Blooming Melksham – a colourful visit

By Emma Kirkup

During the recent heatwave that we’ve been experiencing I made a visit to the Wiltshire town of Melksham for an explore around with Terri Welch, Melksham’s Mayor.

As I parked up in the town I immediately noticed the colourful bunting decorating the streets and planters adorned with flowers. The bunting is up for this Saturday’s annual carnival, a popular event in the town centre.

We began our walk at the Town Hall and Terri explained to me about how Melksham was so colourfully decorated with flowers and plants as it’s Britain in Bloom judging time! In fact, Terri had recently taken the judges around and the results of how well they’ve done will be out in September.

Terri also explained to me some of the changes that are going to take place over the next few years including the building of a new community campus and hopefully the development of the Wilts & Berks Canal which will link up to the River Avon creating a marina area in Melksham.

The walk we did took us through one of the churchyards out to Conigre Mead Nature Reserve, a reserve managed by Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. There are a couple of boards here telling you about some of the flora and fauna you may get to see and if you are lucky you may even spot a kingfisher! There are various events which take place here throughout the year as well and I spotted a poster for a bat walk which sounded interesting.

We continued our stroll along the Riverside Walk, crossing over to King George V Park – named locally as just ‘The Park’. This is a large lawn area with a play park, the canoe club on the river and an area for recreation. It’s also where some of the town’s bigger events like the Party in the Park and the Melksham River Festival take place.

Continuing back to the centre, we passed some of the independent shops, pubs and cafes – many of which were beautifully decorated with hanging baskets. It was nice to see the local businesses had got involved with taking pride in their town and with the Melksham in Bloom efforts.

We then walked along Church Walk – a street I’d never walked along before. There were some cute cottages along here with pretty little gardens, hanging baskets and planters. It was such a gem and the warm honey coloured stone looked lovely set off against the roses and other flowers. This Walk leads you out to Canon Square, where the War Memorial can be found. Again, there are some gorgeous properties here and it’s so nice to see the local residents take pride in their gardens, just a hundred metres or so down the road you’ll also find the town’s Tourist Information Centre where staff can inform you about different things to see and do in the area as well as up-to-date information about what’s on.

Terri also informed me that Melksham is very big on Christmas and take pride in the town’s Christmas lights and again the involvement of the local community. I can imagine it’s quite a different sight from the floral colours of summer.

The town is also well situated for visits to the National Trust properties of Lacock and Great Chalfield Manor and for visiting the nearby towns of Bradford on Avon and Corsham so you could easily make a break here and spend a few days exploring around.