Corsham memories
Here are memories of Corsham and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Corsham or a Corsham photo.
Glenthope South Street
34 South Street was my home from 1963 to December 2007! My grandparents Ellen and Lewis Edwards lived here along with my mother Anne and myself.
It is the second house on the left with the single window upstairs. (This was my grandparents' room.) I spent many happy years here and can remember playing in the street with all the other children who lived in and close to South Street and being most suprised when a car came down the hill... Mk 1 Cortina!
The street has changed considerably as now it is difficult to park along the pavement. in the distance you can see the building which I believe must be something to do with the station which would be directly behind the house. I have also got copies of the deeds that came with the house stating that this was originally a field and permission was given to build these houses. I believe also, that the ones to the right of the picture were built slightly later?
Monks Lane Chapel
I don't really have a memory but went to visit due to family research. Monks Lane has a plaque inside referring to my gt grandad Arthur William Humphries that lived at Broad Stone Cottage with his wife and children. His wife's family being Jones lived in Monks Lane, the Vellys, also Lindley so Corsham is quite near my heart.
War Time
I have many memories of the wartime years spent in Corsham. My father was in the Ordnance Corps and served under Colonel Cripps at the Central Ammunition Depot. Up to about 1943 we were billeted at a farm but after that with a Mrs Harvey in Bences Lane and this is where my memories begin. I recall being in a queue for our meat rations and it starting to rain and feeling very secure and dry as there was an overhang that protected my mother and me. A few years ago I visited the Information Centre at Corsham. They confirmed that there had been a butcher at the place I recalled and that a carved piece of stone work from the original building was now incorporated in the new building. I was told that there was an abattoir nearby. I also remember going out with my mother, probably to Box Hill, as fighters raced around the sky. This was probably about 1945 as I was fascinated by finding pile after pile... Read more
The Old Milk Round
When I went to school in the High Street next to the Royal oak I can remember the milk man with his old horse and cart delivering milk all along the houses along the cobbled stone path. You had the cobbler's, it began with K I think, then opposite you had the dry cleaners, further on down you had Johnson's bakery with the fresh rolls just baked. What a treat in the morning for a small boy. I was born in Corsham in 1956 and left in 1977. I live in Bradford on Avon now but Corsham is still my home.
Things have changed a lot. I remember the bus coming up the High Street.
Lord's toy shop, what a place that was, down the back for all the toys. Then you had Smith's for the school uniforms, as I went to Corsham Boys School I had a wide range of friends, some I still see to this day. Well I must go as the thought of fresh baked rolls... Read more
My Home Town
I left Corsham in 1960 but although I haven't lived there for many decades I still consider it my home. I was born in a prefab in Clutterbuck Road, all my school friends lived in prefabs, even the Library in what was Beech Ave. was Prefab. the roads have all gone now, & when I returned there was a new housing estate where once were fields & allotments, I wonder if others remember, the happy times we children spent on our prefab estate.
Memories of Wiltshire
Box Fields, Hawthorn
My parents met at a place called Thornypits and married during the war years.They were George and Pam Edwards, he was a local barber and came from Killarney, Southern Ireland, she came from Ditcheat, near Shepton Mallet in Somersett. They had three children, Pat, David and Pam. My parents worked at the Moon Aircraft, which produced many parts from Perspex for aeroplanes. We lived on a purpose-built estate made up of prefab bungalows. The population was mostly young families that had evolved from the war and came from all over the UK and Ireland. The estate had a Fish and Chip shop ran by Mr Poole, a butchers, haberdashery, friut and veg shop. We also had a community centre that had a doctors surgery and a local youth club where I learnt to 'jive'. During my childhood I saw Polish and Hungarian refugees arrive at Thorneypits, which became a transit camp for people seeking refuge from conflicts within their countries. We never experienced any crimes or troubles from these people. Some... Read more
Hawthorn, Box Fields
Pat - it's lovely to read about Hawthorn as my grandmother Mrs Berrett and my Uncle Peter and Aunt Hilda Evans also lived there. School holidays were spent picking blackberries at the old D.P camp and playing in the fields and riding a bike around the estate. I remember the shops and the stone wall we used to walk on going to Five Ways to catch the bus to Bath or Chippenham. My aunt and uncle moved and ran a pub, the Royal Arthur I think it was called, in Corsham. I live in Ireland and went to see Hawthorn and was sad to see it was no longer there.
Hawthorn
I had a very happy childhood growing up in Hawthorn until I left at the age of fifteen to join the Royal Navy in 1960. Hawthorn consisted of two distinct halves separated by a 'main road'. The top site had flat roofs while the bottom half had sloping roofs. It made life easy when making teams. The "estate" was purpose built during the war for the workers of the Bristol Aircraft factory who also had a "fall back" factory underground should they get bombed out at Bristol. This never happened so at the end of the war the accommodation was rented to all the new families that had sprung up as a result of the war. For us children Hawthorn was a great playground. We had fields, woods, quarries, and a brooke at the bottom of the valley in which to play. There were very few fences or restrictions and we could come and go as we pleased. We would make... Read more
The Harp And Crown
The pub in the picture is the original H&C which was burnt down only a few years after this picture was taken. The pub was then rebuilt further back from the road. There are still elderly people in the village who remember their parents and even their grandparents going to the local for their usual.
One old lady's husband used to go to the pub a lot. Mrs Liddle lived at the top of Velley Hill until the 1960s I think, when a lorry drove through her living room and she was relocated to The (then relatively new) Close at the bottom of the hill before the pub. Sadly, she's now passed away after years of giving sweets to the village kids.
My younger brother was the first baby born in the village for many years, causing quite a stir and ending in many visits from the elderly village residents who knew the couple who lived in the house before us, and who are now buried in the village.
Childhood Home
I lived at Gastard House from 1953-1967. By that time it had been converted into flats, and we had the ground floor. There were other children there as well, and we had acres of space to play, in spite of part of the gardens being used as allotments. Every year we all had a big bonfire party on 5 November. I was told that it had been used by the military during World War 2. I believe it is very run-down now, but I have very happy memories of it.
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