Local History

Tell us what you think of the vintage photos, and share your memories of Corsham.

John Yapp
My Grandfather & Grandmother were the owners of The Wine Lodge in Corsham High Street approx date 1920 before the "FARLEIGH" Family took over. I was taken to the shop by my Grandmother in most probably the early 1960s to see what I had only seen in photos. The Chemist Shop was known as REES'S Pharmacy. My Mum said the Methuens of Corsham Ct would ask for aspirin to be delivered & refused to buy a whole bottle. My Grandfather John Rees ran the Chemist side with my Mum Megan Rees his daughter & my Grandmother ran the Wine Lodge. They also had a Son Glyn who took up Chemistry & had his own shop but was killed in WW11 in the Pathfinders. My Grandfather taught Chemistry at Bristol BRI & I was told he never had a student fail a exam. He later ran the Dispensary in Bath by the Cleveland Bridge & then followed on to Corsham. There is a book about Corsham called The Ways of Corsham written by John Poulsom. My Mum is shown on page 50 attending Mrs Spackman's School. She was especially friendly with the Coates Family who lived in Pickwick Road. When my Grandfather died & the business was sold to the FARLEIGH family my Grandmother married again to a Mr Alfred Butt a tailor from Chippenham. They then lived in Box at Redmarley which is opposite the Northey Arms. Alf Butt was tailor to the Methuen Family of Corsham Court. He is also mentioned in the Poulsom book. I now live in Bristol at Redland & only found out from my Mother before she died in 2005 that is the same area she was born in 1913 at Redland Grove.

Angela McQueen
My mother was born in Corsham Maternity Hospital in 1932. She live in Priory Street and her parents were the first to have a TV and all the children in the street used to come in and watch it when she was getting ready to go out. She would have been 18 so it would be around 1950. When she married they rented a house in Priory Street, No 61 I think. Then they built there own bungalow in next door Arnold Mead and have lived there from 1957 till now.

Angela McQueen
The houses on the right is my first home when I has brought back for Hospital when I was born in 1956 and my grandparents lived next door.

Jay Miles
I was doing a search to find out if Priory Road and Priory Street were the same or not. I couldn't seem to find a listing for Priory Road in a map search. My Grandmother was born in 1904 and the address given was Priory Road, Corsham. in fact she was born on this street. Imagine my surprise on finding this image from the very year that she was born. I am basically trying to work out if an Arthur Henry Smith who was a resident of Priory Street according to a Genealogy site at the age of 5 which is about right as he is my great grandfather. The search goes on I guess.

Alastair Gordon-Farleigh
I was one of seven children born & brought up at 'The Wine Lodge', 28 High Street from 1948 - 1964. my dad was the Wine merchant from about 1935 ish. He retired about 1966 and sold out to a Devizes company who eventually went bust. The building is now an estate agents and still retains the pillars at the front facade.We used to have a large clock outside the shop, with two faces and my dad used to have window boxes on the outer sills every year.Dad employed three local men in the shop when I was a boy. Harry Brennan, Reg Gardiner and Vic Partner.Next door to our shop was a sweet shop run by Wilfie & Addie Shergold. Wilfie was a watchmaker but, sadly, went blind. When he died Addie sold the business to Ron & Betty from Birmingham. They had a dear little boy Edward who had severe Hydrocephalis. They changed the shop to 'Bettinas' cafe.On the other side of our shop was Thorne's the Chemist. Cyril Thorne rented part of our premises for his business. We shared a telephone with them and had a hatch between the two buildings through which we passed the phone when it was for them. The number was Corsham 2277.Cyril Thorn moved out in about 1965 and opened a new shop further down the street near the entrance to Michael Tippet's house. in between us and his new shop was a bacon butcher run by Mr Lockyer, who had a wife and two daughters - one of which was Marilyn.On the other side of our shop was Barnett bros (Still there) they are newsagents and bakers. Next was 'Lord's' which was run by Stanley Hetherington. They sold toys and tobacco and sweets. Past their shop was Smiths the drapers. This was owned by Ray Smith who was very involved with the freemasons.When I was very young we used to get our milk delivered by Mr Dew with his horse & cart. In those days the high street was a proper metalled road and was the main, very busy thoroughfare for the town. There were frequent traffic jams outside our shop when beer lorries were unloading!The local vicar was Edward M.Hall and several curates served in my childhood memory. Mr Keith Dimoline, Alan Bevan( who was young and quite good fun for us youngsters and, very memorably, George Scott-Joint who had a most incredible deep singing voice - sounded like ten Paul Robesons singing at once.I hope this cheers some old Corshamites to read this. I am 60 tomorrow so am getting slowly towards middle age now.

R Duxbury
As you are probably aware this is the A4 at the top of Pickwick Road on the right

nora wheeler
how great to see where my grandfather and one of my uncleswere born ,it makes finding out the past so real they were born 1853 and 1858.i will find out more now ,thank you for the photos.