Canal Rage and Crooners (From Wootton Rivers to Savernake Forest by Canal and Rail)
- Paul Timlett
- Jun 15
- 16 min read
This is the third and, for now, final walk from a short series of walks that take in the Kennet & Avon Canal and its surrounding area. Once again my inspiration was a route plotted by Louise Powell of Circular Wiltshire Walks.
For this walk I was joined by my regular walking buddy Stu, who had been cursed for a few weeks by a foot injury, so this was a gentle re-introduction to the art of tramping for him. We began the walk by the canal to the west of my last two walks in the delightful village of Wootton Rivers. We parked in the car park by the village hall at What3Words location ///paper.amber.companies. A notice in the car park prohibits long term parking but it’s fine to park for the day whilst you walk. This walk led us to the western end of my Wolfhall walk so there is a slight overlap. You will find a link to that blog below.
The first leg of this walk takes in the canal towpath and then turns north to return to Wootton Rivers via the Savernake Forest, somewhere I have long intended to explore but somehow never have. As ever my route took in a church. Normally I like to visit the church first if there is one near to my parking spot. I find that at the end of a long day’s walking I just want to get home so I’m less inclined to spend time in the church. But on this occasion Stu suggested we visit it at the end, much to my annoyance! But it proved to be the right call as we shall discover. So we walked down the road past the church to the canal, close to the railway that accompanied me on my last two visits to this part of Wiltshire.
The lock here is called Wootton Rivers Lock, or Wootton Rivers Bottom Lock. Curiously the road bridge above the lock is a listed structure, designed by John Rennie in 1810. Rennie designed the Kennet & Avon Canal. I’m unsure whether this was John Rennie the Elder or John Rennie the Younger, but to my untrained eye the bridge looked little different to the many other road bridges over the canal in the area so I’m not sure why this one is listed! What was more interesting was the old lock keeper’s cottage. It looked like it could do with a lick of paint but I liked it all the same.
The next lock heading east was Heathy Close Lock. Here we met a couple who were about to enter the lock with their barge. The boat was huge and as I watched them line it up I wondered whether it would fit. Not only was it long but wide – nearly twice the width of a regular narrow boat. I asked them if there were parts of the canal network where their boat was just too big. They said it was fine all along the Kennet & Avon and on into the Thames, and that they had also motored up the Oxford Union Canal on it, but further north the canals were just too narrow. They had lived on their boat for many years so were confident in the art of the possible. Stu and I helped them with the lock gates at Heathy Close then we each continued on our way, we passing them again as they approached the next lock – Brimslade Lock.
We had a long way to walk so we left our new friends to work this lock for themselves. They were extremely proficient and had a good system going so didn’t need our help. I had a quick look at the Brimslade Craft Studio (a wooden shepherd’s hut by Brimslade Farm next to the canal) and watched a rental boat stopped at a jaunty angle by the bank, puzzled as to what they were trying to do.
We carried on along the towpath where another narrow boat seemed to be stationary in the middle of the canal having just passed through Wootton Top Lock. It was here that we discovered a new phenomenon. We’re all familiar with road rage but here I came across my first example of canal rage! The owner of the boat was shouting at us telling us to run back to Brimslade Lock to tell our new friends, who were now in the lock, not to open the gates. Apart from his angry disposition we were a little puzzled until we figured out that he had run aground in the middle of the channel. As had the rental boat. Still yelling and angry at everyone he said that the water level had dropped so low in the short stretch between the two locks that it had become impassable. He said (or rather yelled) that some idiot had left the lock gate paddles open so the water was draining out down hill.
I ran back to Brimslade Lock to explain the situation to the couple in the large boat. They calmly explained that this was not an uncommon situation. This stretch of the canal is the summit of the Kennet & Avon which stretched all the way to Crofton. So the canal water flows downhill westwards from here and eastwards from Crofton. If they had opened the lock gates at Brimslade to allow their boat out even more water would have drained out. The woman said she would walk up to the next lock (which shouty man had just come through) and open the paddles to let more water into the stretch between the two locks to enable the two stranded boats to refloat. She also phoned ahead to Crofton to get them to pump more water into the canal. Now I understood what the Crofton pumping station was for! As we walked past shouty man she explained what she was going to do. He angrily pointed out that he’d lived on the canal for 20 years and didn’t need a lesson in how they worked, not least of which from a woman! I’m not sure how she kept her calm but she did and before too long the two stranded boats were afloat once again. Whilst all this was going on Stu and I took up a perch on the lock gates to enjoy a coffee and the free entertainment.
