Bowerhill

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Bowerhill
Falcon Way
Bowerhill shown within Wiltshire
OS grid reference	ST9162
Shire county	Wiltshire
Region	South West
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	MELKSHAM
Postcode district	SN12
Police	Wiltshire
Fire	Wiltshire
Ambulance	Great Western
European Parliament	South West England
List of places: UK • England • Wiltshire

Coordinates: 51°22′N 2°07′W / 51.36, -2.12

Bowerhill is a suburb of Melksham, belonging to the civil parish of Melksham Without. Bowerhill has a sizable industrial estate to the west of its residential area; this industrial estate had been developed from a former Royal Air Force military base.

[edit] History

Bowerhill was a rural area until early in 1940 when building work began on a new RAF station. In July the RAF School of Instrument Training moved here from Cranwell and later a branch of the RAF Armament School also moved here. In the following years other courses were run and in 1942 the Armament School moved out and was replaced by the RAF Electrical School from Hereford. Much specialised training was undertaken at RAF Melksham with not only RAF personnel but Polish, Free French and American members of the Allied Air Forces.

Towards the end of the Second World War a large number of Royal Naval Air Service Mechanics were trained here and many transport drivers also received instruction. From the end of the war Melksham resumed its role in Electrical and Instrument courses and continued with this and other education programmes until the early 1970s. The station was then decommissioned and used for a mixture of industrial, commercial and residential use, with much development in the 1980s.