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.
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| 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
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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.
We left the cottage and had a few drinks in The Dandy Lion and watched the England Ladies football game.
The Dandy Lion public house in an 18th century 3 storey building on Market street Bradford on Avon.
We walk back to the cottage for the night.
