Chippenham is a historic market town in Wiltshire, England, located 20 miles east of Bristol, 86 miles west of London, and 4 miles west of the Cotswolds. The Anglo-Saxons knew it as Cippanhamme, the enclosure of Cippa, and it was home to Roman villages before being founded by the Saxons in 600 AD. In 853, Prince Alfred of Wessex married the Mercian princess Ealhswith at Chippenham, which became a royal hunting lodge during his reign. In 878, the Danes surprised Alfred and his army at Chippenham and forced him to flee to the Somerset levels at Athelney, and the Danish king Guthrum used Chippenham as his headquarters during the ensuing campaign. Following the Battle of Edington, the Danes were besieged at Chippenham and forced to surrender, leading to the liberation of Wessex and western Mercia from the Vikings, while the Danelaw was restricted to East Anglia, eastern Mercia, and southern Northymbre. By 1086, Chippenham had up to 700 residents, and it became home to Norman manors and became home to a thriving market during Medieval England. During the early 17th century, plagues in 1611 and 1636, a recession in the woolen industry, and a drop in corn production from 1622-1623 caused hardship for the town's population. However, Chippenham recovered during the late 18th and 19th centuries, with the coal industry coming to Chippenham in 1798, followed by the railways in 1841. In 2018, Chippenham had a population of 45,620 people. From 1868 to 2019, of its twelve MPs, 9 of them were Conservative Party MPs, while 3 were Liberal Party MPs (including John Dickson-Poynder, a Conservative defector) and 1 was a Lib Dem. At the 2019 election, 54.3% of its residents voted Tory, while 34.5% voted Lib Dem and just 11.2% voted Labour.
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