My Adventures 3: Wiltshire Walk

On Saturday the 23rd September 2023 after a visit to Glastonbury Somerset, we drove on to Castle Combe in Wiltshire. We parked up in the visitor car park on Dunns Lane and walked down into the village. Castle Combe is a truly delightful example of the traditional English village.

We pass the 12th century Castle Inn.

Next to this is the market cross.

The 14th-century market cross, erected when the privilege to hold a weekly market in Castle Combe was granted, stands where the three principal streets of the lower village converge. The Market Cross, a Scheduled Monument, reflects "the significance of the cloth industry in this area". Next to the cross is one of Castle Combe's two village pumps. Small stone steps near the cross were for horse riders to mount and dismount, and close by are the remains of the buttercross, built in the late 19th century from old masonry. This structure, "also known as Weavers’ Steps and ‘the stone’", is another Scheduled Monument.

The village takes its name from the 12th-century castle which stood about 1⁄3 mile (500 m) to the north. The site where the castle once stood now only contains the old earthworks and masonry, which are estimated to date from the 12th century. It is believed that the castle was constructed as the seat of the Barony of Combe under Reginald de Dunstanville either during the reign of Henry I or his son. Reginald was thought to support Empress Matilda during the Anarchy, and the castle was constructed during the wave of castle buildings of the Anarchy period.

Architecturally, little has changed since the 15th century; there are no street lights or TV aerials and, as you savour the peaceful atmosphere, you will understand why it has won the coveted “Prettiest Village in England” award so many times. Castle Combe is also a favoured location for Hollywood film and television companies.

The land above Castle Combe was originally home to a Roman Villa vacated in the 5th Century AD. Little happened until Reginald de Dunstanville built a Norman Castle on Castle Hill during the English Civil War of 1135-1154, so putting the 'Castle' into Castle Combe.

By the 14th Century this Norman castle had fallen into a state beyond repair and a new Manor House was built in the shelter of the valley below. The Manor House, now our hotel, is still on the same site today though little remains of the original structure.

The Middle Ages were to be a very prosperous time for Castle Combe when much of the village as we see today was constructed; the reason for this prosperity was the growth of a thriving cloth industry. Benefiting from the wool from huge local flocks of sheep, the fast flowing Bybrook River, fullers earth and the great skill of local weavers.

The red and white Castle Combe cloth became renowned not only in the markets of Bristol and Cirencester but also in London and abroad. With increasing size and wealth came greater stature and the right to hold a weekly market was granted by Henry VI in 1440 centred on the market cross - the focal point of the village.

The industry however diminished in the 16th Century with the slowing of the flow of the Bybrook, the cloth manufacture moved to other nearby areas in Gloucestershire, but not before Castle Combe was left with the buildings that make it the remarkable village it remains today.

Castle Combe has long been a favoured location by Hollywood film, television and advertising companies. Given that there are no TV aerials or telegraph poles in sight, the whole village makes the perfect filmset.

In 1967 'Dr Dolittle' was filmed in the village starring Rex Harrison and Anthony Newley. Castle Combe was transformed into the seaport of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh.

In recent years other major Hollywood films have been shot here such as 'Stardust' (2008), 'The Wolfman' (2009) and in 2010 Steven Spielberg shot scenes for the film adaptation of 'War Horse'. TV programmes such as 'Poirot' and 'Robin of Sherwood' have also been filmed in the village.

We stop off at the tearoom at the old stables for tea and cake.

We walk back through the village.

We pass St Andrews Church.

Although outwardly you can see signs of a thriving village from the medieval period (1066-1485), there were much earlier residents in this wooded valley. Long before the arrival of the Romans in Britain in 43 AD, there is evidence of an early Celtic tribe’s pagan temple where St Andrew’s now stands.

Originally founded in the 13th century, the church building has grown and evolved over the centuries. The nave was added in the 14th century and the tower completed in the 16th century. As a result of the church falling into serious disrepair, a substantial amount of rebuilding of the church had to take place in 1850-51. An annex to the north side of the church housing some modern amenities was completed in 2018.

Following the Norman invasion of England in 1066, lands of the defeated Saxon aristocracy were bestowed by King William I (the Conqueror) on his Knights. The Manor (estate) of “Cumbe”, as Castle Combe was then known, was bestowed on a nobleman, Humphrey de L’Isle. His daughter married Reginald de Dunstanville, who became the first Baron/Lord of Castle Combe. For over 850 years, Castle Combe was a barony and evidence of the Lords of the Manor and their families through this period can be found in the church and churchyard.

On the north side of the church is a superb carved stone monument of a Norman Knight, Sir Walter de Dunstanville, Baron of Castle Combe, who died in 1270. Above the tomb, a stained glass window displays the coats of arms of the Scrope family (pronounced “Scroop”), who were Lords of the Manor for almost 500 years before selling the estate at auction to a member of the Lancastrian Gorst family in 1867.

The tower was started in 1434 with monies from local wealthy wool merchants and from the estate of Sir John Fastolf. The tower’s beautiful fan vault ceiling is reminiscent of Bath Abbey.

