Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Cannings' pond is the most likely venue as it was on the route used to move Dutch gin from
the Hampshire coast to Swindon by night. Wiltshiremen are still called Moonrakers.
Horton Bridge (which is not the nearest bridge to the centre of Horton) has a Bridge Inn.
From here the canal turns west again past Coate, a source of puddle clay for lining the canal.
This section of canal is below Roundway Down where, in 1643, during the Civil War, the
Royalist cavalry made a surprise attack on the Roundheads, killing or capturing most of them.
The A361 makes its first crossing as the canal turns into a straight that runs past the hos-
pital to Devizes Wharf, which is now mostly a car park. This is the site known to canoeists as
the start of the Devizes to Westminster Race. The DW, Britain's best-known canoeing event,
began in 1948 in answer to a £20 bet over whether the local Rover Scouts could travel to
Westminster by kayak in 100 hours. They won the bet and the subsequent race has developed
into an annual Easter activity that has been instrumental in encouraging restoration of the
canal, Britain's major canal restoration project. The 1979 race record of 15 hours 34 minutes
still stands. Along one side of the wharf is an 1810 granary with a long timbered balcony that
houses the canal centre and canal society, while the Wharf Theatre is located in the ware-
house.
Devizes has the largest marketplace in the west of England, chartered since 1141 and much
influenced by its surroundings, taking its name from the Old French devises meaning bound-
ary. The Wiltshire Heritage Museum has finds from prehistoric, Neolithic, Bronze and Iron
Ages and Roman material with items from barrows, Avebury and Stonehenge - the Bronze
Age collection being one of Britain's best. Many houses are Georgian, which made this a
suitable venue for filming Far from the Madding Crowd . The market cross bears the tale of
Ruth Pierce, who was involved in a three-way dispute over part of the payment for a sack of
wheat in 1753. She asked to fall down dead if she was guilty and duly died, the missing 3d
being found in her hand.
The Devizes Flight is one of the wonders of the canal system. While Tardebigge has a
greater number of locks, here there is a greater fall in a shorter distance, Britain's longest con-
tinuous flight. The 29 locks drop the canal 72m in 3.6km. At Dunkirk, the Black Horse had
a major fire in 2010, which was extinguished with water from the canal. The A361 crosses
over Prison Bridge, near the former prison, and the towpath again has a separate arch. The
most dramatic section is the Caen Hill Flight, which runs straight down a spur of land at a
1:30 slope. Sixteen locks are closely spaced, each with a 64m x 41 m x 1.6m deep widening
between locks. The flight was completed in 1810, the last part of the canal to be finished and
the last part to be restored.
While Seend Cleeve is now a quiet agricultural village, this was not the case in Victorian
times when there was an ironworks halfway down the Seend Flight of locks. Three hundred
tonnes a week of iron was mined from higher ground and transported by canal to south Wales,
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