As I stood on the road bridge over the canal at Wootton Top Lock I realised that I had taken several photographs of shouty man’s boat a few weeks before. It’s the one with all the Union Jack decorated canal ware in my first Kennet & Avon blog (the Wolfhall blog linked below). I’m glad he wasn’t on board whilst I photographed his boat. As I turned to take photographs along the canal looking east I realised that one of the boats moored by the bank was now parked at a 45 degree angle blocking the canal. As we walked past it we realised that the stake holding the bow mooring line had pulled out of the ground so that the boat was now only moored at the stern. Before we got roped into helping out any further we decided to make a hasty exit. We’d only covered about a mile of our nearly 8 mile walk. And besides I’m not sure we could handle any more excitement.
A little further along the towpath I reached the point by Ram Alley Copse where I left the canal on the first of my Kennet & Avon Canal walks (the Wolfhall blog), so I won’t repeat myself here. I did stop for a few minutes to get a slightly clearer photograph of the crane at Burbage Wharf before continuing to the Bruce Tunnel where we would be saying goodbye to the canal.
I showed Stu the eastern end of the tunnel and the commemorative plaque honouring Thomas Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury. I remembered the sign under the plaque saying that it was a replica carved by the seventh generation ancestor of the stonemason who carved the original. At the time I wondered where the original plaque was until Stu pointed to the plaque high above the eastern portal of the tunnel – and there it was! Interestingly the replica plaque uses the modern spelling of Aylesbury whilst the original says Ailesbury.
I mentioned in my previous blog that, in the days when private rail companies would compete with each other by building parallel railway lines, that above the Bruce Tunnel there had once been two stations serving the two separate lines to Marlborough. One was called the Low Level Station and the other the High Level Station. Evidence of these two stations can be found either side of the mainline that still runs east-west above Bruce Tunnel, and close to the Savernake Forest Hotel. At the top of the slope from the eastern portal of the tunnel is a cottage called, from memory, Low Level Cottage. I forgot to take a photograph of it! Our route took us along the road northwards over the tunnel and railway line towards Durley. On the right we passed a house simply called High Level. Just after this another bridge crosses one of the disused railway lines which must have been the High Level line. To the east of the road through the bushes it is possible to see into the garden of the house where we could just see the platforms of the old High Level Station, the rail bed now turned into a pond. On the other side of the road we could just about make out the railway cutting.
We continued along the road climbing steadily with views opening up in the direction of Tottenham House. We could not see the house but we caught glimpses of a domed folly on the estate. Tottenham House was bought in 2024 by one of the many hedge fund manager billionaires that seem to own half the country now. And just like some of his colleagues this one is busily closing down access to the estate long enjoyed by generations of ordinary local people. A reason why permissive rights of way are not a long term panacea for the lack of access to the countryside in England – access is entirely at the whim of the landowner. This particular billionaire allegedly now owns nearby Stype Estate (see my Little Bedwyn blog) as well as Little Bedwyn Estate although Wikipedia says citations are needed for this. Meanwhile he lives on another estate in Shropshire where he’s never seen as he comes and goes by helicopter! Just how many country estates does one man need?
Along the road at the top of the hill just south of Durley House there is a track on the left that leads towards Savernake Forest. This is Lover’s Walk. We followed the track, which I think would be muddy after rain, across open country. It took a sharp right turn at the point where it met one of the disused railway lines that we had seen above the Bruce Tunnel. We’d been watching the line of the disused railway as it approached across the landscape to meet our track. As Lover’s Walk met the line we were then able to make out the line of the second disused railway further down the hillside. We could now clearly see why one line was called the High Level line and the other the Low Level. The track bed of the High Level line is now a broad level farm track. You could almost imagine the trains steaming along the railway here.
After crossing small field I fought my way through a dense patch of nettles to get a look at the track bed of the Low Level line but when I almost fell into a nest of bees at the base of a tree I decided I’d seen all I needed to see.
This track bed was far less distinct and seemed much narrower so we returned to Lover’s Walk, now heading north into the forest. This gave us a view of Savernake House in the distance.