The base of the tower houses one of the oldest working faceless medieval clocks in the country.

We return to the car to drive back to our cottage in Bradford-on-Avon.

On Friday the 22nd September 2023 Mel and I drove to Bradford-On-Avon,Wiltshire, where we were staying at a 1 bed cottage at 10 Tory. We arrived just pass midday and walked up for free on Budbury Place.

It was too early to get into the cottage, so we went to find where we were staying before walking down into the town.

10 Tory, Bradford-On-Avon

Walking down Newtown we pass Priory Barn.

Priory Barn was built at the end of the 15th century as an outbuilding of Rogers Manor (subsequently renamed The Priory and largely demolished in the 1930s). The Barn was acquired as a wreck by Elizabeth Stephenson, a founder member, and given to the Trust for its first restoration project.

We walk down Market Street.

The centre of the town grew up around the ford across the river Avon, hence the origin of the town's name ("Broad-Ford").

Then we pass onto The Shambles and out into Coppice Hill.

We walk down Sliver Street crossing the River Avon by the bridge and up to the Tearoom.

Described as 'near perfect' by the prestigious UK Tea Guild, The Bridge Tea Rooms offers the very best in traditionally British afternoon tea, lunches, and light meals throughout the day.

With delicate bone china, the finest leaf teas, and friendly staff in Victorian costumes serving homemade cakes, pastries and sandwiches, The Bridge Tea Rooms offers a quintessentially English tea room experience. Housed in a former blacksmith's cottage dating from 1502, The Bridge Tea Rooms positively oozes atmosphere, and the classical music playing gently in the background sets a tranquil tone.

We opt for a cream tea each, not the cheapest but what a lovely tearoom!

Leaving the tearoom we go and take a look at the bridge.

The Norman side is upstream, and has pointed arches; the newer side has curved arches. The Town Bridge and Chapel is a grade I listed building. It was originally a packhorse bridge, but widened in the 17th century by rebuilding the western side. On 2 July 1643 the town was the site of a skirmish in the English Civil War, when Royalists seized control of the bridge on their way to the Battle of Lansdowne

On the bridge stands a small building which was originally a chapel but was later used as a town lock-up. The weathervane on top takes the form of a gudgeon (an early Christian symbol), hence the local saying "under the fish and over the water"

The river provided power for the wool mills that gave the town its wealth. The town has 17th-century buildings dating from the most successful period of the local textile industry. The best examples of weavers' cottages are on Newtown, Middle Rank and Tory Terraces.

We take a walk along the riverside.

We pass the Abbey Mill now all apartments.

The original Abbey Mill factory building in about 1850. The tall block on the left was built in the first couple of decades of the 19th century. It is said to have been visited by the Duke of Wellington in about 1820. In 1824 it was purchased by the partnership of Yerbury, Tugwell & Edmonds and from 1833 both Abbey and Church Street Mills were run in conjunction by Ezekiel Edmonds & Co. until they became bankrupt in 1862. Both mills were vacant in 1865. From 1869 t0 1898 they were run by a succession of short-lived and related partnerships: Harper & Taylor; Harper, Taylor & Willis; Ward, Taylor & Willis and H.H. Willis. The mills and their machinery were offered for auction in 1898 after the death of Willis and 1902 cloth manufacture ceased with all the plant auctioned by a Yorkshire company, followed by the closing of Greenland Mills the following year. There was a brief period in which part at least of the buildings was used by the rug company of Budbury.

With improving mechanisation in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, the wool weaving industry moved from cottages to purpose-built woollen mills adjacent to the river, where they used water and steam to power the looms. Around thirty such mills were built in Bradford-on-Avon alone, and these prospered further until the English woollen industry shifted its centre of power to Yorkshire in the late 19th century. The last local mill closed in 1905. Many have since stood empty and some became derelict.

The river Avon had been navigable from Bristol to Bath during the early years of the 13th century but construction of mills on the river forced its closure. The floodplain of the Avon, on which the city centre of Bath is built, has an altitude of about 59 ft (18 m) above sea level. The river, once an unnavigable series of braided streams broken up by swamps and ponds, has been managed by weirs into a single channel. Periodic flooding, which shortened the life of many buildings in the lowest part of the city, was normal until major flood control works were completed in the 1970s.

We leave the Avon and walk back into town, through the station car park and up St Margaret's Street.

Crossing the McKeever Bridge into Church Street.

Church House is a Georgian House of fine ashlar, with Palladian-style façade featuring a neo-classical pediment and a so-called “Venetian” window (also known as a serliana, after the Italian architect Sebastiano Serlio).

It was part of the Rogers Manor estate (the “Priory”), which was purchased by the Methuen family in 1657. In about 1730 a house on this spot was rebuilt by Christopher Brewer, Attorney-at-Law, the present building. It was later the home and office of another lawyer, Daniel Clutterbuck, who died in 1769.

It was known as Church House by 1771, when the freehold was sold by Pawlett Wrighte, Lord of the Manor of Bradford, to Thomas Baskerville of Woolley.

