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Three out of four of the 60,800,000 residents of the United Kingdom live within two miles of the National Cycle Network. But during a recent visit to England the route I wanted to ride required me to ride my bike seven miles to catch a train, load the bike on the train, ride the train for 80 minutes (changing trains once en route), just to get to the trailhead. Only then did I begin my 2½-hour bike ride. When the ride was over, my day continued with two more train rides and a final 40-minutes on the bike getting back to my cottage. Seems like a lot of trouble, when I could have easily stayed close to home and cycle local bike paths. But I had my reasons. Take the ride with me you just might agree that Bristol to Bath by Bike is well worth the effort. |
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FOR
FULL BACKGROUND ON THIS ROUTE, SEE
PART ONE
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GETTING TO
BRISTOL |
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The weather was cool, but promised to become
sunny and hot by mid-afternoon with the possibility of late-day showers.
My bike, an aluminum Trek cross-bike I brought with me from the States,
has heavy-treaded road tires ideal for asphalt with a few cinder
stretches in dry or wet conditions. The bike has been converted to road
gearing (14 gears) from its original 21-speed mountain bike set-up. I
swung into the saddle and rode gingerly across the first 25 yards of
cobblestones before reaching the historic Tetbury Market Square, already full of activity as
shopkeepers opened their shops and early shoppers scurried among the stores,
tearooms, and to the post office. I dropped off Tetburys hillside perch down Gumstool Hill and was quickly out of town. In a couple of minutes I reached the busy two-lane A433 that I must ride five miles northeast toward Roman Cirencester. With the rush hour traffic this stretch of flat, straight rural roadway should be the most difficult part of my day. In about twenty minutes I leave the A433 for the local road leading to Kemble rail station. |
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Kemble is nowhere. But it offers great rail service thanks to it being a station stop on the Swindon to Gloucester line. Since the privatization of British Rail fifteen years ago, passenger services on this line have been run by First Great Western, a new railway company with a very familiar name. First Great Western offers approximately hourly passenger trains in both directions along this line, using trains that usually permit the carriage of bicycles. Because bikes must be stowed in a limited space compartment often in the head-end or tail-end power car the railway strongly recommends making a free reservation for your bike on any particular train journey. The railway also recommends being positioned at the right place on the platform for quickly loading the bike during the |
| trains brief stop. And, oh yes, having a valid ticket and reservation slip is important, too. The train conductor wants to see your ticket, your bike reservation, and let you know when and how to stage for exiting the train with your bike at your destination. I had made all the reservations and purchased my ticket a few days earlier during hours when Kemble stations ticket office is open. The cost: about £15, or about US$30. | |
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My train arrived and departed Kemble on time: shortly after 9AM. Loading the bike was easy the crew was ready for me and gave me a hand. Fifteen minutes later they were ready to assist again, this time handing down my bike to me at the platform in Swindon. I had 20 minutes for the change in Swindon, easily twice what I needed, despite having to change platforms. Swindon like many First Great Western stations is bicycle friendly. In a couple of minutes I found my proper standpoint on the departure platform. My westbound train to Temple Meads station was on time. It was a fast express train with bicycle loading into the front power car. The engineer helped me load my bike; then I walked back to the closest |
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second-class car and settled in for the 45-minute ride to Bristol. Once again, when the conductor came along, I provided him with my ticket, my bike reservation, and my destination. He told me when we were expected to arrive and advised me to stage by the door a little early so I could rush ahead to get my bike from the locomotive before the train had to depart. We pulled into Bristol Temple Meads on time at about 10:30AM. I was first out of my car and quickly up to the head-end locomotive to retrieve my bike. The engineer had my bike ready for me at the power car doorway. |
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FOURTEEN MILES TO BATH |
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From Temple Meads Station, follow signs for the so-called Valentines pedestrian bridge a short distance north of the station (cross the parking lot and head for the river). This S-curved suspension bridge carries cyclists and pedestrians across the River Avon from Temple Meads into eastern Bristol, a scarred area in the midst of change from warehouses, factories, and rail yards into industrial parks and low-income, multi-ethnic neighborhoods. North of the Avon, cross Avon Street onto Horton Street, which you follow three blocks to a T-intersection with Midland Road. Turn right on Midland, then take the first left onto St. Phillips Road. Follow St. Phillips 300 yards to its intersection with Trinity Street. Across this intersection in a city park the trailhead of the Bristol to Bath Railway Path (BBRP) is found. The |
| next 13 miles of the day are free of motor vehicles: a 3-meter-wide (ten feet wide) asphalt path serving as a green, linear parkway. The first half of the journey is an uphill ramp: steadily up to Fishponds then level to the tunnel at Staple Hill. After Staple Hill Tunnel the ramp heads downhill most of the way to Bath. Neither incline is very steep due to the limited gradients necessary for the railway: you will barely notice the uphill (1.5%), and may not notice the descent into the Avon Valley near Bath at all. | |
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What will strike you immediately is the great number of people using the pathway. Families, couples, school groups, retirees, and exercisers crowd the opening miles of the BBRP inside the limits of greater Bristol. No wonder, with an average of 7 access points per mile west of Staple Hill Tunnel, the gentle incline of this linear park offers relatively easy jogging, cycling, and walking to people of all ages. Another surprise that awaits you is the whimsical sculpture that appears frequently along the route, and especially in the miles in the western half of the BBRP. Artists and schoolchildren have made the BBRP something of a linear gallery of fanciful artwork, some representative, some abstract, all curious. Certain of the pieces relate to the rail line and its |
