Did Melksham have trams?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Did Melksham have trams?  A question from my in-box

Bath and Swindon both did, but not Melksham.  It may be that at one time the “Bath Tramway and Road Car Company” provided a service to Melksham but that would have been with motor buses; their trams never got closer than Bathford - tram route 1 which closed in 1939.

Our railway line was served by “Rail Motors” as well as conventional locomotives and trains, from 1905 - single railed vehicles that have some similarity to trams.  Intermediate stations such as Lacock, Beanacre and Broughton Gifford were served by by these vehicles, the last of which survived in regular use in the West Country until 1922;  their replacements were auto trains - locomotives attached to carriages, with a driving window at at the far end from the locomotive so they could be operated from either end, Beanacre and Broughton Gifford closed in 1955, Lacock (along with Melksham and Holt Junction) in 1966.

Opening of Lacock halt - this looks like a loco at the back and a coach though?  Do I spy a rail motor's roof at the other platform?


Rail motor at Penzance

[grahame]

Having answered - there was a tramway at Seend Iron works during Victorian times, and Seend is only just up the road from Melksham even though some of the residents don't like to admit that (a Windsor and Slough type thing)

http://www.wiltshire-opc.org.uk/Items/Seend/Seend%20-%20Seend%20Iron%20Works%201856-1890.pdf

1857
The mineral treasures recently discovered at Seend, prove to exist to a far greater extent than at first anticipated. The whole of the village is situated on an outlier of the lower green sand, and it appears that the greater portion of this stratum consists of a ferruginous sandstone, more or less rich in peroxide of iron, yielding in some cases as much as 50 percent of pure metal.

Mr Holloway, of Christchurch, a gentleman largely engaged in the iron ore trade, who purchased a piece of ground near the Bell Inn, Seend, has already extracted 1000 tons of ore, which have been sent into Wales for smelting.

Mr Parker, of London, a connexion of Mr Sarl, the well-known silversmith of Cornhill, has recently purchased several fields, and is at present constructing a tramway from the pits to the canal (a distance of about half a mile), which is expected to be in full operation in the course of two or three months.