Posted | 1 Comment

Castle wins CAMRA award

The Castle pub – now open again following the unfortunate collision of a car into its cellar wall a few weeks ago – has won the Campaign for Real Ale’s Pub Design Award.

The pub was voted a joint winner alongside another business in London.

CAMRA judges said of The Castle:

“Here owners Flatcappers have retained this handsome Georgian pub’s historic features while gearing the interior to its inevitably upmarket and food-oriented clientele. The Castle shows that you don’t have to shed pub identity in order to maximise the opportunities to eat. Even the iron railings outside the pub have won a civic award, a success which demonstrates the great attention to detail at this hilltop site.”

More info at the CAMRA web site.

And while we’re talking about pubs, here’s a wonderful blog post in praise of the food and atmosphere at The Lock Inn. Excellent photos, too.

Posted | 2 Comments

Footbridge meeting announcement

From the Town Council comes this notice:

KINGSTON BRIDGE

Bradford’s new bridge

Bradford on Avon Town Council is continuing public consultation on the proposal to construct a new bridge for pedestrians and cyclists to cross the River Avon, linking land adjacent to the Library with the new development at Kingston Mills. Accordingly, you are invited to a further Public Meeting to discuss the current proposals as a result of feedback

PLACE: St. Margaret’s Hall

TIME: 7.00pm

DAY: Monday 6th July 2009

The Town Council is keen to hear your views, so please attend the public meeting.

Posted | 0 Comments

What is the Bradford on Avon Area Board?

.

With the arrival of the new unitary authority Wiltshire Council, we’re also getting a new layer of local government called Area Boards.

There will be 18 of them covering all of Wiltshire, each centered on a town and including its surrounding villages.

The Bradford on Avon Area Board will meet for the first time on 8th July at 7pm in St Margaret’s Hall. It covers the town plus the villages of Holt, Limpley Stoke, Monkton Farleigh, South Wraxall, Staverton, Westwood, Wingfield, and Winsley.

At the moment it’s not clear who will be on the BoA Board. The Wiltshire site says:

“Area boards will be made up of unitary councillors and a cabinet member from Wiltshire Council, elected representatives from town and parish councils, Community Area Partnerships representatives, senior representatives from the Police, Fire and Heath services and representatives of young people in the community area. They may also include Housing associations, the armed services and other groups and organisations that are active in the area.”

It also says there will be opportunities for people to participate in the Board’s activities:

“Area boards are not like old fashioned Council meetings and there are going to be lots of opportunities for local people to get involved. Meetings will take place about once every 6 weeks, but in between these, project groups and task groups made up of local people and Wiltshire Council staff and Councillors, will work towards addressing local issues by identifying and implementing potential solutions.”

Posted | 0 Comments

News links

A few news snippets from the past few days:

A bus driver was praised after her quick thinking to ensure the safety of St Laurence School pupils following a road accident.

The Longs Arms in South Wraxall plans to start running a stop-smoking course – which the media thinks is amazing given its proximity to South Wraxall Manor, where legend has it that tobacco was smoked for the first time in England.

There’s another Secret Gardens event this weekend. Tickets from the Tourist Information Office.

Posted | 0 Comments

BoA man paddles into the headlines

A local canalboat-dweller has grabbed his 15 minutes of fame in the pages of the Daily Mail.

Dave Cornthwaite paddles to work on an oversized surfboard. Maybe you’ve seen him paddling locally?

Says the Mail:

“The wobbly journeys to work are in preparation for the Great Big Paddle endurance project. In September, Mr Cornthwaite will undertake a 60-mile return sea voyage on the stand-up board from Lands End to the Isles of Scilly before a 1.5 thousand-mile journey in a kayak travelling the full length of south-east Australia’s Margaret River in October. He will also embark on a 3,000-mile journey from his barge in Bradford-on-Avon to Tangiers, Morrocco.”

More here (with pics).

Posted | 0 Comments

Kingston Mills demolition creates rat problem?

I was in Brown’s hardware shop recently, and noticed they have a whole new display of Vermin and Pest Traps and Poisons.

I asked if sales of these items had gone up since the demolition on the Kingston Mills site – and sure enough it has – “Big time” was the answer.

This could have been predicted by any public health agency, with a building that has been standing empty for so long, by a river.

Are demolition contractors required to put down pest extermination before, during and after the work?

I think we should we have our bins emptied more frequently during this upheaval, and encourage the Council to take special measures as the summer is now beginning. But I don’t know which Authority this falls under. Can anyone help me?

Unforseen consequences… or pretty basic Public Health?

– Kate Nottage

Posted | 0 Comments

Car crashes into Castle pub

A car crashed into the side of The Castle at the top of Masons Lane this morning. Luckily no-one was hurt, but there was significant damage to the building.

More detail at This Is Wiltshire.

Posted | 0 Comments

Recent sightings

It’s been strange-thing-sighting-tastic round here recently.

Someone reported a UFO sighting over BoA:

“The light was orange in colour and was travelling at a unbelivable speed from left to right, suddenly another light came from the right and there were now 2 lights they seem to chase each other and twist in the sky (at this moment I couldn’t believe what I was seeing) I said suddenly to my husband to look at those lights over the back, (the police helicopter had gone by now) His reaction was ‘God did you see that move, that can’t be a plane!’”

And if that’s not enough for you, there’s also strange beasts lurking between here and Holt:

“I thought it was going to eat me. It had just jumped out of a hedge and stood in the path of my car staring at me.”

Posted | 0 Comments

Historical maps

Have you seen the Old maps of Bradford on Avon web site? If not, it’s worth seeing, really.