Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

After a break of four weeks, we returned to our walk along the Kennet and Avon canal. Our original plan was to walk to Pewsey, but we’d found that today was a “steaming” day at Crofton, so we decided on a shorter walk to Wootton Rivers, plus a visit to the beam engines.
We set off from Great Bedwyn. Even though there was a rail strike, and NO trains, there was one man waiting forlornly on the platform for a train. He said he’d checked the website … we didn’t see a single train all day … he might have had a very long wait.
Just before reaching the towpath, we stopped to find a geocache, called ‘What is a Brail anyway?’ (FYI it seems to be an area of woodland as there are two woods called ‘brails’ nearby.) That done, we set off along the towpath, stopping to look for another four caches as we went (finding three); each of these caches took us away from the canal and onto paths or tracks leading into the countryside – which was very pretty indeed. Summer had advanced since we were here last, and the vegetation has grown – a lot.
After a walk of about a mile and three-quarters along the towpath – further for us with all those diversions – we’d reached Crofton. Across the canal was Crofton Pumping Station, with a gentle wisp of smoke coming from the chimney, and behind us was Wilton Water, not a lake but a long, thin reservoir, the source of water for the pumping station. Sadly, the canal-side gate to the pumping station is closed (Covid?), the only way in is to go further on and to walk back along the road.




Once there, we had a jolly good look round, climbed the stairs, questioned the volunteers, watched the boilers being stoked, the engines starting, stopping, pumping, and took loads and loads of photos. After 90 minutes or so, we emerged, and ate our picnic lunch on the seats overlooking the canal, reservoir, and railway line – no, we didn’t see a single train!




Returning to the canal, we had a cache to find, ‘Crofton Beam Engines (Wilts)’ – we’d questioned the volunteers and had all the information we needed. We worked out some plausible coordinate, passed items that others had mentioned in their logs, and arrived at a place that just ‘had’ to be the location. But we simply couldn’t find the cache, though we looked all around and widened our search too. What a shame, we’d really wanted to find that one, it tied in with our walk.
We walked on up the remainder of the Crofton lock flight. We passed bridge number 100; Mr Hg137 felt this to be a milestone moment, got excited, and took a photo. At the top lock, we’d reached the summit level of the canal. Water from the pumping station is released here and is used to supply the canal which descends on both sides. The water arrives at the canal via an insignificant looking inlet just above the top lock.
We were told that the pumping station can supply enough water to fill a lock in 15 minutes (electric pumps are used when the steam engines aren’t working). We didn’t see many boats (and no trains at all), but it must be quite a task to keep the water level topped up. FYI: at the time of writing, there are opening restrictions on the locks on either side of the summit because there isn’t enough water, the locks are only available for use between 08:30 and 16:30 each day. Mr Hg137 asked how the locks could be closed: I’ve seen it done in the past simply by fixing the lock gates shut with a padlock and chain.
For the next two and a quarter miles we walked along the lockless (and cacheless) summit level, gradually descending into a deep cutting. About a quarter of a mile of the canal is underground, inside Bruce Tunnel, the only tunnel on the canal. It was very quiet indeed – no boats, cars or people (and definitely no trains). We climbed up a track and walked across the top of the tunnel. And then we started to meet people, in groups: specifically, groups of 6-8 teenagers carrying maps and enormous rucksacks. It wasn’t so quiet anymore. Aha – DofE participants!
Emerging from the cutting and a mile or so further on, we reached the Wootton Rivers flight of locks, where the waterway starts its descent towards Bath. At the bottom of the flight of four locks we reached the road where our geocar was parked, close to the former lock-keeper’s cottage. Those with a (very) long memory may remember it as the main location for the BBC series “The River” back in the 1980s.
We found our final cache of the day here, making seven caches found out of nine attempted. We’ve been surprised that there aren’t more caches in the area, since it’s lovely countryside, well served by footpaths, interesting locations, hidey-holes a-plenty. It would be a great place for a geocache series (or two, or three). If only we lived closer – we could place some caches here ourselves!
PS We wonder how long that lone traveller waited for a non-existent train? There were NO trains!
And here are some of the not-so-many caches we found: