Blue plaques

Nine places where some of these famous people lived have been marked with plaques, which also record the sites of famous events. A leaflet called Marlborough - A Town Walk, is available from the library and Marlborough Town Council offices.

Probably the most unrecognised characters whose names are recorded on the plaques are the two inventor brothers Thomas and Walter Hancock, who share a plaque at 3 and 4 High Street.

Thomas Hancock was the inventor of the process known as vulcanisation that made sticky rubber gum useable.

He later went into partnership with a Scot called Mackintosh and to this day we wear macs.

Walter Hancock was the inventor of the steam passenger road carriage, one of the first ever road vehicles. The plaque on the front of the town library records that it was formerly St Peter's School where Eglantyne Jebb, founder of Save The Children, taught.

At 29 The Green there is a plaque recording that author of Lord of the Flies, William Golding, was brought up there. It is likely that much of his book was based on his own childhood experiences in Marlborough.

A plaque in St Peter's Church, made redundant in the 1970s and now a community centre, records that Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, later Lord Chancellor of England, was ordained there in 1498.

At 48 High Street a plaque records that the site was the home of a tanner where it's believed the Great Fire of 1653 that consumed the town was started.

Another plaque commemorates the Battle of Marlborough, a civil war clash in which 53 houses were destroyed.