Corsham is a historical market community and also civil parish in west Wiltshire, England. It is at the south-western edge of the Cotswolds, just off the A4 nationwide course, 28 miles (45 km) southwest of Swindon, 20 miles (32 kilometres) southeast of Bristol, 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Bath and 4 miles (6 kilometres) southwest of Chippenham. Corsham was historically a centre for farming and also later on, the woollen industry, and remains a focus for quarrying Bath Stone. It includes several significant historic buildings, among them the manor house of Corsham Court. During the 2nd World War and also the Cold War, it came to be a major management as well as production centre for the Ministry of Defence, with various establishments both above ground as well as in obsolete quarry passages. The parish includes the villages of Gastard and also Neston, which is at the gates of the Neston Park estate. Corsham appears to obtain its name from Cosa's ham, "ham" being Old English for homestead, or village. The town is referred in the Domesday publication as Cosseham; the letter 'R' shows up to have gone into the name later on under Norman influence (potentially brought on by the recording of local pronunciation), when the town is reported to have actually been in the ownership of the Earl of Cornwall. Corsham is recorded as Coseham in 1001, as Cosseha in 1086, and as Cosham as late as 1611 (on John Speed's map of Wiltshire). The Corsham location came from the King in Saxon times, the location at the time also had a large forest which was cleared to give way for further growth. There is evidence that the town had been called "Corsham Regis" because of its reputed organization with Anglo-Saxon Ethelred of Wessex, as well as this name remains as that of a primary school. One of the communities that thrived considerably from Wiltshire's woollen trade in medieval times, it kept its prosperity after the decline of that trade via the quarrying of Bath rock, with underground mining works encompassing the south and also west of Corsham. The primary turnpike road (currently the A4) from London to Bristol went through the community. Numbers 94 to 112 of the High Street are Grade II * listed buildings known as the "Flemish Weavers Houses", however there is little cogent evidence to support this name and also it shows up most likely to originate from a handful of Dutch workers who arrived in the 17th century. The Grove, opposite the High Street, is a case in point of traditional Georgian design.