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Calne is a town in central Wiltshire, England. It is situated at the northwestern extremity of the North Wessex Downs hill range, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
The town lies on the River Marden, the Wilts & Berks Canal and the A4 road 19 miles (30 km) east of Bath, 6 miles (10 km) east of Chippenham and 13 miles (20 km) west of Marlborough. London is some 90 miles (145 km) to the east. It is a small (though expanding) town with a population of 13,606 according to the 2001 Census (14,800 est. 2008).
Notable buildings in the town include St Mary's Church, an array of houses on The Green and the Town Hall. Of particular note is the new Library which has won awards for its innovative design and was opened by HM Queen Elizabeth II in 2001.
Since the demolition of the Harris pork factory and the completion of the first phase of redevelopment/regeneration in 2001, Calne has, in general, been successfully transformed into an attractive setting compared to its run-down image of the 1980s and 1990s. A substantial amount of scaffolding materialised across Calne town centre throughout 2007-2008 with a view to the renovation of several prominent buildings.
In AD 978 Anglo Saxon Calne was the site of a two-storey building with a hall on the first floor. It was here that St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury met with the Witenagemot in order to justify his Church reforms, which were causing great controversy due to the secular priests being replaced by Benedictine monks and the influence of landowners over churches on their lands being taken away. At one point Dunstan called upon God to support his cause, at which point the floor collapsed killing most of his opponents, whilst Dunstan and his supporters were in the part that survived. This was claimed as a miracle by Dunstan's supporters.
Calne had a significant woolen broadcloth industry in the 18th century, and evidence of this can be seen on The Green in Calne, where many buildings such as Georgian era clothier's houses and some of the twenty cloth mills originally involved in this industry along the River Marden in Calne remain. St Mary's parish church was built on the generous donations of rich clothiers and medieval wool merchants in the 15th century.
Calne's best known industry was the Harris Pork processing facility that dominated the town architecturally and provided employment directly and indirectly to many of the residents until the early-1980s - at its closure in 1983 for example it employed over 2,000 people out of a town population of 10,000. It is said that the pork curing industry developed because pigs reared in Ireland were landed at Bristol and then herded across England on Drover's roads to Smithfield, London, passing through Calne. The factory started in the second half of the 18th century when brothers John and Henry Harris started businesses which merged in 1888 as C. & T. Harris & Co. The factory has now been fully demolished and the area where it used to be located redeveloped as shops, housing and a library. As a result of the closure of the factory unemployment in the town increased considerably and for much of the 1980s Calne suffered many of the Economic restructuring problems more normally associated with large cities.
The Porte Marsh Industrial Estate on the north side of the town now provides the bulk of the town's internal employment. It is home to around 100 companies in predominantly light industries and Information Technology. The Belgian company Deceuninck has invested considerably in this area and operates two large facilities at Porte Marsh, notably a new production and distribution centre which now dominates the north side of town. Another significant employer is the Exception Group, a large electronics company. In 2006 plans to build a sizeable cement production plant on the Porte Marsh site were vigorously opposed by local residents and planning permission was refused by the council.