Crop Circles and a Golden Swan in Wadworthshire

Tuesday 21st August 2018 in Wilcot.
We stayed overnight in the mooring and this morning had coffee in the excellent local café in what was previously the sawmill.

There is a permanent Crop Circle Exhibition here in one of the timber yard buildings.

This aerial photo is a good example of the complexities of some of the designs. Jolly clever, those aliens!

As we set off, we waved goodbye to Nicki, the owner of the wharf and "Moonraker" wide-beam hire boats. As in 2012, she looked after us brilliantly.

We decided to cruise the short distance to the hamlet of Wilcot. The wheat fields and the downs made a lovely backdrop and the canal is very quiet hereabouts.

"Ladies Bridge" is a very ornamental bridge, built to placate a local lady landowner and to persuade her to allow the canal to be built across her land. She was also given the princely sum of £500 to help her decide.

While there are few boats moving on this part of the canal, there are a lot of moored boats and very few proper moorings, so mooring up at Wilcot was a challenge due to very shallow water, stinging nettles and a large wasps' nest right next to the gangplank. At least this time we were close enough that the gangplank was just long enough to reach the shore (while carefully avoiding the wasps, who were clearly not pleased!)..

Wilcot is more of a hamlet than a village, having only its church, a pub and a few thatched houses (with lovely cottage gardens) around a village green. The pub, the "Golden Swan", is Wadworth's and so attractive that we decided to visit.

We loved the sign outside in the garden and we decided that it definitely deserved promotion to county status!

Inside, we had a couple of soft drinks and a huge bowl of excellent chips - so large that even M couldn't finish them!

The range of beers on offer were very familiar from our recent tour of the Wadworth Brewery in Devizes. We had tasted all of these!

As we wandered back to MM, we marvelled at the dense rush hour traffic in the centre of Wilcot.

Today: 3 miles, 0 locks and 1.3 hours
Trip: 211 miles, 117 locks and 142.4 hours