Resources from the web site of Well House Consultants on the subject of Navigable waterways - Canals, Rivers and Sea. We provide open source training course and business hotel accommodation in Melksham, Wiltshire, England

The River Avon through Melksham is currently unnavigable, and the Wilts and Berks Canal was closed 100 years ago and little remains. But this could all change with the plans to reopen the Wilts and Berks all the way from Semington, through Melksham via the river Avon, and on via Lacock, Wootton Bassett and Swindon to Abingdon on the Thames. And just to the south of Melksham we have the Kennet and Avon Canal. Like the Wilts and Berks, it was unnavigable at one stage but it's now been restored and is a wonderful example of how a re-instated navigation can envigourate the area around it.

Articles and tips on this subject		updated
2807	Canal through Melksham - the options and issues The old Wilts and Berks canal ran from the Kennet and Avon Canal (pictured) at Semington through Melksham, between Chippenham and Calne, past Wootton Bassett, through Swindon and on along the Vale of the White Horse passing close to Wantage before connecting to the river Thames at Abingdon. It was ...	2015-11-15 (longest)
4577	An update - Melksham Link Canal and river 14th November 2015 - an update to my Canal through Melksham article written some 5 years ago, prompted by a visit from an interested party, and bumping into (and chatting with) another interested party on the train. Looking back five years, it's amazing how much has stood the test of time, and how much ...	2015-11-15
4472	Rosslare to Fishguard - foot passenger on the ferry Continuing my travel story - Dublin home to Wiltshire via Rosslare The railway no longer runs into the ferry terminal at Rosslare - it finishes a few hundred yards short, and it's a walk through to the station car park between forbidding fences and over a level crossing   A quiet - a desolate ...	2015-04-25
1986	Walk to Bowerhill I walked out - just a very short distance - to Bowerhill drop off the post earlier today. A fine, crisp, frost bedecked trip; here is a selection of the pictures as these articles have got very technical of late! The Old Spa houses, on the very edge of Melksham, still look out over fields This ...	2013-02-23
3998	Travelogue - from the Netherlands to London via Hook and Harwich What a beautifully genteel way to travel ... from completing a course in a small Dutch town at around 5 p.m. yesterday via Gouda, Rotterdam and the Hook of Holland, the Stena Britannica to Harwich, and on by train to London. My schedule has been a tiring one so far this week - I can't really believe ...	2013-02-07 (longer)
3815	The Melksham News - July 2012 - Part 2, TransWilts Rail, Wilts and Berks Canal This is the second post in a series of news update on various projects in the Melksham Area. In my roles as President of the Melksham Chamber of Commerce and Press Secretary for the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership, and in my business role of running a hotel and training centre in the town, I tend ...	2012-08-11
2588	Freddies Wood and the K and A Canal I don't know who "Freddie" is ... but I came across "Freddie's Wood" today on my way back from the canal. It was a beautiful winter's day and after our walk down from Bowerhill (see here) we had turned right towards Bath, rather than left towards "The Barge", looking to explore the field path up to ...	2011-11-08
3483	Canals, watererways in the Melksham area There's so much going on in and around Melksham ... a handful of things like the Campus and the trains I know a little bit about; other things are going on in the background and I just hear the occasional updates ... and one of those is the Wilts and Berks Canal. I was heartened to be updated on Friday ...	2011-10-16
3482	Taking a boat down Caen Hill Locks We had the opportunity today to help take a boat down the Caen Hill flight of locks on the Kennet and Avon canal, between us and Devizes. And to catch up too with our old friends Aouali and Roddy and their family. Some pictures of the boat and the surrounds. Enjoy, click on any image to see it larger. ...	2011-10-15
3345	Cruising Some things change ... and some things stay the same. This is the third time I've cruised - 2000, 2004 and now 2011. I still walk around the ship, tripping over people - who seem to be 10% older, 20% smaller and 30% slower than I am. The age thing - more and more - has become a concept thing, I fear ...	2011-07-04
3282	The future of canal management and charities - Kennet and Avon Canal bias The Canal network in this country - or most of it - came into Government ownership several generations ago. In those days, the canals were used for the carriage of goods, but were something of a failling industry; whilst a necessary part of the nation's infrastructure, they were a financial burden to ...	2011-05-08
