Wiltshire Weekend

We decided to have a couple of nights away to break up the month and chose Wiltshire. We found a lovely dog friendly hotel, The Moonraker, between Bradford on Avon and Trowbridge which was about a hour and a half from home.

We love Wiltshire. It has huge, open, sweeping chalkland landscapes that have a palpable air of age and antiquity and which are littered with historical sites such as The Ridgeway, Silbury Hill, Avebury, Stonehenge of course, and numerous hillforts, longbarrows, white horses, stone circles and earthworks. There are also some beautiful towns; Salisbury, Marlborough, Chippenham and Devizes and numerous picture postcard villages.

The Moonraker Hotel was named after a group of local smugglers trying to avoid import duties on spirits by hiding barrels of contraband in church crypts or village ponds and who, one moonlit night, were caught trying to get those barrels out of a pond. Pointing to the moon reflected in the water, they told the officials they were trying to rake in wheels of cheese and astonishingly they were believed, although the officials did think the smugglers were just simple local folk...!!

That afternoon, we walked from the hotel down to the Kennet and Avon canal and along the towpath to Bradfield on Avon's wharf which was pretty, busy and bustling. We stopped for a while watching the boats and barges from a pretty, tiny tea shop garden right by the water’s edge. A little further along the path brings you to a magnificent 14th century tithe barn surrounded by little cafes and shops and a lovely flower filled park. A circular route down wooded lanes, across fields and through a narrowboat marina brought us neatly back to the hotel again.

The following morning, after spying a white horse on a hill from the bedroom window, we drove to Bratton Downs. You can drive right up to the top and there are miles of walks to choose from starting from the car park. We had a walk round the 2000 year old earthworks and the Westbury White Horse enjoying the panoramic views all around us.

We then headed back into Bradford on Avon for coffee and then lunch, but also had a wander and found the tiny St Laurence Church, one of the only surviving, and most complete, Saxon churches dating from around 700 AD. We admired the Bridge Tea Rooms dating from 1502 and crossed the Town Bridge which was originally a packhorse bridge and has a curious building in the middle of it which was a tiny jail; it has a fish on the top of the weathervane, so if you were locked up, you were said locally to be ‘under the fish and over the water’.

On the last morning, we drifted slowly home stopping at the lovely, unspoiled village of Lacock, calling in at the Abbey and the large tithe barn in the centre of the village. We then stopped at Avebury, although we’ve been many times, but it’s such a pretty village and has the largest stone circle in Europe, forming part of a huge neolithic complex including the mysterious Silbury Hill; in fact, there are many long barrows and burial sites in this area.

It's certainly an area we'll go back and explore as it has so much to offer that is unique and unspoiled, and all set against a landscape that's rich in millennia of history.

lacock abbey’s cloisters - harry potter was filmed here — lacock abbey’s cloister

Outdoor Ramblings

‘The greatest adventure is what lies ahead’