I’d plotted a route that would take us to the monument marked “column” on the OS map so after a short zig-zag we joined Three Oak Hill Drive into Savernake Forest. As we walked along the forest track, or ride, we tried to remember who owned the forest. There are no right of way signs here but I knew, from a friend who lives in a cottage in the forest, that the public is free to roam. I now know that the forest is managed by the Forestry Commission and owned by the 9th Marquess of Ailesbury (or Aylesbury) aka the Earl of Cardigan. (Story has it that the 8th Marquess of Ailesbury died in 2024 at the age of 98 after falling out of a window in his apartment in London whilst trying to let the cat out - although I believe the current Marquess says there’s no evidence for this.) Access to the forest is permissive and once a year the owners close it in order to reassert their rights (and remind us all who’s boss). This again feels to me like a fragile arrangement that could so easily be terminated on a whim, especially since our billionaire hedge fund manager has already closed off a long-used ride to Tottenham House (once owned by the Marquess of Ailesbury). However on this occasion we should be safe as the Forestry Commission has a 999 year lease on the forest.
As we ambled along I wondered where the column was. At just this moment Stu looked through a gap in the trees to our right and there it was – right next to the track. How could I have missed something that big? By now it was time for lunch so we perched ourselves on the edge of the plinth for something to eat. There are panels on the north and east side of the monument to remind us that this was another memorial to the wealth of Thomas Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury.
The column itself is a fine example of architectural salvage, believed to have been originally erected in around 1760 at Brandenburg House, Hammersmith and later removed and rededicated. It is now dedicated to Thomas’ uncle who left him the estates, and to George III who conferred the Earldom on Thomas. And to push the historical horizon back a couple of centuries, I believe the Ailesbury family is descended from the Seymours of… Wolfhall. See how all this works! The forest is now much closer to the column than it once was as evidenced by the lines of stone posts in the surrounding trees, each topped by what looks like a bronze ball through which would have been threaded a chain providing a decorative boundary fence. There’s no sign of the chain now and many of the posts are either missing or falling over.
As we sat quietly eating our sandwiches ahead of us down the next ride, Column Ride, a small group of deer strolled silently across the track before melting away into the trees. A nod to the fact this was once a hunting estate. So we packed away our stuff and set off north-west along the ride getting ever deeper into this magnificent forest. I’ve long wanted to come and photograph here. There are so many ancient trees and even as the bright sunshine emerged from behind the clouds from time to time, the sunlight struggled to penetrate the forest floor. When it did it was like stage lighting, picking out individual trees with spotlights.
Man worked this forest long before the arrival of the Normans who turned it into a hunting estate. There are bowl barrows here and there is evidence of Romano-British pottery kilns which I assume were fired by charcoal as a nearby ride is called Charcoal Burners Road.
We planned to turn south at some point, and ignoring several rides to our left (one shown on the map that we intended to take didn’t exist) we came to a crossroads of rides by a small pond on Postwives Walk. This was a beautiful little spot although sadly it’s been necessary to erect a sign warning dog owners not to let their dogs in the water due to the harm from the chemicals contained within tick and flee treatments. The pond was filled with Yellow Irises, reeds and fallen leaves that dappled the surface.
We watched for a while as a dragonfly flitted from one plant to another, whilst listening to a Nuthatch deep in the forest. And a little later, just after photographing the Bluebells, the joy of hearing a Cuckoo close by - only my second of the year. Sadly he escaped my recording.
In the background we could hear the hum of the busy A346 which we would have to cross. Returning to the junction of paths we turned south-west along a grassy path that wound its way through the forest. An idyllic scene in which there were still clumps of Bluebells as well as Foxgloves whose nectar was being harvested by the many bees.
Here we passed only the second walker we’d seen in the forest. The path deviated around what the map showed as a circular boundary. However we could see no evidence of a fence so left the path to have a closer look. What we found was a shallow circular ditch and bank. Barely visible in photographs it was distinct on the ground, perhaps a metre deep. Nothing is shown on the Historic England website but this boundary is shown on maps as far back as the mid 19th century. I wondered if it was an ancient animal enclosure.
