in Priory Street. There are more than 60 listed buildings in the High Street. Features Corsham's small town centre includes the historic High Street and the Martingate Centre, a late 20th-century retail development. The stately home of Corsham Court can also be found in the town centre. Standing on a former Saxon Royal Manor, it is based on an Elizabethan manor home from 1582. Since 1745, it has been part of the Methuen estate. The house has an extensive collection of Old Masters, rooms furnished by Robert Adam and Thomas Chippendale, and parks landscaped by Capability Brown and Humphry Repton. The house is open to the public all year round excluding December and is famed locally for its peacocks, which wander about the streets. The owner of Corsham Court in the mid-seventeenth century was the commander of the Parliamentarian New Model Army in Wiltshire; his wife built what came to be known as the Hungerford Almshouses in the centre of town. Community The Pound is an arts venue and community hub for north Wiltshire, run by the Pound Arts Trust and supported by Arts Council England, Wiltshire Council, South Gloucestershire Council and Corsham Town Council. Their Rural Touring Scheme take performances to villages in Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire. Pound Arts also organises two annual festivals: the Blue Sky Festival in June, for various art forms including music and comedy; and the Magic and Mayhem Festival in November, featuring magic, burlesque, music hall and other decadent arts. Parish Gastard The village of Gastard was a settlement by the 12th century. It has a 20th-century church. Neston Neston village was established around Neston Park, a country estate whose house was built c.1790. Neston Park is home of the Fuller family, who give their name to the Fuller, Smith and Turner brewery in London, known for Fuller's London Pride cask ale. Pickwick Pickwick was once a separate settlement and now forms the north-western part of the town. The name derives from Anglo-Saxon pic (meaning a peak or pointed hill) and wic (village). The Wiltshire Hundred Roll of 1273 refers to a "William de Pikewicke". Corsham was the inspiration for Charles Dickens' novel The Pickwick Papers; it is thought that he borrowed the name from Moses Pickwick, a coachman who was born in Pickwick, lived in the "Hare and Hounds" inn, and ran coaches between Bath and London. Other settlements North of the A4,