page_title: Kennet and Avon Canal
section_title: Devizes to Newbury
hierarchical_section_title: Kennet and Avon Canal / Route / Devizes to Newbury
caption_attribution_description: English: A picture of 5 swans coming up the Kennet And Avon Canal into Devizes
context_page_description: The Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of 87 miles, made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by a canal. The name is used to refer to the entire length of the navigation rather than solely to the central canal section. From Bristol to Bath the waterway follows the natural course of the River Avon before the canal links it to the River Kennet at Newbury, and from there to Reading on the River Thames. In all, the waterway incorporates 105 locks.
  The two river stretches were made navigable in the early 18th century, and the 57-mile canal section was constructed between 1794 and 1810. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the canal gradually fell into disuse after the opening of the Great Western Railway. In the latter half of the 20th century the canal was restored in stages, largely by volunteers. After decades of dereliction and much restoration work, it was fully reopened in 1990. The Kennet and Avon Canal has been developed as a popular heritage tourism destination for boating, canoeing, fishing, walking and cycling, and is also important for wildlife conservation.
context_section_description: Heading east from Devizes the canal passes through the Wiltshire countryside and a series of locks and swing bridges before another flight of locks at Crofton.
  At Honeystreet is the remains of a wharf that was the home of boat builders Robbins, Lane and Pinnegar, which served as the boat building headquarters of the Canal Company.  They built many of the boats used on the canals of southern England before closing in about 1950. Next to the wharf is the Barge Inn, a substantial public house once known as the George Inn. It was roughly half-way along the canal and served as a bakehouse, slaughterhouse and shop for provisions for those living and working on the canal. The building was destroyed by fire in 1858 and rebuilt within six months. It was built just within the parish boundary of Stanton St Bernard to "serve the Honey Street wharf in Alton parish, which refused to allow drinking establishments".
  Jones's Mill is a 29-acre (12 ha) area of fen vegetation, scrub and woodland lying along the headwaters of the Salisbury Avon northeast of Pewsey. It has been designated a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest because it is "the best known example of a calcareous valley mire in Wiltshire".
  The four locks at Wootton Rivers mark the end of the climb from the Avon. Between Wootton Top Lock and Crofton is the summit pound of the canal at 450 feet (140 m) above sea level, stretching for about 2 miles (3 km) and including the 502-yard-long (459 m) Bruce Tunnel. The tunnel is named after the local land owner, Thomas Brudenell-Bruce, 1st Earl of Ailesbury (1729–1814), who refused to allow a deep cutting through his property and insisted on a tunnel. The tunnel has red brick portals, capped with Bath stone, each with a decorative plaque of Pennant stone. The tunnel was begun in 1806 and finished in 1809. It is lined with English bond brickwork and has a wide bore to cope with the Newbury barges used on the canal. There is no towpath through the tunnel, so walkers and cyclists must walk across the top of the hill. When canal boats were pulled by horses the boatmen had to haul their barges through the tunnel by hand, pulling on chains that ran along the inside walls.
  The Crofton Locks flight marks the start of the descent from the summit to the Thames; the nine locks have a total rise/fall of 61 feet (19 m). When the canal was built there were no reliable water sources available to fill the summit by normal gravitational means. A number of usable springs were found adjacent to the canal route about one mile (1.6 km) east of the summit pound, and about 40 feet (12 m) below it, and arrangements were made for them to feed the pound below lock 60 at Crofton. Some years later the Wilton Water reservoir was created to enhance the supply to this pound using the springs and the River Dun.
  Water is pumped to the summit at the western end of the locks, from Wilton Water, by the restored Crofton Pumping Station. The original steam-powered pumping station is preserved and contains one of the oldest operational Watt-style beam engines in the world, dating from 1812. The steam engines still pump water on selected weekends, but for day-to-day operation electric pumps are used, automatically controlled by the water level in the summit pound.
  Near Crofton is Savernake Forest and the remains of a railway bridge that carried the Midland and South Western Junction Railway over the canal. Mill Bridge at Great Bedwyn is unusual in being a skew arch; on its completion in 1796 it was the first of its kind.  From there to Hungerford the canal follows the valley of the River Dun through Freeman's Marsh, which consists of unimproved meadows, marsh and reedbed. It is an important site for overwintering, migratory and breeding birds, and supports many varieties of flora scarce in Southern England. It was cited by English Nature in 1986, and forms part of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. There are plans to construct a marina and hotel complex adjacent to the site, but the potential environmental impacts (particularly to water vole
caption: Swans coming into Devizes from the Newbury side
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