Chippenham

Chippenham stands on the River Avon in Wiltshire, on a road between London and Bristol. A royal estate in Anglo-Saxon times, it later developed as a market town with a share in the western Wiltshire cloth trade. Maud Heath endowed a causeway to help people reach the market across low ground. During the Civil War the town changed hands and its inhabitants faced demands from both Royalist and Parliamentary armies.