In which Sid and Doris cycle the wily way to Monmouth and Raglan castle in Wales using canal bridges, old railway tunnels and the mighty Severn Bridge.
After a couple of years we are getting the hang of getting out of Salisbury without too much big road traffic. Leaving Wilton there is immediately country riding. Doris is on the e-assisted bike with our very little luggage (it never did rain much) and Sid free as air is on the pretty yellow Diverge.
Going to Wales from home means crossing the River Severn, either on the old M4 bridge at Chepstow or riding 7 ½ hours up to Gloucester. Not that. I will ask Doris to make us a map. Anyway, as Ronnie Corbett had it, I digress. It is a vairy hot day (like every other day in summer of 2026) and we are pleased to find air conditioning in the coffee shop at Warminster.
We cycle through the estate at Longleat. This is best known for its Safari Park. (Sid is planning a visit to the lions of Longleat and the other creatures. They are only 25 miles from Salisbury, England, and this will save a lot of messing about going to Africa again.)
Longleat House has a 1,000 acre garden. As you can see the house is quite big too, costing £8,000 to build. Time and compounding erosion of money value puts that at over £20m today, when an orange costs 15 shillings in old money.
The gardener was Capability Brown and the vistas are splendid as we ride down to cross in front of the house. Built in the late 1500s it is reckoned the best surviving Elizabethan house. Sir Christopher Wren contributed improvements around 1670. We should go, and take visitors.
The climb out is quite hard work but joyfully traffic free. A disused railway takes the route through cuttings and over viaducts (saving climbs). Sid must look at the old rails.
We go through two tunnels to reach Bath. Trail-side panels tell us about the local rocks and the work of William Smith, father of English Geology (as seen on the front of this episode). He produced his Order of Strata in 1799, mapping the whole of England, and incidentally showed that the Somerset and Dorset railway could tunnel under Combe Down.
After the tunnels into Bath we ride along the River Avon to Keynsham (after 56 heatwavy miles) and our first night stop at The Old Manor House. They have beer and we do not venture out.
The next day’s ride to Monmouth will take us cunningly around Bristol to Aust, across the Severn Bridge to Chepstow and then along the Wye Valley Greenway. Only 40 miles. Hurrah.