Bath  is on most overseas visitor’s Grand Tour and a side trip to Bradford on Avon is easy to choose as your plus one as it has its own train station and sits firmly on the main line from Bath taking less than 15 minutes of your travel time. A quirky old fashioned train station welcomes and you would be forgiven for thinking that Bernard Cribbens is likely to be leaning against a broom ready to blow his whistle……. instead you are dropped townside in this beautiful old fashioned market settlement.

A pretty town where there seems to have been some forethought from the local planning office. New builds have been constructed in an aesthetically pleasing manner as they are mostly in keeping with their regal gold stone elderly neighbours.

Quirky cafes and gift shops are juxtaposed in old warehouse style buildings once housing a rubber company and the staff in a glorious art shop pointed us to a display of a calendar which I learned was a  machine which used to bind rubber and other materials into sheets. It has been carefully maintained in a huge glass cabinet display for all to see on a side road in the town.

As the name suggests the River Avon weaves through the town and there is an upper and lower wharf each offering ice creams and beers and pretty views of barges tasking themselves with getting through the locks.

The Grey Traveller  was most fortunate in finding The Barge Inn where you can sit back and enjoy sumptuous baguettes and local beers whilst watching the world and his dog glide by.