Let's move to: Chippenham, Wiltshire | Money | The Guardian

Let's move to: Chippenham, Wiltshire | Money | The Guardian

What's going for it? Who knew? Eddie Cochran died in a car crash in Chippenham, back when pop stars died in car crashes. A parochial end to a short (just 21 years old), lauded life. I doubt he ever imagined back in Minnesota that he'd shuffle off this mortal coil in a small market town in England in some place called Wilt-shy-er. They celebrate/commiserate each year here with a festival of quiffs and rock'n'roll, while the dreaded road junction on Rowden Hill has long been soothed. Chippenham's raison d'être has for centuries been as a place to pass through, generally at some speed. Brunel transformed this old coaching town into a modern railway hub; today, the M4 and what remains of Brunel's railway have magicked it again into a commuter town for those a cut above Swindon. Stop awhile, though, wade through Chippenham's fat layer of suburbs, and there's a rather nice old town at the heart, perched on a bluff above a curl in the Avon, that makes for an affordable base should you have your heart set on Bath or Bristol or the Cotswolds, but your head aghast at the prices therein.