WOMAD Charlton Park

Milbourne is a hamlet on the eastern edge of Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England. It is within the civil parish of St Paul Malmesbury Without. The hamlet consists of older houses, mainly built in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, strung out along Milbourne Lane, as well as more modern houses at the entrance to the hamlet, at Milbourne Park and at Monks Park. The older houses tend to be set back from the road, as much of what are now front gardens were wide verges forming common grazing land prior to the Enclosures Act. In the later 17th century the Oxford–Bristol road ran east–west through Milbourne and Malmesbury but this later became a minor road, which in 1973 was severed by the A429 Malmesbury bypass. There are two listed buildings, both with 17th-century origins: Milbourne House and Milbourne Farmhouse.

Charlton Park is a country house and estate in Wiltshire, England, 2 miles (3.2 km) northeast of the town of Malmesbury. Charlton Park House is a Grade I listed building and a leading example of the prodigy house. Malmesbury Abbey held Charlton manor from before 1086 until the Dissolution. The house was begun in the 1560s by Henry Knyvet, whose wife Elizabeth Stumpe had inherited the manor. In 1598 the manor passed to their daughter Catherine, wife of Thomas Howard, who was created Earl of Suffolk in 1603, and the estate continues to be the seat of the earls. Enlargement and alteration of the house, including the addition of the second floor and stair turrets, was completed in 1607. John Dryden wrote Annus Mirabilis while staying at the house in 1667. Major alterations were made in the 1770s by Matthew Brettingham the Younger for Henry Howard, 12th Earl of Suffolk, with the rebuilding of the south front, additional stair turrets, and the roofing-over of the central courtyard to make a large domed hall; the interior was unfinished on Henry's death in 1779 and was not completed until the early 20th century. Brettingham probably also built Andover House, some 150 metres north of the main house, with its estate offices and stables. The house was converted into apartments in 1975. The park hosts corporate events and, since 2007, the annual WOMAD Charlton Park music festival. There is a small airfield at the estate with two grass runways 02/20 and 07/25. Parts of "Piece of Cake", a 1988 British six-part television serial depicting the fictional life of a Royal Air Force fighter squadron during the first year of World War II, were filmed here. The squadron's officers' mess was set in the house, and Spitfire fighter aircraft were operated from the airfield. The small village of Charlton is immediately to the east of the estate. The civil parish of Charlton encompasses the village and the estate.

The Woodbridge Brook is a tributary of the Bristol Avon. It rises near Lydiard Millicent in Wiltshire in the west of England and flows in a generally westerly direction, joining the Avon below Malmesbury. The brook has a mean flow of 20.5 cubic feet per second (0.58 m3/s) and the waters were used in the past to power watermills.

Cowbridge House, 3⁄4 mile (1.2 km) southeast of Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England, was an 18th-century country house that was demolished in 2007. During the Second World War, the EKCO company used the house as a shadow factory for the manufacture of radar equipment. The factory continued after the war, producing radio and telecommunications equipment; the company was taken over by Pye TMC and then Philips, and later became part of AT&T. The site was in use as offices until 2004 when the owners, Lucent Technologies, moved their operations to Swindon. Subsequently the site was redeveloped for housing.

The Tetbury Avon, also known as the River Avon (Tetbury Branch), Little Avon or Ingleburn (Anglo-Saxon – English river), is a tributary of the Bristol Avon in south-west England. It rises at Tetbury in Gloucestershire and flows in a generally south-easterly direction, joining the Sherston Avon at Malmesbury in Wiltshire. The water flow has been reduced by public water extraction from its source aquifer in the Cotswold Hills. In the past watermills were used for fulling wool and grinding corn; one working mill survives.

St Aldhelm's Roman Catholic Church in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England is a Roman Catholic Church built in 1875. The church is dedicated to St Aldhelm who lived in Malmesbury and was the abbot at nearby Malmesbury Abbey. The attached presbytery is a Grade II listed building.

Abbey House Gardens is a country house garden in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England, covering 5 acres (2.0 ha). The garden was transformed in the 1990s by the so-called Naked Gardeners: Ian and Barbara Pollard. In 2021 the property was acquired by new American owners, Whit and Kim Hanks. They plan to convert the house into a boutique hotel, while ensuring that the gardens are regularly opened to the public. During the 2022 summer season the gardens were opened from May to October on the second Saturday of each month.

Malmesbury Town Hall is a municipal building in Cross Hayes in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England. The structure, which is the meeting place of Malmesbury Town Council and the home of the Athelstan Museum, is a Grade II listed building.

Charlton is a village and civil parish in North Wiltshire, England, about 2 miles (3 km) northeast of Malmesbury and 4 miles (6.4 km) northwest of the village of Brinkworth. The parish includes the hamlet of Perry Green and the Charlton Park estate. The 2011 Census recorded the parish population as 425. The name Charlton derives from the Old English ceorltūn meaning 'churl's settlement'.

Malmesbury () is a town and civil parish in north Wiltshire, England, which lies approximately 14 miles (23 km) west of Swindon, 25 miles (40 km) northeast of Bristol, 9 miles (14 km) north of Chippenham and 5 miles south of Tetbury. The older part of the town is on a hilltop which is almost surrounded by the upper waters of the Bristol Avon and one of its tributaries. Once the site of an Iron Age fort, in the early medieval period Malmesbury became the site of Malmesbury Abbey, a monastery famed for its learning. It was later home to one of Alfred the Great's fortified burhs for defence against the Vikings. Æthelstan, the first king of all England, was buried in the abbey when he died in 939. As a market town, it became prominent in the Middle Ages as a centre for learning, focused on and around the abbey. In modern times, Malmesbury is best known for its abbey, the bulk of which forms a rare survival of the dissolution of the monasteries. The economy benefits mostly from agriculture, as well as tourism to the Cotswolds; Dyson is the town's main employer. At the 2021 census, the population of the parish was almost 6,000.

Malmesbury Abbey, at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, is a former Benedictine abbey dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. It was one of the few English religious houses with a continuous history from the 7th century through to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Malmesbury Market Cross is a Grade I listed, late 15th-century structure in the town of Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England.