MELKSHAM  , a

market town in the Westbury parliamentary division of Wiltshire, England, 954 M . W. of London by the Great Western railway . ,Pop. of urban district (19o1), 2450 . It lies in a valley sheltered by steep chalk hills on the east, its old-fashioned stone houses lining a single broad street, which crosses the Upper Avon by a bridge of four arches . The church preserves some remnants of Norman work and a Perpendicular south chapel of rare beauty . Melksham possesses cloth-mills where coco-nut fibre and hair cloth are woven, flour-mills and dye-works . On the discovery of a saline spring in 1816, baths and a pump-room were opened, but although two other springs were found later, the attempt to create a fashionable health resort failed . The surrounding deer-forest was often visited by Edward I . Lacock Abbey, 3 M. distant, was founded in 1232 for Austin canonesses, and dissolved in 1539 . Portions of the monastic buildings remain as picturesque fragments in and near the modern mansion called Lacock Abbey .