Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Crofton pumping station, seen over the railway from the canal
.
A metal footbridge over the canal continues over the railway with high flights of steps each
side at Little Bedwyn, with its flint church of St Michael. The name has nothing to do with
Arabs but comes from the Saxon
bedwine
or bindweed or from the Celtic
bedd gwyn
, white
grave. The village had a Roman camp and Saxon mint. In 675 Escuin seized the throne from
King Wulfhere in the Battle of Bedwyn. To the south is an 18th century farming village and
there are 19th century patterned brick terraces to the north.
Beyond Little Bedwyn and Potter's Locks, Chisbury lies to the north-west with the 13th
century thatched Chisbury Chapel, rescued from use as a farm building. Chisbury Hill Fort,
referred to by Thomas Hardy as Batton Castle, is built on Bedwyn Dyke. This was part of
Wansdyke, dug 138km between Inkpen and Portishead in the 6th century by Saxon King
Caelwin as protection against the Angles from the Midlands.
By Bedwyn Church Lock is Bedwyn church, begun in 1092, with fine pierced embattle-
ments around the top of the tower, built on the site of a 905 Saxon church. Close by is the
Bedwyn Stone Museum with stone carvings, tombstones, statues, a dinosaur footprint and the
Lloyd's stone masonry, which made the original inscription for the Bruce tunnel east portal.
Before Crofton Bottom Lock, the start of the Crofton Flight, the canal crosses the line of
the Roman road from Cirencester to Winchester, heading south-east past a tumulus and the
1821 five-storey Wilton windmill, the only working mill left in Wiltshire. The other way
leads through Savernake Forest. The 6km straight Grand Avenue of beeches with three oth-
er straight avenues crossing at its major intersection was cut by Capability Brown and runs
parallel to a Roman road, perhaps acting as the inspiration. This Norman hunting forest is
the only one still in private hands and roads through it are closed once a year to retain their
private status.
