Melsome Road
The Melsome Road housing estate is currently part of the Air Ministry families married quarters for the servicemen and women of RAF Lyneham. Built around 1963 one of the later estates to be be constructed for forces family accommodation and it consists of a large looping ring road with three internal adjoining roads and one external road which joins in the north westerly corner. The internal side roads are Freegrove Road, Whitcombe Close and Greenway Drive and the external sole road is Little Park Road.

The whole estate setting has many thoughts of it's original location, in that the construction company actually built the two storey properties on the wrong side of the main Lyneham to Calne Road.

We have many recorded memories of one of the maintenance engineers who worked with No 33 Maintenance Unit, stating that when their Valetta aircraft were being rolled out following an extensive servicing, that the taxiway to get the aircraft back on the aircraft dispersal had been dug up for the housing estate foundations. This theory is logical, as current mapping and estate infrastructure shows that there is a large area of land on the eastern side of the A3102 that has been unused and the existing taxiway is blocked by the estate. If you roll your mouse over the lower of the two maps to the left, you can see where the estate was supposed to be built and the taxiway access for the aircraft.

Origins of the Melsome name
Unlike the majority of the Air Ministry roads at Lyneham being named after aircraft or objects of flight, this newly built road was named after the large deciduous woodland area blanketing the escarpment west of the airfield.

The falling hillside woods on the most western side of the airbase drops from approximately 145m down to 65m and covers about 3 square kilometres of land. Melsome Wood hillside looks out west towards Christian Malford and the main Paddington to Bristol rail link.

The wood is segmented into six areas for fire safety purposes and the safety cuttings are very arduous for walking and are commonly used for bridleways. The easiest one for walking, joins the woods at the top right hand corner and runs parallel with the hillside leads southwest to the open hillside where many motor cycle scrambles take place. Access to the bridleway and walkways is from the B4069 Christian Malford junction at Friday Street. Travel south on Friday street until you pass under the railway bridge then just as the road bends to the right to Lye Common there is a footpath access style on the left. This footpath runs directly east up a gradual slope towards the centre of the large woods.

Early days
The priory of Bradenstoke, dedicated to St. Mary, was situated in the parish of Lyneham, near the village of Bradenstoke-cum-Clack, on a high ridge of land overlooking the Avon valley. The site was well chosen, as there were abundant springs, and near by, a holy well.

There is some 17th-century evidence that a chapel occupied the site as early as the reign of Henry I. The Bradenstoke priory occupants acquired this abundant meadow land in Lower Seagry, near Dodford Farm, by gift of Elias Burel, (Lord Mayor of Dublin 1250 -1252) and the adjoining fields.

The land between the priory and manor was open meadow on the hillside, it had two mills for chopping the felled trees, all located in the hamlet of 'Milesham'. There was a messuage (n. house with its land and outbuildings), croft, and demesne tithe, adjacent to one of the mills, all the gifts of Ralph Luvel de Clivel. Milesham hamlet is named by the early use of 'mills' and 'ham' is a settlement near water. Over generations of western country dialogue or misuse of the language the term milesham has developed into Melsome which is where the early woodland area got its name.