Walking to Chippenham

Yesterday the weather was glorious – today’s much the same and I must be getting out into it soon. As you’ve no doubt noticed, I rather enjoy a wee walk out by the Black Dog Halt to absorb a bit of the country side and to walk past a few people who still believe it’s polite and safe to greet their fellow man on the road. There is the slight risk of being knocked down by a cyclist but at least cyclists who say hello as they are impressing their tyre pattern on your back. Normally after a mile of wandering there is no great option but to turn around and enjoy the whole experience in reverse, but yesterday I decided I would just keep going and followed the path and then the road to Chippenham. It’s not that far in all honesty, about 5 or 6 miles accordng to the OS map and hardly difficult at the rate I walk, stopping frequently to look at the world passing by.

 

Chippenham’s a pleasant town to my taste, though not chock a block with things to make you go, "Ooh look at that" at. One of the oldest building in the town is the Yelde hall – the wonders of science tell us that is was built sometime after 1458 but even this hardly takes us half way back into Chippenhams history which appears to have been around since 600 or so. King Alfred had a hunting lodge here in the 9th century – he was besieged here in 878 by the Danes but escaped to some near marshes for his cake burning episode – students of history will know that it was alright in the end. Alfred went on to defeat the Danes at the Battle of Ethandun later in the year and rule for nearly until the end of the century. My trip to Chippenham was much less eventful than that, involving a cream tea at the Dutch House cafe and a wander up the high Street and the park.

 

A special mention for Burtons here, a shop which almost never gets my custom – I’m not really big on sartorial elegance. Burtons built their shop in Chippenham 73 years ago and still occupy it. It’s not exactly pretty but very much of it’s age – I think I would call it art deco (if only slightly) and concrete box (quite a lot) – and has the name of the company carved into the building. I think Burtons must have built a lot of shops around the country at the time at Dumfries has a similar one though no longer occupied by Burtons there.

 

I took the bus back to Calne. I had a piece of meat defrosting that really should have been in the fridge by that time but I’m sure a few generations ago people wouldn’t have been that concerned at the idea of walking to a market town a few miles away and back from time to time. I wonder how many of calnes current population have ever walked to Chippenham.