Chippenham hotels

Hotels in Chippenham

On the banks of the River Avon, between the Cotswolds and Salisbury Plain, Chippenham is a historic market town thought to date back to before Roman times.

There is still a market in the town centre every Friday and Saturday, and you can still see the original buttercross, which dates from 1570. There's also a fortnightly farmers' market.

Book one of our Chippenham hotels and explore Wiltshire's second largest town, and the lovely countryside around it.

Woodlands

Vincients Wood is a nature reserve to the west of Chippenham consisting of 12 acres of woodland, the southern part of which is old enough to be considered ancient woodland. Look out for squirrels, hedgehogs, great spotted woodpeckers, chiffchaff, nuthatches, goldcrests and bullfinches, as well as wood anemones, bluebells and orchids, and butterflies including the comma, ringlet and speckled wood. There's also a specifically marked out walkers route through the wood for walkers to explore. To the north of the town you'll find Bird's Marsh, a 59-acre woodland, another area with an abundance of wildlife and trees. Many of the trees here are hundreds of years old.

Sports and leisure

About five minutes' drive north of the town is Chippenham Golf Club, founded in 1896. The course is open to visitors daily and has views of the surrounding countryside. In the town centre, there's a leisure centre with a gym, a pool and squash courts to enjoy.

Museums

Housed in a listed Georgian building in the Market Place, Chippenham Museum and Heritage Centre holds some 26,000 items, mostly relating to the history of the town and the north Wiltshire area. The collection dates back to the Neolithic period and covers geology, archaeology, agriculture, trade, industry, education, government, domestic life and recreation. There are old postcards, photographs and maps, as well as objects ranging from cookers and butter churns, to Viking stirrups. The museum also incorporates the Grade I listed, timber-framed Yelde Hall, the town's main meeting place in the 15th century, which has had many uses over the centuries.

Lacock Abbey

In the middle of the pretty village which gives it its name, Lacock Abbey is a Tudor country house built on the site of a former nunnery. It was the home of pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot, who was instrumental in the development of photography, and is known for taking the first negative. Discover the medieval rooms and cloisters, the brewery and former bakery, and the museum, dedicated to Talbot. Here there are displays on the development of photography and his work, a collection of his personal items, and a collection of cameras. The gardens include an apple orchard, a rose garden, woodland, a stream, ponds, lawns, a play area and a colourful botanic garden, filled with bees and butterflies in summer.

Eating and drinking

Modern British dishes and a variety of specialty desserts are on offer at Revolution – or head to Los Amigos for tapas, or the Gladstone Arms for an award-winning Sunday lunch. The Foxham Inn has been listed in several good food guides, including Michelin, for its home-cooked meals, which include some gluten-free dishes. There's an open kitchen, so you might recognise pastry chef Ben Reid from 2014's Masterchef: The Professionals. For real ales, live music, alfresco dining and more home-cooked food, try the Four Seasons, which also screens televised sporting events.