IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Scotland Road, MELKSHAM, SN12 8AJ

Towards Chippenham.

Engineering products & services business viewed from Station Approach opposite Melksham railway station.

The banner on the wall is opposite Coopertires Gate 1 at the edge of Bath Road. The spelling tires (for tyres) is a clue that this is a company based in North America. Cooper Tire & Rubber Company Europe is a division of a global company based in Findlay, Ohio in the USA. Avon Tyres, which makes tyres sold in the UK, is owned by the Cooper Tire & Rubber Company.

Manufacturer of aluminium and bronze castings, located in Station Approach, viewed from Bath Road.

Viewed from near the entrance to Melksham railway station. http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4231677 The Station Approach business dismantles Audi and Volkswagen vehicles which provides a supply of cleaned reclaimed parts for sale.

What there is of it, the timetable suggests there is no need for any more.

Stone post (plate lost) by the UC road, in parish of Melksham (West Wiltshire District), Bath Road, now cul-de-sac opposite tyre factory, built into retaining wall, on South side of road. Melksham plate, erected by the Melksham turnpike trust in the 19th century. Inscription once read:- (Bath) (12) Milestone Society National ID: WI_LB_BADZ12

Now owned by the US Cooper Tire Company, this building was until 1997 part of the Avon Rubber Company until the company decided to pull out of motor car tyre manufacturing due to the relentless pressures from the Far East market, particularly China. Avon moved to new factories in nearby Semington in 2000. As of October 2010, the Wiltshire Times reported that Cooper Tires had a workforce of 600, a number far reduced from Avon's 2,500 during the war. In 1885 Messrs E G Browne and J C Margetson founded Avon Rubber, moving to the Matravers cloth mill in Melksham and making an increasing range of rubber products as the site expanded to 28 acres. This Art Deco building is not the main administrative building but could be the attractive canteen that was opened for the employees in 1940 and which could accommodate 600 people at one sitting. Some source material at http://www.avon-protection.com/Corporate/Other%20Information/history-corporate.htm

Viewed from the Bath Road end. There are several industrial businesses in Station Approach. The entrance http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4231677 to Melksham railway station is ahead on the left.

In early November 2014, work was in progress inside this building set above Bath Road. The dark blue shop front seen in a Google Earth Street View taken in July 2009 has gone.