Bradford-on-Avon

Our final travel adventure of 2020 was to the town of Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire.

My parents wanted to take me and Claudio on one last outing before he went back to Chile at the start of January, so I made a list of nearby places we could visit. However, the day after I'd made the list, the government announced a change in the tier system of Covid restrictions. The places on my list were in Gloucestershire, which was moved into Tier 3, and Oxfordshire, which was moved into Tier 4, meaning it was no longer possible for us to visit them.

But as Wiltshire (where we live) was one of the few remaining places in Tier 2, we could still go on a trip out, provided that we stayed within the county. My first choice was the Stourhead National Trust property, a stately home that has a big garden with a lake and several Roman and Greek style temples. But my parents took a long time to make up their mind about when we should go, and by the time they decided, all the visitor slots had already been taken. (We'll have to go there next time Claudio's here!)

So in the end, we went with my second choice, Bradford-on-Avon. It's a town that's located in the far south of the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, close to the famous city of Bath, and it's best known for its old bridge that crosses the River Avon.

Something else Bradford-on-Avon is famous for is The Bridge Tea Rooms, which has been voted the best tea room in the entire country! It's located in a very charming old building, and the waitresses even wear Victorian outfits.

And fortunately, we got the chance to visit it and had an amazing time there. It has various vegan and allergy-friendly food and drink choices, so there's something for everyone - I had a vegan carrot cake and a rose-flavoured tea, which were delicious. The decor of the tea room is also so pretty and old-fashioned, and really transports you into the past. 

Afterwards, it was time to explore the town. The most obvious place to start was the bridge, which dates back to the 13th century. It's a very attractive architectural feature and also a great place to look across the rest of the town.

One of the buildings that can be seen from the bridge is St. Thomas More Roman Catholic church. It was actually originally the town hall and was designed by the architect Thomas Fuller, who went on to design many buildings in Canada, including part of the parliament in Ottawa.

I particularly liked this part of the building, whose style reminded me a little bit of churches I've seen in southern Europe and South America.

Bradford-on-Avon is a town with several churches, and one of the most famous is St. Laurence's Church. It's quite an important building, as it was built in the Saxon period but remains complete, which is very rare.

Just across the street, you can find the Holy Trinity church, which is of Norman origin.

Overall, we really enjoyed walking through Bradford-on-Avon and looking at the river and all of the pretty old buildings.

All of us had a great time there, and we especially loved The Bridge Tea Rooms. I'm sure we'll go back at some point in the future!

This trip out was the last one of Claudio's time in Europe, the last one of 2020, and also the last one I'll have for a while, as we're now back in a strict lockdown again in England. So I'm glad that it was such a nice day for us.

We had some more local travel adventures throughout the time when Claudio was here, which don't quite warrant a entire post each, and I'll be writing about them all next in one big post!