Yelde Hall


The Yelde Hall is a public facility in Chippenham. It is a Grade I listed building.

History

The building was built in around 1450 and was originally used as a jail, as a courtroom and as a council chamber. The building bears a carving of the town arms with the inscription "JS 1776": the initials refer to John Scott who was the bailiff at that time. The town council and burgess relocated to the Town Hall in the first half of the 19th century.
The building became the offices of the Chippenham Savings Bank in 1822 and then became the drill hall for the Chippenham Volunteer Rifle Corps in 1846. The unit evolved to become B Company, 2nd Volunteer Battalion, The Wiltshire Regiment in 1881 and B Company, 4th Battalion, the Duke of Edinburgh's Wiltshire Regiment in 1908. The regiment relocated to the Little Ivy in 1911. The building was also used as the headquarters of the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry at this time. The yeomanry moved its headquarters to Trowbridge in 1920.
The Fire Brigade used the east end of the building from 1870 and then almost the whole building from 1911 to 1945. After some restoration work in the 1950s, the building served as the Chippenham Museum from October 1963 until it relocated to the Market Place in 1999.
The building then became the North Wiltshire Tourist Information Centre in March 2003 although that concern relocated to the Town Hall in February 2012. It underwent a refurbishment in March 2012 and re-opened to the public as an extension of the Chippenham Museum and Heritage Centre in April 2012.