WILTSHIRE has a few communities with claims to records. Marlborough believes it has the widest High Street in the land.

Brinkworth claims to be the longest village in England. Malmesbury believes it is the oldest borough.

More than a million vehicles a year pass through Marlborough, either on its main east-west A4 road or on the north-south Midlands-south coast route.

In the early 70s there were fears it would become a ghost town and shops would be forced to close because the M4 was by passing the town.

Those fears were unfounded and the town, if anything, prospered as a result of losing a huge volume of its through traffic.

Stand by the M4 today and just image all that traffic coming through Marlborough on the old Great West Road. There are still occasions when one or other of the M4 carriageways are closed that Marlborough again suffers traffic gridlock.

The High Street is as wide as it is because there used to be a row of buildings down the middle, over market stalls known as The Shambles.

The Great Fire of 1653 cleared out many of the older buildings leaving the wide High Street that we see and enjoy today.

Tourism is now a year-round trade although Marlborough is by no means dependent on that trade.

Over the past five or six years it has attracted more than 20 women's fashion stores and can now rightly claim to be one of the haute couture centres of the West.

There are Wednesday and Saturday street markets in the centre of the High Street and regular Farmers' Markets in the Town Hall.