Final good buy

The chattering and reminiscing over old times was silenced and all that was left were muddy footprints and cigarette ends as farmers young and old returned home.

From babies wrapped in blankets in their mothers' arms to elderly couples with walking sticks, hundreds of people turned out to the see the final cattle being sold at the final market at Cocklebury Road.

Market operators Premier Livestock Auctions will move to a new site at Cribbs Causeway, near Bristol, from today to make way for the county record office, which is being relocated from Trowbridge.

Having played a major part in the lives of thousands of farmers and hauliers over the years, market director Peter Kingwill spoke for everyone when he said: "We've all got our part in history in Chippenham market and I say it from the bottom of my heart, with tears in my eyes. It's the end of the day for Chippenham, not for livestock. I'm sorry it's shutting but it is."

Mr Kingwill drew a raffle on the day because all the vendors wanted their cattle to be the very last sold.

Mark Jarrett, 43, of Jarrett Slaughterhouse on Aldhelm Common, Bristol, bought the final lot. He said: "I bought it deliberately because my family have been buying in Chippenham for years and it is a bit of history."

Mr Jarrett has been to Chippenham market every week for the last 20 years.

"It's a sad day because it's been going for many years," he said. But he will start trading at the new Bristol site because he always supports his local market, he said.

Ann and Philip 'Duke' Potter were just 15 when they went to the very first market in 1952 and they turned out on Thursday to say their goodbyes.

Both there with their fathers on the first day and from a long line of farming families, they were sad it was closing down.

Mr Potter said: "We were there on the first day, we wanted to be there for the last. It's the end of an era in Chippenham but it will go on in Bristol."

The couple, both 67, own Little Middle Green farm in Dauntsey and Green Farm in Lyneham. They weren't buying or selling on Thursday, but Mr Potter said until the foot and mouth disaster three years ago, one member of the family would have been at the Chippenham market every week.

They would have liked their nine-year-old grandson Philip, who enjoys farming already, to be part of the final day, but he was at school.

At the end of his final stint as auctioneer at Chippenham, Trevor Rowland, who sold the store cattle, said: "We have consigned the memories and stories for the grandchildren. It's a bit like being on Titanic, it's slipping away in front of us."

And one man has more than memories of the first market he's been left with a scar.

Anthony Simms was three when he went to Chippenham market with his father, Tony, now 77, from Westfield Farm in Devizes.

Mr Simms went to back up their lorry at the end of the day but the young Anthony thought he was going without him and tried to jump on the back.

He got knocked down by the truck and fell under the wheel. Mr Simms junior, who is moving to France with his own family in the next couple of months, still boasts the scar on the back of his head where he had 30 stitches.

He said: "They've taken our hunting and now our markets, so I'm off."

Mr Simms senior added: "It's the end of an era. I've been associated with it and the people here before it even developed. I brought cattle up here on the first day and sold six steers. I won't travel to Bristol as much now. We shall go down but not as much as if it were local."

Alexandra Robinson, 19, went with her class from the agricultural college at Lackham. She lives on the family farm, Boyds Farm in Corsham, and has been going to the cattle market almost every weekend of her life with her father, who sells animals there, or her grandfather, who is a haulier.

"It's a sad thing because it's our nearest market," she said. "Everyone has come out today but no one came out normally. It's a shame. It's just dying.

"It's also a really good thing for the farmers. They come down and socialised from all parts of the county. It's often their one social event of the week.

"We will probably use the Frome market now or the Cirencester one, which is opening in July apparently."

Miss Robinson, who is one of two women in a class of 14, added: "It will be quite a haul travelling with the cattle. This one's just ten minutes down the road."

Julie Thompsett, 39, was there to see the final trade with her sons William, two, and five-month-old Edward, as well as her father Alfred Brind, 69, of Hanger Farm, Lower Stanton St Quintin, who has been going to Chippenham cattle market for 50 years.

"It's terribly sad. It's not just the coming here, it's their livelihood and they've got to travel so far now," said Mrs Thompsett.

"William absolutely loves coming here. He asks to come. He likes to see the lorries, the cattle and the big scales and he likes listening to them speak.

"That's the way he's been brought up. We're not going to be popping to Bristol like we pop here so he'll miss it. You can't pop to Bristol."

Emotions on the day varied from sad, humbled and angry, with one man, who had been a haulier for 50 years quietly fuming about the "greedy council".

The bitter cold day ended with a warm speech from Mr Kingwill and the handing over of the famous brass bell to the town's Heritage Centre. When the market moved to Cocklebury Road from its town centre site in 1952 the bell was ceremoniously handed over and struck at every market since.