The entrance to the “ancient and royal” borough of Chippenham is hatefully like that into Calne, whose paltry houses are reproduced there. The centre of the town is, however, of a better character, although the streets are cramped and narrow. A singularly foreign air is given to the place by its balustraded stone bridge across the Avon, and if one cares to pursue the Continental tone further it may be found in the huge factory near by, where “Swiss” Condensed Milk, of the “Milkmaid” brand, is manufactured on an immense scale. For the rest, its cheese and corn markets and bacon-curing keep it very much alive, and a modern (and brutally ugly) Town Hall, built in 1856, shows sufficiently well how trade has grown since the time when the picturesque old Town Hall, still standing, was built in the sixteenth century.
THE OLD MARKET HOUSE, CHIPPENHAM.
MAUD HEATH’S CAUSEWAY
The most interesting thing in Chippenham is (to borrow a “bull” for the occasion) outside the town. “Maud Heath’s Causeway,” a stone-pitched path along the road that runs through the heavy clay lands beside the Wiltshire Avon, extends for four and a half miles, from Chippenham to the summit of Bremhillwick Hill. It was made under the will of Maud Heath, who died about 1474, for the benefit of the market folk resorting to Chippenham, who found the low-lying roads almost impassable in winter. Little is known of this old-time benefactress, but legend supplies the lack of knowledge, and the popular belief is that she was a market-woman who, finding the road from Langley Burrell into the town in so dreadful a state, determined to leave the savings of a lifetime for the provision of a stone causeway, so that future generations might go dry-shod to market.
This causeway goes from the north-east side of the town, and continues through Langley Burrell to Tytherton Kellaways, up the shoulder of Bremhillwick Hill. The portion between Chippenham and Langley Burrell was, for some unexplained reason, not constructed until 1852-3.
According to the inscriptions on the stone posts beside it, the Causeway is held to commence at the Hill, and to end at Chippenham—
“From this Wick Hill begins the praise
Of Maud Heath’s gift to these highways.”