| The Yelde Hall | |
| Location: | Market Place, Chippenham |
| Built: | 1450 |
| Architecture: | Medieval style |
| Designation1: | Grade I Listed Building |
| Designation1 Offname: | The Yelde Hall and the Council Chamber |
| Designation1 Date: | 25 April 1950 |
| Designation1 Number: | 1267996 |
The Yelde Hall is a public facility in the Market Place, in Chippenham, Wiltshire, England. The building, which was the meeting place of Chippenham Borough Council, is a Grade I listed building.
The hall was built in around 1450.[1] The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage facing onto the Market Place with the right hand section projected forward; the right hand section, which consisted of two bays, featured a short flight of steps leading up to a doorway in the left bay with a horizontal window above the doorway and two small gables above that. The left hand gable contained a carving of the town arms with the inscription "JS 1776": the initials refer to John Scott who was the bailiff at that time.[1] The right hand gable at one time contained a clock which was taken down in 1851.[1]
The building was originally used as a jail (in the cellar),[2] as a courtroom (on the ground floor) and as a council chamber (upstairs). The Chippenham Savings Bank operated an office in the building on Saturday mornings from 1822.[1]
Following the relocation of the town council and burgess to Chippenham Town Hall in 1834,[3] [4] the building became the drill hall for the Chippenham Volunteer Rifle Corps in 1846.[1] 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.[5] [6] The regiment vacated the building when it relocated to the Little Ivy in 1911.[1] However, the building was also used as the headquarters of the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry at this time,[5] [7] and continued to be a yeomanry drill hall until the yeomanry moved its headquarters to Trowbridge in 1920.[7]
The Fire Brigade used the east end of the building from 1870 and then almost the whole building from 1911 to 1945.[1] 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.[1]
Following a refurbishment, the building then became the North Wiltshire Tourist Information Centre in March 2003[8] although that concern relocated to a unit adjacent to the town hall in February 2012.[9] It underwent a further refurbishment in March 2012 and then re-opened to the public as an extension of the Chippenham Museum and Heritage Centre in April 2012.[10]