AN UNEXPECTED FIND

We didn’t actually go to church this morning - but listened on Zoom.  Because it was the first time that the service had been live at the Community Centre and also on zoom, it wasn’t easy to hear what was being said and the singing was not at all good, but hopefully, those zooming the service will figure out how best to do it for future services.

After the service, we went out, as usual, looking for dereliction - but we didn’t have much joy finding any.  However, we did find something very interesting.  Mr. HCB had heard of Maud Heath’s Causeway, but I hadn’t, so it was a great and unexpected find in the middle of the Wiltshire countryside at Kellaways, which is 2½ miles from Chippenham.  It never ceases to amaze us that although we have lived in this area all our lives, we can still find interesting things like this, so are able to share it with Blip friends.

Maud Heath's Causeway is a pathway dating from the 15th century in rural Wiltshire.  On both sides of its crossing of the River Avon, just west of Kellaways, the path rises above the floodplain on sixty-four brick arches, built in 1812 and largely reconstructed in the 20th century alongside a road between Bremhill and Langley Burrell.


The causeway is the gift of Maud Heath, who made her living in the 15th century carrying eggs to market at Chippenham. She was a widow and childless, and when she died she left money to improve and maintain the path along which she had tramped to market several times a week for most of her life because when the River Avon flooded she found herself walking through muddy water in both directions.  


Maud saved and saved from her meagre earnings as an egg seller over the years and when she died in 1474 she had saved enough money to provide a raised causeway from her home at Wick Hill, over the flood plains at Kellaways in Langley Burrell to Chippenham, a distance of 4½ miles.  Over five hundred years later, the charity still maintains the path out of her bequest.  Since 1960 the raised section has been Grade II Listed on the National Heritage List for England.  

We walked along part of the causeway to St Giles Church, which is one of the oldest churches on the Causeway.  Apparently, it was originally erected close to the River Avon in the early 14th century, but plagued by the frequent flooding from the Avon and with the rats which used to infest the area, the church was eventually taken down and reportedly moved stone by stone to its new location on slightly higher ground just before the start of the iconic Kellaways arches.  

On the other side of the road to the Kellaways arches is a sundial pillar erected to mark the mid-point of the Causeway.  This includes a sundial which had Latin inscriptions on each face, but which were translated and paraphrased by Rev’d W.L. Bowles and added in 1827.

A very interesting and unexpected find and it made me wonder what we will be remembered for in 500 years time?

“In the end nobody will remember you 
     for what you did for yourself 
          they'll remember you 
               for what you did for others.”
Anurag P Ray