Country life & water ways

DUNDAS Wharf, the junction of the Kennet & Avon Canal with the Somerset Coal Canal, has always been a hive of activity.

- with Nigel Vile

In its industrial heyday, coal would arrive here in narrow boats from Radstock, Paulton and Timsbury before being transhipped on to larger vessels to be taken into Bath or London. Today, it is pleasure craft that dominate the scene, with water being taken onboard and various forms of waste being offloaded!

Alongside the wharf is Dundas Aqueduct, without doubt the grandest aqueduct in southern Britain. Its three arches span the railway from Bristol to the South Coast, the River Avon and a path leading to Monkton Combe School's Rowing Club. Talking of Monkton Combe; in the days before health and safety legislation, schoolboys would dare each other to cycle across the aqueduct on its precarious parapets. One slip and it would be in the river!