From 1821, it was occupied by the Bradford branch of the bank of the Bath firm of Hobhouse, Phillot & Lowder, until 1841-2 when it failed. Later it was owned by the maltster Thomas Wheeler, who let the ground floor to the North Wilts Bank, until they built their own building next door (later Lloyds Bank). A bank vault has been discovered in the cellar. In the 1880s and 1890s it was occupied by surgeons R.W. Collett and William John Alexander Adye.

Like other large houses, it was requisitioned in the Second World War and was then converted into five flats to accommodate people displaced by the war.

During the 1980s part of the house was used as an art gallery and later it was the home of Lady Bremridge.

It was advertised for sale in September 2021 by Savills, at £2,250,000.

Walking back down Church Street we come to the Saxon Church of St Laurence.

St Laurence's Church, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, is one of very few surviving Anglo-Saxon churches in England that does not show later medieval alteration or rebuilding.

The church is dedicated to St Laurence and documentary sources suggest it may have been founded by Saint Aldhelm around 700, although the architectural style suggests a 10th- or 11th-century date. St. Laurence's stands on rising ground close to the larger Norman parish church of the Holy Trinity.

The building was used as a combined school (nave) and cottage (chancel) for many years, both on more than one storey. It was rediscovered in 1856 by William Jones, rector of Holy Trinity, and restored between 1870 and 1880. In 1952 the church was designated as Grade I listed.

The date of the building has been much debated. H. M. Taylor stated some 50 years ago that he believed the main fabric of the walls to their full height belongs to Aldhelm's time, after discussions with Dr Edward Gilbert. Most recent sources give a later date for all or most of the structure. It has been suggested it was built after 1001, when King Æthelred the Unready gave the site to the nuns of Shaftesbury Abbey, refugees from the Vikings. They were the custodians of the body of King Edward the Martyr, Æthelred's half-brother and already regarded as a saint, and it may have served as a mortuary chapel for him for a period, which might help explain why such a small but elaborate building was created.

It is the most complete Anglo-Saxon survival from this period, and follows what seems to have been a typical monastic plan at the time, though in miniature. In particular the decoration including fragments of large reliefs gives a hint of richness which documentary remains record in monastic churches. Although the existing church seems all or almost all Anglo-Saxon, it has clearly been altered in a number of ways, apart from the modern restoration, which included removing the stairs inside and filling in windows. For its small size, with the nave only some 7.5 metres (25 ft) long and a little over 4 m (13 ft) wide, the height of the building (around 8 m (26 ft) inside the nave) is notable. A porticus to the south has been lost, but otherwise the structure of the building seems complete in its final Anglo-Saxon state.

The pair of angels flying horizontally, in relief at about half life-size, probably flanked a large sculptural group of the Crucifixion, perhaps over the chancel arch.

The arcading on the exterior walls is produced, not by incision (as thought by Jackson and Fletcher), but by setting the massive stone pilaster-strips forward from the wall-face. In this they are similar to Great Dunham and the tower of Tasburgh parish church in Norfolk, and also to the parish churches at Earls Barton and Barton-upon-Humber.

Walking back into town we go down Bridge yard and into Weavers Walk and Lambs Yard.

LAMBS YARD

A labyrinth of independent shops and delicious food and drink based in and around converted mill buildings, Including Made in Bradford, a shop devoted to selling items created by local artists, Doghouse a specialist pet shop and pet-friendly café, clothing, and accessories form shops like Piha and Sassy and Boo and a variety of restaurants including the Weaving Shed, Il Ponte, The Secret Garden Café, Coffee Etc, and Pablo’s Bistro.

WEAVERS WALK

Weavers Walk a little treasure trove of delight between lambs yard and silver st is home to Boundless Blooms, Cloud and Cove Gift Shop and Bradford on Avon’s only sustainable supermarket Christine’s.

We stop to look at the amazing bridge once more and make our way to our cottage.

We climb the hill and steps up to 10 Tory, our cottage for the weekend. This was once one of a row of weavers cottages.

Booking here if you are interested.

Old weavers’ cottages. Wool and cloth had been Bradford’s stable industry for six centuries until its demise at the beginning of the 20th century. However, when the Black Death made labour scarce in 1348 wool and cloth became even more important to the country and the town flourished. The river provided the power for the wool mills that gave the town its wealth. The decorative clothiers’ houses and the humble and functional weavers’ cottages that date back to the 17th century, which is the most successful period of the local textile industry, are a source of endless fascination for anyone with an eye for genuine old world charm. The most known examples of weaver’s cottages are Middle Rank, Newtown and Tory Terraces.

The 18th century’s Industrial revolution brought huge changes seeing the Saxon Church used as a school and a royal assent was given to construct the Kennet and Avon canal. New machinery brought cloth workers from their houses into factories – the wool weaving industry moved from cottages to purpose built woolen mills adjacent to the river where water and steam was used to power the looms. Bradford on Avon was once the home to around 30 mills prospering England’s woolen industry until the centre of power shifted to Yorkshire in the late 19th century. The last local mill closed in 1905 and many have stood empty since.

The 19th century cloth manufacture was compensated for by the growth of the rubber industry. Until 1991, Bradford on Avon was a centre of the industry, producing rubber components for Avon Rubber.