We remain in Melksham Market Place for this week's Then and Now.

We are standing in the centre of the Market Place looking towards King Street.

Our archive picture, taken around the start of the last century, shows the Crown Hotel on the right once one of the main hotels in the town.

The Crown Hotel was built as the Crown Inn in 1873, according to a date plate high up on the building.

It was built on the spot of a previous inn but was referred to as the Old Crown because of another inn called the New Crown which was then sited next to the former Post Office and is now Currys.

The Crown Hotel is featured in many archive pictures the most striking when it was decorated for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth.

The previous building included a club room on the first floor which could only be approached from a stairway which covered the width of the pavement.

Pedestrians would have had to step into the road to pass by.

Today the building is home to a recruitment agency and an army surplus store with upstairs being the premises of Melksham Without Parish Council.

Next door is the bow fronted shop which is prominent in all photographs of the Market Place.

Today it is the home of Blockbusters but in 1900 it was a boot makers kept by a John Townsend. He had it painted red and thus named it the Red House.

Further down is an Indian restaurant, while opposite, now flats, was a bakers shop kept by a Joseph Sheppard, who was said to be a relative of the notorious highwayman Jack Sheppard.