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history (Fish on
Nose near Fishponds). Other pieces relate to other concerns of people
living along the path. Still others seem to be simply whimsy. Even the
paths Mills mileposts seem like abstract art. |
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Mangotsfield. Mangotsfield was the key junction point connecting the Midland Railways Bristol and Gloucester Railway (B&GR) with the Mangotsfield and Bath (MB) spur. The old Mangotsfield station is no longer there, but the junction remains clear as the junction between two popular bicycle paths. At the junction there are several pieces of pathway art and some lovely spots for a picnic. The BBRP turns south at the junction following the MB, and regional cycle route 10 follows the northbound B&GR. Of interest to railfans are the parallel paths (walking and biking) at Mangotsfield that mark the original Avon & Gloucestershire (A&G) horse-drawn tramway (known locally as The Dramway) that |
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originally brought
railroading to the area (starting in 1829) when coal was mined nearby
and carried downslope to the River Avon and on to Bristol. At Mangotsfield you cross into the county of Gloucestershire, home to Home At Firsts Cotswolds cottages. Tetbury, where I began my journey today, is less than 20 air miles northeast of Mangotsfield. From Mangotsfield south to the western edge of Bath the BBRP no longer is a green belt park threading through greater Bristol, but more clearly an abandoned rural railway converted to cross-country cycle path. In 1.5 miles the path reaches Warmley, roughly the halfway mark of the BBRP, and site of 70 coal pits in the 17th century. Perhaps more importantly after an hour or more in the saddle, there are public WCs at the road crossing here. (Bike rental, too see below.) |
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Its another 2.5 miles from Warmley to Bitton, and the cycleway traces a reverse S-curve through Oldland Common and Oldland. After Oldland Common station the path parallels a railway with tracks in place, a railway that continues past Bitton and past the first bridge over the River Avon. These are the 3 miles of isolated tracks of the tourist passenger Avon Valley Railway (AVR). Watch for trains along this stretch, as normal weekend steam operations here expand to include occasional weekday trains during the warm months (see the AVR TIMETABLE). If you would like to stop for a snack or need a WC, the Bitton Station Buffet (open 10:30AM- |
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| 5PM daily January 1 to December 24) offers hot and cold food, snack food, locally made cakes, and hot and cold drinks and the station has toilet facilities. Also of interest to railfans and transportation historians are the exposed remains (cuts, embankments, and the lines surviving tunnel) of The Dramway Ό mile west of Bitton Station along the marked way to Willsbridge Mill. | |
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The AVR heritage steam line has ambitions to put more miles of the former MB back in service by one day pushing on towards Bath an expensive dream, owing to the reconstruction of several bridges across the River Avon that will be needed. Cyclists have no such problems getting to Bath on the BBRP. Once again alongside the Avon, the cycleway begins climbing again as it follows the river upstream into Bath. At Saltford the path makes a sweeping left-hand curve, turning east for the approach to Bath. With just over two miles left on the BBRP, plus another two miles or so in Bath to get to Bath Spa Station, you may calculate that you have enough time to pause here at Saltford for refreshment at the riverside Jolly Sailor pub (turn left northeast Ό mile along Mead Lane) or the in-town Bird in Hand pub (turn right southwest 100 yards along Mead Lane toward High Street). From Saltford to the end of the BBRP is a journey across farmland with occasional glimpses of the Avon and the Great Western Railway that is tangent to the rivers south bank. Two bridges over the Avon in quick succession signal your approach to the end of the BBRP, |
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which ends at a
water fountain by an entrance on Brassmill Lane. |
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acceptable food
served in plentiful portions. Eat in either of two pub rooms or outside
in a beer garden. |
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GETTING HOME FROM BATH |
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4:15PM, which required a connection in Swindon of 15 minutes. Despite my
train arriving in Swindon five minutes late, I easily found my proper
standpoint for my train back to Kemble on the First Great Westerns
Golden Valley Line. Thankfully, my train pulled into Swindon just a
couple of minutes late, and I was back in Kemble Station within 15 minutes, and
shortly after 5PM. |
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hour at The Tavern Inn and then bike back to Tetbury. But I decided no one in the pub would happily have me as a neighbor after spending several hours on my bike in the hot sun, and, I didnt relish riding the last 40 minutes of the day on a full stomach. For a moment I cursed the great sweeping abandonments of British rail lines of the 1960s and 1970s that, for instance, closed (in 1963) the branch from Kemble to Tetbury. Riding the train all the way to Tetbury would have been a luxuriant end to the active day. But then it occurred to me that todays journey was possible only because of the era of railway abandonment that resulted in a little-used secondary passenger route |
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becoming reborn as a well-used, delightful public pathway through some lovely English countryside just south of the Cotswolds Escarpment. The Bristol-Bath Railway Path the first great project of the UKs wildly successful Sustrans charity is a prototype that has inspired dozens of similar pathways throughout Britain and Northern Ireland. As I cycled back into Tetbury I dreamed of pathway projects that could be initiated back home. And I dreamed of dinner at The Snooty Fox a few yards from my historic cottage home in the Cotswolds. |
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SOUTHERN COTSWOLDS - Thames & Cotswold Cycles 21 Church Street GL8 8JG
- Ride 24/7 - Cycle Hire
6 The Woolmarket
Tel:
Independent cycle shop
and |
NORTHERN COTSWOLDS |
MIDWAY ALONG THE
Webbs
Of Warmley By road: drive south from the Cotswolds on the A46. Three miles south of the M4 motorway junction, turn right (west) onto the A420. Drive five miles west on the A420 into Warmley. The shop is about on the town's main street. |
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Bristol and
Bath are easily reached day trip destinations from |
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