SOUTH WEST
■Distance: 10 miles/16km ■Time: 4½ hours ■Grade: Challenging
CHOSEN BY… JULIE ROYLE
There is so much to see on this walk. Great Bedwyn and Wilton are packed with lovely cottages and the former has a charming museum of stonemasonry. Then there’s Chisbury Manor Farm, built within an Iron Age fort. Note the earthworks at both ends of the site and traces of a moat at the northern end. There’s also a 13th-century chapel within the fort (English Heritage). It’s a short detour from this walk – just follow the signs. From Chisbury you wander through the fringes of Savernake Forest until you come to Crofton, by the Kennet and Avon Canal, where a pumping station houses two splendid beam engines. They’re open on summer weekends and occasional steaming days are held so you can see them in action if you time it right. You can see the pumping station from the canal and there used to be access to it from lock 60. But this route is currently closed, meaning access is only possible from the lane. Nearby Wilton Windmill is always accessible, unless you want to go inside it. If you do, you must be there on a summer Sunday or bank holiday afternoon, but you can walk round the outside at any time. It’s set in a peaceful picnic site and there’s an interesting 19th-century granary too.
Follow Brook Lane to the Square and take
