CHIPPENHAM, market town and municipal borough in the Chippenham parliamentary division of Wiltshire, England, 94m. W. of London by the G.W.R. on the south side of the Upper Avon. Pop. 8,493. St. Andrew's church, originally 12th century Norman, has been enlarged in different styles. Chippen ham (Chepeham, Chippeham) was the site of a royal residence where, in 853, Aethelwulf celebrated the marriage of his daughter Aethelswitha with Burhred, king of Mercia. The town figured prominently in the Danish invasion of the 9th century, and in 933 was the meeting-place of the witan. In the Domesday survey Chippenham appears as a Crown manor. The town was governed by a bailiff in the reign of Edward I. ; it was incorporated under charter from Mary in 1553. In 1684 this charter was surrendered to Charles II., and in 1685 a new charter was received from James II., which was shortly abandoned in favour of the original grant. The derivation of Chippenham from cyppan, to buy, implies that the town possessed a market in Saxon times. The neighbouring Cotswold hills preserve many relics of early man, and their grasslands produced the sheep which gave Chippenham its fame as a woollen centre from the 16th century.
After the decline of its woollen and silk trades Chippenham be came celebrated for grain and cheese markets. There is also metal working, stone-quarrying, gardening and bacon-curing.