3266	Easter on the Canal - near Melksham, Wiltshire Easter Sunday - and Dad, Gypsy and I took a walk from Brabazon Way on Bowerhill down to the Kennet and Avon Canal, along a section, and back through more industrial agriculture via the Great Bear. So many pictures ... Click on any image to see it larger, and to start a slide show from that ...	2011-04-26
3183	Redevelopment on the banks of the Avon in Melksham Conigre Mead is safe - and was intact at 07:30 this morning. So is the river frontage to the North of the reserve, and the churchyard. About 70% of the heavily overgrown brownfield area between the current Sainsbury's store and nature reserve - including derelict drainage ponds that became redundant ...	2011-02-25
3157	A new monopoly on the ferry to Northern Ireland On 31st January, I traveled by overnight ferry from Birkenhead to Belfast - fare, 40 pounds, to include a dinner in the evening and breakfast the next morning. On February 3rd, I returned - fare 40 pounds, but "as from 1st February we no longer include dinner and breakfast in this fare" - and dinner ...	2011-02-10
3023	Autumn walk from Bowerhill The Autumn season ... and the leaves are changing from green to a rich variety of yellows, oranges and browns, and falling from the trees. A walk yesterday (great to get out for just an hour or two) took Gypsy and me across the fields from Brabazon Way on Bowerhill, through Freddie's Wood (Shown as Giles ...	2010-10-31
2950	Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, turns first sod in Melksham Link Canal The Wilts and Berks Canal opened 200 years ago ... but only survived for just over a hundred years, as carriage of good moved away to rail and then back to road, from where the canal had taken it in the first place. But with canals now being a popular leisure time magnet - drawing people to cycle, to ...	2010-10-21
2796	Sunday - waiting for the ferry. "This is the best time to drive" says the cabbie who brought me to the ferry port in Portsmouth, from where I'm posting early this Sunday morning. I'm off to train in Germany this week, and I'm traveling overland, by public transport. Something of an experiment; I'll be writing up as I go. Yesterday ...	2010-06-06
2730	Bird Watching on the Melksham Avon Suddenly, we've move from a bleak, cold and bare winter to Spring - and today was lovely Spring day. A morning of catching up on the TransWilts meeting of yesterday, then a chance to get out in the afternoon. Here, on the bridge over Semington Brook near Waddon is a twitcher that we met; I certainly ...	2010-04-18
793	The Wilts and Berks Canal The Wilts and Berks Canal was authorised by act of parliament in 1794, and officially opened throughout, from Semington on the Kennet and Avon Canal to Abingdon on the river Thames, on 10th September 1810. The engineer was Robert Whitworth, succeeded by his son William in 1799. The canal proprietors ...	2009-01-04
598	Should we cruise around the world? Cruise Liner in Venice. Waiting for a pizza in the Acropolis on Tuesday, I was reading the material they provided ("The Sun"). A self-evaluation quiz - "how strong is your marriage" - caught my eye for a few seconds and I read (paraphrasing): Which of these best describes your view of the future? 1. ...	2008-09-25
1657	Farewell, Newcastle to Stavanger, Haugsund and Bergen I was very sad to hear on the radio this morning that DFDS are withdrawing their ferry from Newcastle to Norway - a short item and I have no detail,s but it brough back memories of a 24 hour crossing one winter a few years ago, on the "Venus" run - in those days - by Color line. Rising fuel costs are ...	2008-05-29
820	Robert and William Whitworth Robert Whitworth first surveyed the line for a canal through the Vale of the White Horse in 1784, as part of a plan by the Thames and Severn Canal Company to bypass the upper Thames, which they saw as an impediment to their trade. Further surveys followed, with a great deal of activity from 1793 to 1795 ...	2006-09-05
776	Naming Rooms What should we number or name the two rooms that we'll have available for training, meetings, conferences as Well House Manor? Normally, I'm not a great fan of names (and indeed bedrooms will be numbered), but somehow "A" and "B" or "1" and "2" don't seem right, and "the training room" and "the meeting ...	2006-06-24
708	Linescapes of Mull On Monday, Dad and I sailed on the paddle steamer Waverley on her annual cruise from Oban to the island of Iona, where St. Columba set up his monastery in the 7th Century - the first such Christian place in Great Britain, said to have been chosen because on a clear day he could see Ireland. Waverley ...	2006-05-07