The Yelde Hall is a public facility in the Market Place, in

Chippenham Chippenham is a market town in north-west Wiltshire, England. It lies north-east of Bath, Somerset, Bath, west of London and is near the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The town was established on a crossing of the River Avon, ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

, England. The building, which was the meeting place of Chippenham Borough Council, is a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

The hall was built in around 1450. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage facing onto the Market Place with the right hand section projected forward; the right hand section, which consisted of two bays, featured a short flight of steps leading up to a doorway in the left bay with a horizontal window above the doorway and two small gables above that. The left hand gable contained a carving of the town arms with the inscription "JS 1776": the initials refer to John Scott who was the

bailiff A bailiff is a manager, overseer or custodian – a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. There are different kinds, and their offices and scope of duties vary. Another official sometimes referred to as a '' ...

at that time. The right hand gable at one time contained a clock which was taken down in 1851. The building was originally used as a jail (in the cellar), as a courtroom (on the ground floor) and as a council chamber (upstairs). The Chippenham Savings Bank operated an office in the building on Saturday mornings from 1822. Following the relocation of the town council and burgess to

Chippenham Town Hall Chippenham Town Hall is a 19th-century municipal building in the High Street, Chippenham, Wiltshire, England. The town hall, which was the headquarters of Chippenham Borough Council, is a Grade II listed building. History After significant popu ...

in 1834, the building became the drill hall for the Chippenham Volunteer Rifle Corps in 1846. The unit evolved to become B Company, 2nd Volunteer Battalion, The

Wiltshire Regiment The Wiltshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 62nd (Wiltshire) Regiment of Foot and the 99th Duke of Edinburgh's (Lanarkshire) Regiment of Foot. T ...

in 1881 and B Company, 4th Battalion, the Duke of Edinburgh's Wiltshire Regiment in 1908. The regiment vacated the building when it relocated to the Little Ivy in 1911. However, the building was also used as the headquarters of the

Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry (RWY) was a Yeomanry regiment of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom established in 1794. It was disbanded as an independent Army Reserve (United Kingdom), Territorial Army unit in 1967, a time when t ...

at this time, and continued to be a yeomanry drill hall until the yeomanry moved its headquarters to

Trowbridge Trowbridge ( ) is the county town of Wiltshire, England; situated on the River Biss in the west of the county, close to the border with Somerset. The town lies south-east of Bath, Somerset, Bath, south-west of Swindon and south-east of Brist ...

in 1920. The Fire Brigade used the east end of the building from 1870 and then almost the whole building from 1911 to 1945. After some restoration work in the 1950s, the building served as the Chippenham Museum from October 1963 until it relocated to the Market Place in 1999. Following a refurbishment, the building then became the North Wiltshire Tourist Information Centre in March 2003 although that concern relocated to a unit adjacent to the town hall in February 2012. It underwent a further refurbishment in March 2012 and then re-opened to the public as an extension of the Chippenham Museum and Heritage Centre in April 2012.

References

{{Reflist Government buildings completed in the 15th century Grade I listed government buildings City and town halls in Wiltshire Chippenham Grade I listed buildings in Wiltshire Drill halls in England

History

See also

References