The Lost Milestone

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The cast iron plate that was fixed to the milestone on the Bath Road in the dip between Cumberwell and Farleigh Wick has not been in place for a good many years. This was a pity because three others -in Market Street, at Widbrook and Trowle Common- still exist.
Luckily, it has now turned up and has been given to Bradford on Avon Museum. It...
Read MoreNew Museum booklet: Bridges of Bradford-on-Avon

The latest in Bradford on Avon Museum’s series of publications is a well-illustrated historical survey of the town’s bridges -across the river, canal and railway. Ivor Slocombe has included new research from his delving into records in the Wiltshire & Swindon Archives and has section on the footbridge which (so far) never was.
The booklet is on sale at the Museum,...
Read MoreMuseum Collection: Transport

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Click on the thumbnail pictures for a bigger view
A copper alloy button with the intertwined letters GWR. It would have dropped off the uniform of a Great Western Railway employee and was found in Sandy Leaze, which was a field that was built over in the 1960s.
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Old Images: Road Transport

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Around Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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A covered wagon drawn by three horses carrying wool or skins to the leather works of Beavens’ at Holt; a pencil drawing by A. Thompson
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The Bradford...
Read MoreOld Pictures: Kennet & Avon Canal

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Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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Click on the thumbnail pictures for a larger view The Upper Wharf of the canal in Bradford’s Frome Road in about 1925, with a wooden horse-drawn barge being prepared for work. Just above the tiny cabin of the barge can be seen the small building which...
Read MoreThe Kennet & Avon Canal: timeline
1723: The River Kennet Navigation opened, Newbury to Reading
1727: The River Avon Navigation opened, Bath to Bristol
1788: In April, a canal linking the Kennet and Avon proposed at a meeting in Newbury
1789: Surveyed route presented to shareholders in the summer
1793: The Kennet & Avon Canal Act passed on 27th August
1794: The first sod cut, at Bradford,...
Read MoreExplore the Kennet & Avon Canal

Bradford on Avon & Holt & Westwood & Winsley, Wiltshire .
The River Avon was canalised between Bath and Bristol in 1727, while to the east, the River Kennet Navigation from Newbury to the confluence with the River Thames at Reading had been made in 1723. The construction of a canal between the...
Read MoreOld Photographs: Motorcycling

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Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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Members of Bradford Motorcycle Club posing for a group photograph in Druce’s Hill, Church Street. Many of them have sidecars for conveying wife/girlfriend and child. No helmets are worn, but most of the drivers have goggles. The date would be after the...
Read MoreRoyal Enfield Motorcycles

Westwood and Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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In June 1941, during the Second World War, part of the Royal Enfield Company moved from Redditch in Worcestershire to old underground stone workings at Westwood Quarry. In the...
Read MoreTollgates and Milestones

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Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire.
. The costs of making and keeping up the turnpike roads were financed by charging tolls for their use, with a scale of charges depending on the size of the individual vehicles and other traffic. It cost 1s 8d to drive a carriage to Bath in 1866.
Toll...
Read MoreTurnpike Roads of the Bradford Hundred

Click on the map for a larger version.
The roads of the Bradford Roads Trust are in red; other turnpike roads are in blue.
The first Bradford Road Act in 1752 authorised a Turnpike Trust to make, maintain and charge tolls on a road from Combe Bridge (at the boundary of Bradford with Monkton Combe, near the Viaduct) to Winsley, Bradford, Staverton...
Read MoreGarages

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Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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Gerald Stamper had his garage in the yard that is now the St Margaret’s car park, in buildings that had been part of the wool dyeworks that centred on the present St Margaret’s Hall. As...
Read MoreCanals to Bradford on Avon

Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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The Kennet & Avon Canal through Bradford on Avon was fully opened in 1810, connecting the town to London in the east and Bristol to the west. The Somersetshire Coal Canal linked it to the North Somerset Coalfield and the Wilts & Berks Canal and North Wilts Canal gave easier access to...
Read MoreStokeford Bridge

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Limpley Stoke and Winsley, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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As a route to Bath, horses could cross the Avon at the ancient Stoke Ford, at the foot of Winsley Hill and there must have been traffic between Stoke and its mother parish of Bradford.
In 1731 Thomas...
Read MoreA Bradford-centric railway map

Bradford was well-served by railways, but was not really the hub of the system! The map shows lines and stations, some still functioning, some swept away by the Beeching axe in the 1960s.
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