The parish population at the 2011 census was 4,227. History Cricklade ...

and

Malmesbury Rural District Malmesbury () is a town and civil parish in north Wiltshire, England, which lies approximately west of Swindon, northeast of Bristol, and north of Chippenham. The older part of the town is on a hilltop which is almost surrounded by the u ...

. It shared its name with the North Wiltshire parliamentary constituency, the boundaries of which were coterminous with that of the district until 1997. The new body's headquarters were in central Chippenham at Bewley House, a large office block which had been built in 1967 for Calne and Chippenham Rural District Council. They later moved to newly built offices at Monkton Park, another site in the town centre, overlooking the River Avon. The district was abolished on 1 April 2009 as part of the

2009 structural changes to local government in England Structural changes to local government in England were effected on 1 April 2009, whereby a number of new unitary authorities were created in parts of the country which previously operated a "two-tier" system of counties and districts. In five s ...

, when its functions were taken over by the new

Wiltshire Council Wiltshire Council is a council for the unitary authority of Wiltshire (excluding the separate unitary authority of Swindon) in South West England, created in 2009. It is the successor authority to Wiltshire County Council (1889–2009) and the ...

unitary authority A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...

Post-abolition events

Wiltshire Council retained the Monkton Park building as a satellite of its main offices at

County Hall, Trowbridge County Hall is a municipal building in Bythesea Road, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England, completed in 1940. It is the headquarters of Wiltshire Council. History In the 19th century the judicial functions of the county were discharged at Devizes As ...

. Some local services, which had been the responsibility of the district council and had passed in 2009 to Wiltshire Council, were later transferred to the larger town and parish councils. Thus, by 2019, Chippenham Town Council had taken charge of a large park, a community centre and play areas, as well as services such as grounds maintenance and street cleaning.

References

English districts abolished in 2009 Former non-metropolitan districts of Wiltshire {{Wiltshire-geo-stub

Post-abolition events

See also

References