Barton Orchard

Today's the day ........................ to embark

The five of us came from different corners of England (and the Isle of Man) to join the good ship Clavertonat Bradford on Avon where we would cruise the Kennet & Avon Canal for the next week.

Bradford on Avon is a pretty little town which had a thriving woollen textile industry back in the 17th century. This is Barton Orchard, an ancient packhorse way - and these buildings would have been weavers' dwellings with workshops on the top floor.

It was in Bradford on Avon that the first turf of the canal was cut in 1794. Navvies (from the word navigators) were recruited from local farms and using picks and shovels to dig and wooden wheelbarrows to remove the earth, the channel was laboriously cut. The ditch was then lined with clay to make it watertight.

John Rennie, the Surveyor in chief had to come up with some ingenious ways to overcome the difficulties of the terrain through which the canal would pass. Aqueducts, tunnels, lock flights and bridges all had to be designed and built before the canal officially opened in 1810. The completed waterway was 87 miles long and cost the incredible sum in those days of one million pounds .............