Biomass Boiler in Corsham

Corsham

Corsham is a historic market town and civil parish in west Wiltshire, England. It is at the south-western edge of the Cotswolds, simply off the A4 nationwide route, 28 miles (45 kilometres) southwest of Swindon, 20 miles (32 kilometres) southeast of Bristol, 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Bath and 4 miles (6 kilometres) southwest of Chippenham. Corsham was historically a centre for farming and also later, the woollen industry, and continues to be a focus for quarrying Bath Stone. It has a number of remarkable historic buildings, amongst them the manor house of Corsham Court. Throughout the 2nd World War and the Cold War, it became a significant management and production centre for the Ministry of Defence, with various facilities both over ground as well as in disused quarry tunnels. The parish includes the towns of Gastard as well as Neston, which is at the gates of the Neston Park estate. Corsham appears to derive its name from Cosa's ham, "ham" being Old English for homestead, or town. The community is referred in the Domesday book as Cosseham; the letter 'R' appears to have actually gotten in the name later under Norman impact (possibly caused by the recording of local pronunciation), when the town is reported to have been in the ownership of the Earl of Cornwall. Corsham is recorded as Coseham in 1001, as Cosseha in 1086, and as Cosham as late as 1611 (on John Speed's map of Wiltshire). The Corsham area came from the King in Saxon times, the location at the time also had a huge woodland which was removed to give way for further expansion. There is proof that the town had been called "Corsham Regis" as a result of its reputed association with Anglo-Saxon Ethelred of Wessex, and this name continues to be as that of a primary school. One of the communities that succeeded substantially from Wiltshire's wool sell medieval times, it kept its success after the decrease of that profession with the quarrying of Bath stone, with underground mining functions encompassing the south as well as west of Corsham. The main turnpike road (now the A4) from London to Bristol travelled through the town. Numbers 94 to 112 of the High Street are Grade II * listed structures called the "Flemish Weavers Houses", nonetheless there is little cogent evidence to sustain this name and it shows up most likely to derive from a handful of Dutch employees who got here in the 17th century. The Grove, opposite the High Street, is a typical example of timeless Georgian design.