Melksham Times Past

A glimpse into Edwardian Melksham

A column about days gone by in Melksham by local historian Lisa Ellis

Between 1910 and 1915, a national valuation office survey was carried out to assess property value, how it was used, and by whom. This was known as the “Lloyd George Domesday Survey” and provides a unique glimpse into Edwardian society.

To have stumbled across these records has taken me into depths of historical nerdiness that gives my researching bones an embarrassing giddiness. It is also going to take me quite a while to transcribe everything, so I have been taking it one road at a time. I thought I would share just a tip of the valuable information that is being revealed.

Some of the houses that were built along Sandridge Road were fairly new at the time of the survey, and because of this, it was easier to place families in specific houses based on where they lived according to the 1911 census.

From the information gathered, many of these Sandridge Road homes were built by the firm of A E Bigwood, so have a familiar look. Town sewers had not been extended this far out yet – they came decades later – so many of the residents had indoor WCs (water closets), as opposed to outdoor WCs and earth closets in the rear of the homes located in Coburg Square, by contrast, which were often shared between two or more houses.

The Sandridge homes were all made of brick and tile and had kitchens, sculleries, pantries, sitting rooms, drawing rooms, coal houses, etc.; almost all had three or four bedrooms. Roughly half of these homes were owned by the occupants, the others being let.

Looking wider, the landowner with the most property was Charles Awdry, who amassed roughly 250,000 square metres of property worth (then) approximately £23,000 just in the Melksham Within area. This property list included some of the more prominent land and buildings in town, such as Melksham House, Town Hall, The Bear, land along Spa Road, and Church Walk properties. However, he didn’t live in Melksham but rather in Market Lavington. His youth was spent in Notton House near Lacock, the household of his father, John Hilliar Wither Awdry, whose property portfolio was handed down to Charles. Upon Charles’ death in 1912, these properties were inherited by his oldest son, Charles Selwyn Awdry, who died six years later in battle during World War I. The son’s death marked the end of the Awdry family’s ownership of the vast Melksham properties.

The majority of the shops in town had upper-floor residences where the shopkeepers and families lived. Unlike these days, knowing this is a great help to finding not only where people lived but also what shops were in town at the time. As I complete more transcriptions, I will be able to share patterns, such as the types of shops, who had hot and cold water piped in versus those accessing spring water; who had various farm animals on their property, which houses were of good, fair or poor condition at the time – certainly a very unique glimpse into Edwardian Melksham.

Pictured: Location of occupants in residences along Sandridge Road according to the 1911 census.