It is less than a fortnight until Christmas Day so one might expect our mid-Wiltshire town to be very busy. Certainly, on arrival, I took the first parking spot I could which was near Devizes Museum.
It is a short and pleasant walk from there, along Long Street and into the town centre area. The pavements lead past the church of St John.
The Devizes war memorial stands in front of this church.
Long Street may not be the most commercial part of town and it does tend to be busy with traffic. I think it has an attractive collection of buildings, varied in style, along its length.
Walter Rose and son have been butchers in Devizes since time immemorial for me). It looks to me as though the old delivery bike might have flat tyres.
It was the run up to Christmas and Devizes Town Band were playing carols in the Market Place – and very good they sounded.
They were joined for some of the morning by choristers from local churches.
Devizes Castle – it may look good but woe betide those who wish to enter without permission.
Long Street turns into St John’s Street near the Market Place. This building has decorated tops to its pillars.
Some brick and tile work to enjoy along St John’s Street.
Gutter downspouts on Devizes Town Hall carry a town crest which represents a gate into the town. The pigeon atop this is an optional extra, it being up to the pigeon to stay or go.
An old hall building faces St John’s Church with a view to it across the churchyard.
This is Morris Lane – a footpath these days but behind the gardens on the right is a terrace of cottages.
We now move out of the town centre and find Shane’s Castle. On this side of it is the road to Bath, soon to head down Caen Hill. Just behind Shane’s Castle is Dunkirk Hill on the Chippenham Road. It is not really a castle at all but rather an old toll house in an ideal spot for collecting road use fees from 18th century travellers. After a long spell of being in disrepair the old building appears to be loved again. A pleasant doorway opens straight out onto the Bath Road and a well behaved cat sits and watches the passing traffic.
Or rather, that is the scene which has been painted onto a now unused doorway arch.
That’s mentioned the Bath Road and the eighteenth century. Early 19th century travellers might have used the parallel canal.
Parallel? They are at right angles here as the Bath Road is carried over the canal on Prison Bridge. Yes, Devizes had a prison in this area at one time. It has long gone. The canal towpath passes through a separate bridge hole under the road.
As usual, the canal provides a peaceful scene for ducks and, on the left there is a canal-side pub to keep the humans happy too. But on a Saturday morning that was not in use, so the ducks had things to themselves.
There’s a lock on the way down Caen Hill and Prison Bridge, too. This side of the bridge an extra structure has been added for pedestrians which makes space for lock workers a little cramped.
A lock side building. I don’t suppose it mattered, back in 1810, when the canal opened, that it was across the road.
The lock is named after a charity who provide funds for preserving what might have been deemed unsung structures at one time. I have searched in vain to discover why the name Manifold was used.
Whilst in the prison area, I took a walk down a lane that leads down to the sewage works. From this lane you get a view of the rural valley which reaches almost to the heart of the town.
Devizes Castle is on the tree-topped hill in the centre.
Over zooming reveals a little of that Victorian mock-Tudor structure. The view below reveals the odd peep of a Bath Road structure.
The canal had a short lived era of commercial prosperity for the railway to Devizes opened in the 1850s which doomed the canal although it stayed in operation for about 80 years more. Now the railway is obliterated in many parts of the town, including at Devizes Station. But down Caen Hill an embankment, taking the line up from the Avon Vale and into Devizes is still extant. There is even a bridge under the line.
This bridge was once for the byway to Potterne but road improvements have rendered it redundant.