Great West Way® Travel Magazine | Issue 01

fabulous time to wander in the rose garden, see fruit
and vegetables growing in the kitchen garden as they
were for 18th century kings. There’s also the world’s
largest grape vine planted in 1768 and still producing
black grapes, which you can buy from onsite shops
from early September.
From the 19th century, wind your way along the
Great West Way further and you’ll wind the clock
back too. In Wiltshire you’ll find many pretty towns
and villages to explore. Stroll through the beautiful
park in Trowbridge, the county town, and saunter
past the independent shops, well-known High
Street outlets and a multitude of cafés, pubs and
restaurants. There are also a number of convenientlyplaced
hotels in Trowbridge which could make a
great base for your Great West Way journey. Calne
is another great historic town from which you can
discover the timeless wonders of Wiltshire - and also
the place where the traditional English technique
of curing ham and bacon – the Wiltshire Cure - was
invented by the Harris family.
There’s also Lacock Abbey, a Tudor family home
that started life as an abbey and nunnery in the
13th century. You’ll almost certainly recognise the
medieval cloisters here – from Wolf Hall or Harry
Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – then step outside
and into a film set. The ridiculously picturesque village
of Lacock is the darling of TV producers. Look up and
you’ll see why the British TV networks love Lacock
– or, rather, you won’t, as it’s the lack of TV aerials
and phone cables that have made this National Trust
village the perfect backdrop for everything from Pride
and Prejudice to Cranford. (Discover Great West Way
places you can step on set in As Seen On Screen, p33.)
Travel further back in time and further west again,
into Roman Britain and the well-preserved baths of
Bath. See the original Roman bathing pool surrounded
by gorgeous 18th and 19th century buildings at The
Roman Baths, and don’t miss taking a dip yourself,
at the modern Thermae Bath Spa. Here the rooftop
pool sends curls of steam up above the skyline of this
elegant Georgian city and where you can rest your
arms on the side of the pool, look up through the heat
haze and stare straight at the Victorian Gothic Bath
Abbey, the work of another great English architect, Sir
George Gilbert Scott.
It may only be 125 miles from London to Bristol but
the Great West Way can take you all the way back
to prehistoric. At Avebury you can touch the ancient
standing stones of Britain’s largest stone circle, part
of a sacred landscape that dates back to around
2850BCE. There are some 42 remaining stones here,
each one weathered and wizened into a different shape.
And then of course, there is Stonehenge. This
masterpiece of ancient engineering is one of the icons
of England, and part of the same UNESCO World
Heritage Site as Avebury. (Discover more heritage in
Marvellous Museums, p59.) This may be one of the
planet’s most important ancient sites but it’s just one
small part of England’s story, and of your journey on
the Great West Way. It’s time to head out there and
to start making your own memories.
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