 Kennet and Avon Canal |
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MILE 65
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Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire : KAC65.00=KAC66.00 |
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KandAC mile 65
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KandAC mile 65 - OS 1inch map, early 19th century.
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... nothing then sudden business ...
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The Kennet and Avon Canal from mile 64 to mile 65 goes secretly round
the back of new housing estates and pops out at a busy wharf south of
the town centre of Bradford-on-Avon. The towpath is on the north side.
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Milepost 65; does the barbed wire protect it? hold it down? or what?
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Beehive Inn, Bradford-on-Avon
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A canal house, stone built, with the typical string course at first
floor level.
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Widbrook Bridge, Bradford-on-Avon
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Boat Anne Henshall; hiding.
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A Dorset and Somerset Canal was planned from Sturminster Newton, via
Wincanton and Frome, to join the Kennet and Avon about here, at
Widbrook. It was never completed; work began 1796 and ceased 1803 for
lack of funds.
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On the north side, behind the bushes, is new housing. At least one
road name up there commemorates John Rennie.
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Repairs to the bank here are done with wood, posts woven with smaller
sticks; how sensible.
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More wooden piling.
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Creeping cinquefoil, Potentilla repens.
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Elder flowers, Sambucus nigra - the berries are black.
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Meadow cranesbill, Geranium pratense.
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Meadowsweet, Filipendula ulmaria.
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Ragged robin, Lychnis flos-coculi.
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Perhaps a pillbox by the towpath, it is almost invisible.
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There is a pillbox growing grass by the towpath.
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Common mallow, Malva sylvestris, growing against the pillbox.
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Underwoods Bridge, Bradford-on-Avon
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A pair of boats; one appeared to be disabled, besides having a
disaster of a cabin - both design and workmanship.
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On the towpath side, at about 65 miles 55 chains you used to be able
to see the 'clay farm' where clay for puddling the canal bed was dug.
The pit included exposures of fossil full limestone beds. This is
[1999/2000] rapidly disappearing under another housing estate.
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There is mooring about here.
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Barge Inn, Bradford-on-Avon
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KandAC winding point 65.63
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New steel piling being installed just above Bradford.
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Frome Road Wharf, Bradford-on-Avon
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Bradford Deep Lock, Bradford-on-Avon
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From the lock westwards the canal is in Nine Mile Pound - next lock,
Bath, Somerset.
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Bradford Lock Bridge, Bradford-on-Avon
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Canal Tavern, Bradford-on-Avon
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Bradford Lower Wharf, Bradford-on-Avon
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Bradford-on-Avon is a short distance north of the canal. All the usual
shops, more pubs, railway station, etc. The town bridge over the River
Avon with its medieval bridge chapel is worth seeing; the chapel also
served as a lock-up; John Wesley was locked up here for a night, 1757.
A slightly longer walk gets you to St Lawrence's Church, a 10th
century anglo-saxon building on the site of an earlier church founded
by St Adhelm, AD700.
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There is mooring about here.
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Close beside the canal at the end of this mile is the Bradford-on-Avon
Tithe Barn which dates from the 14th century, built by the Abbess at
Shaftesbury Abbey, which was the richest Benedictine nunnery in
England. It is built with an oak truss roof in fourteen bays, 168ft
long.
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Bradford-on-Avon tithe barn.
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Milepost 66
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Kennet and Avon Scrapbook 2000
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