From this point the path is a little indistinct but the noise from the road was loud so we aimed for that, emerging onto a driveway to Morleigh Cottage and on to Savernake House. We followed the drive to the main road where a sign said it was a private drive – I assume this is aimed at car drivers not walkers as there was no sign at the forest end of the drive where we joined it. Crossing the A346 can be precarious as it is a fast and busy road. But we got lucky and crossed during a lull in the traffic. Back into the wood we followed the track first dead ahead then curving to the right (there is no right of way on the track straight ahead where it continues across an arable field). The path was indistinct in places but visible and we followed this for a short distance until we reached a minor road. Here we turned left and walked along this quiet road for about a kilometre, passing between the pillars of what was once the rail bridge taking the now disused railway line to Marlborough over the road. Immediately past the bridge was a track on our right - the next leg of our journey. This is Mud Lane
We passed by a beautifully made wooden field gate to follow the grassy path. Someone had spent a lot of time and devoted a lot of love crafting this gate and I couldn’t figure out why, other than to leave something of beauty in the landscape. As we followed the path, to our right was a section where the High and the Low Level lines had merged to share a track bed on a raised bank above us. There were fence posts all along this stretch but no wire, clearly a legacy of the railway. Some wooden steps led up the bank, perhaps a pedestrian crossing over the railway. I tried following the steps which dropped into a ditch before climbing again but it was too overgrown to progress so I returned to the path. Next to the fence posts was a simple wooden bench – little more than a plank supported by two wooden posts. On it was the brass plate shown in the photograph. We’d never heard of A L Bowlly, assuming he was a local character who used to spend some time here. It was only whilst writing this blog that I did an internet search to find out if there was anything about him. I was astonished at what I found.
Albert Allick Bowlly was a South African-British singer, guitarist and occasional actor who enjoyed considerable fame in his time. He was born in what is now Maputo in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique on 7 January 1899, later moving to South Africa. During his career he performed around the world including with the likes of Glenn Miller and Bing Crosby. Whilst he spent time living in England I can find no connection with this lonely footpath in Wiltshire. He was killed by a German parachute mine whilst in his flat in London on 17 April 1941.
As we continued along Mud Lane I heard the distinct call of a Stone-Curlew. Stu was a little way ahead of me and pointed into the adjacent field indicating that I should stay low and keep quiet. I slowly approached just in time to see one these magnificent red-listed birds skuttle from the field margin into the safety of the crop. It was fantastic to find a farmer who is still leaving field margins to attract ground nesting birds.
We came to a crossroads of tracks where we turned left to head south towards Wootton Rivers. We ignored a footpath on our right intending to join the minor road leading to the village beyond The Pit Plantation. Just after the pit was a gate where there was a permissive footpath sign. I wish now we had taken one of these paths to join the bridleway on the far side of the field that also led into Wootton Rivers. The road was dull and uninspiring and we would not have missed anything by taking the bridleway. But on entering the village we came across the first of its many thatched cottages. A clock on the Weslyan Chapel caught my eye. Instead of numerals it had letters that spelled “Glory Be To God”. “Interesting” I thought. We were to learn more before too long.
We soon came to the Royal Oak pub. It was 5:00 pm on a Thursday afternoon. We dared not hope it was open but we went round to the rear where the door is to check. There were lights on but the door was locked. We were about to leave, downhearted, when the couple who live in the house next door appeared. We had a good chat with them about the village and they told us that the pub opened at 6:00. They suggested we go and have a look at the church and told us about Jack Spratt and the clock. I was puzzled. The only Jack Spratt I could think of was in the nursery rhyme but since we intended to visit the church anyway we decide to have a look.
On entering the porch of St Andrews we soon discovered who Jack Spratt was, and he was nothing to do with the nursery rhyme. There was a large panel in the porch telling us all about this remarkable man known as The Scrap-heap Clock Maker of Wootton Rivers.
Jack was born in the village in 1858 and as well as a clock maker he was also postman, church warden, repairer of mechanical items, music box maker, accounts clerk, rates collector, suit maker and boot and shoe shop owner. In his spare time (!!), he enjoyed writing poetry and wrote about his life in 'The Scrap-heap Clockmaker of Wootton Rivers”. Apart from the clock on the Weslyan Chapel he also made the clock on the tower of the church, which also bears the legend “Glory Be To God” on its face instead of numerals. You can read about his life at the Friends of Savernake link below or, of course, visit the church and read the information panel.
The sun was slowly sinking as we explored this peaceful 14th century church, albeit with Saxon origins as it was built in the grounds of a Saxon manor house. I was struck by the pipes of the Victorian organ. The colours glowed richly in the early evening light.
We sat killing time, draining the last of our coffee until the clock approached 6:00 pm. We returned to the village hall to collect my car and drove the 100 metres back to the pub. And how glad we were that we did. We were first through the door as they opened up. The Ramsbury beer was magnificent and if we’d have had more time we would probably have eaten there. But it was the perfect way to end a wonderful day and we dared not incur the wrath of wives waiting at home.
In all the walk was 12.6 kms (7.84 miles) but apart from one short stretch from the Bruce Tunnel it was pan flat and easy going. Not a single stile, gate or barbed wire fence to negotiate.
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