Corsham

Corsham is a small town in northwest Wiltshire in England, close to both Bath and Chippenham.

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It is the site of the eastern portal of the well-known Box Tunnel and the disused entrance to Tunnel Quarry, which used to be visible off Pockeredge Drive. The largely disused emergency government wartime headquarters, known as Hawthorn or Turnstile is located in the neighbourhood.

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Corsham has several local shops in its small town centre with the new Martingate Centre that has been redeveloped. The town has its own festival. It also has a stately home, Corsham Court (part of the Methuen estate), and famous almshouses which were recently featured on the BBC's Restoration television series.

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Camilla Parker Bowles (who later married Charles, Prince of Wales, and assumed the title Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall) is a noted former resident of Corsham; when she moved to the nearby village of Lacock in 1995, she sold her house to the Pink Floyd musician Nick Mason.

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The town of Corsham was the inspiration for Charles Dickens's novel The Pickwick Papers. The name Pickwick is likely to have come from that of a nearby farm, Pickwick Lodge Farm. This area is the part of Corsham which is on the A4, once the main road from London to Bristol. Corsham is also the home town of experimental rock outfit, The Bears.

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There was once a priory in Corsham, which was destroyed, then built on by a Georgian house (now Heywood School) located on Priory Street.

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Wiltshire: Wiltshire (abbreviated Wilts) is a large southern English county. Considered as a ceremonial county, it is landlocked and borders the counties of Hampshire, Dorset, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire, and contains the unitary authority of Swindon. The county town is Trowbridge, si...

England: :For an explanation of often confusing terms like England, (Great) Britain and United Kingdom see British Isles (terminology)....

Bath: Bath is a city in South West England most famous for its baths fed by three hot springs. The city was first documented as a Roman spa, although tradition suggests that it was founded earlier. The waters from its spring were believed to be a cure for many afflictions. From Elizabethan to Georgian tim...