The Bristol Avon

This book explores the course of the Bristol Avon, from its humble beginnings in Acton Turville through to the Severn Estuary and the sea beyond.

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The Bristol Avon rises as a number of streams around the Gloucestershire-Wiltshire border in the southern Cotswolds. The crow needs only twenty miles to fly from some of these to the sea just beyond Bristol, but the river itself covers almost four times that distance. It flows in a great loop that takes it past the historic Wiltshire towns of Malmesbury, Chippenham, Melksham and Trowbridge, then into Somerset where it enhances the historic city of Bath. Further downstream is the great city of Bristol, which owes its great success as a trading port to the river’s navigability and access to the sea, and finally the river reaches the Bristol Channel at Avonmouth.

This book follows the river’s course. The historic towns and cities it serves are featured, together with villages such as Lacock, famed for its abbey and as the home of the inventor of photography, and historic features such as the Dundas and Avoncliff aqueducts. Author Steve Wallis explores the river’s past as an important transport route, linked to the Thames by the Kennet and Avon Canal, and the varied and often stunning landscape through which it flows.