Dundas Aqueduct

The far point - and the highlight - of my short trip on the Kennet & Avon Canal was Dundas aqueduct. Located near the village of Limpley Stoke, but named after the chairman of the canal company, it is 137m long and spans the River Avon and, nowadays, the Bristol to Westbury railway line. "Captain Ahab", of Wand'ring Bark writes about it on his Aqueducts of the Inland Waterways website and you'll learn much more about it from there - and with better pictures - than anything I can add.


I don't know when the good captain made his visit, but on a summer Sunday it certainly attracts the crowds. These are not particularly evident in the picture, but believe it from me, the whole area was a hotbed of activity with canoes and day boats mixing with

"first-day-out" hirers and other passing boats, some of which had missed the sharp turn in the background and were attempting to head off down the Somersetshire Coal Canal to Brassknocker Basin, before realising their mistake and reversing out. On the towpath, crews of moored boats fought it out with the hordes of cyclists and ramblers- although any prospective anglers appeared to have given up in disgust. The crew of "Sunshine" contented itself with a look at the aqueduct from below and a walk down the Coal Canal, a short stretch of which has been restored for use as permanent moorings, before

Brassknocker Basin - end of the short restored section of the Somersetshire Coal Canal.

winding and returning whence we came, with the only further excitement coming when our lunch stop was disturbed by a day boat speeding past fast enough to pull both our mooring pins out!