Corsham is a historical market town and civil parish in west Wiltshire, England. It is at the south-western side of the Cotswolds, simply off the A4 national course, 28 miles (45 km) southwest of Swindon, 20 miles (32 km) southeast of Bristol, 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Bath and 4 miles (6 km) southwest of Chippenham. Corsham was traditionally a centre for agriculture and also later on, the wool sector, and also remains an emphasis for quarrying Bath Stone. It consists of several remarkable historical structures, among them the stately home of Corsham Court. Throughout the 2nd World War and also the Cold War, it came to be a significant administrative and production centre for the Ministry of Defence, with countless facilities both over ground and in disused quarry passages. The parish includes the towns of Gastard and also Neston, which goes to evictions of the Neston Park estate. Corsham shows up to acquire its name from Cosa's ham, "ham" being Old English for homestead, or village. The community is referred in the Domesday book as Cosseham; the letter 'R' shows up to have actually gone into the name later on under Norman impact (possibly caused by the recording of neighborhood enunciation), when the community is reported to have actually remained in the possession of the Earl of Cornwall. Corsham is recorded as Coseham in 1001, as Cosseha in 1086, and also as Cosham as late as 1611 (on John Speed's map of Wiltshire). The Corsham area came from the King in Saxon times, the area at the time additionally had a huge forest which was gotten rid of to give way for further growth. There is evidence that the community had been called "Corsham Regis" as a result of its reputed organization with Anglo-Saxon Ethelred of Wessex, and also this name stays as that of a primary school. One of the communities that prospered greatly from Wiltshire's wool sell middle ages times, it preserved its prosperity after the decline of that profession with the quarrying of Bath stone, with underground mining functions encompassing the south and west of Corsham. The primary turnpike road (currently the A4) from London to Bristol passed through the town. Numbers 94 to 112 of the High Street are Grade II * listed structures called the "Flemish Weavers Houses", nonetheless there is little cogent evidence to sustain this name and also it shows up most likely to stem from a handful of Dutch employees who arrived in the 17th century. The Grove, opposite the High Street, is a case in point of traditional Georgian style.