Chippenham project research
Research
Research work is now well under way for the VCH Chippenham volume.
There can also be found a summary report of references to the Chippenham area drawn from the main series of printed historical sources, which provide an essential background for the research of remaining sections of the volume, and a valuable resource for future historians.
Further contracts have been awarded for researchers to work on Chippenham government and politics, Chippenham manorial history and Outer Chippenham settlement and buildings, together with religious and social history.
We are also working closely with the Bremhill Parish History Group on a joint project. This innovative work will engage many local people in research, aided by a professional researcher, with the objective of producing a full, separately published parish history alongside the Bremhill chapter for VCH Volume 20. We hope to secure a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to help this innovatory project to proceed to a successful conclusion.
The VCH has always set a high standard for the historical accuracy of its contents, and the historians’ output is monitored first by a Committee of the VCH Trustees led by one of the Trustees, James Holden, and including amongst its members our consultant editor, John Chandler. The work is then reviewed and approved by research staff at the Institute of Historical Research at London University. In the past there has been a long time lag between the writing of chapters for the VCH and their publication in the famous ‘Red Books,’ but we now publish all approved work online as soon as it is complete.
VCH publications
Complete and available to view online are sections on:
An introduction to Chippenham
History of the established church in Chippenham
History of nonconformity in Chippenham
Social history of Chippenham.
Rewriting the history of Chippenham
This is the edited text of a lecture given by John Chandler, VCH Wiltshire consultant editor, to Chippenham Civic Society and the Friends of St Andrew’s Church.
The good deed of Rev Bowles of Bremhill
In December 1830 a number of congratulatory newspaper articles were published in the press across southern England, in praise of the esteemed vicar of Bremhill, Rev. William Lisle Bowles, who had considerably raised the wages he paid to his agricultural workers.
Largesse, commerce and dynasties in medieval Chippenham
The later eleventh and twelfth centuries did not see substantial royal interest in Chippenham resumed. The town went unnoticed by the numerous chroniclers of the Anglo-Norman period, making it unlikely that it was ever the site of important political or military events, as it had been in the ninth century.
The Anglo-Saxon Settlement
The origin of the Anglo-Saxon name ‘Chippenham’ is contested, with two possible derivations considered likely by local historians; It may be based on the personal name ‘Cyppa’, or on the Old English ‘Cēap’ (market), as in ‘Cheapside’, ‘Chipping Norton’ etc.
Established Church by Dr Rosalind Johnson
A church may have been built in Chippenham by 853 when, according to Asser, Æthelwulf, king of the West Saxons and father of the future king Alfred, married his daughter to Burgred, king of Mercia, at his royal estate of Chippenham.