From Shire Horses to White Horses

Woke up to another clear, crisp day today for our last day of exploring the countryside around Calne. I went out for a run and it was a bit icy in some places. We got our bags packed and packed up our new bag with overnight things for all of us to use at Ann and Tony’s house tonight. Left Chris’s house at 10am and it was 4 degrees with blue sky and some sunshine but a bit windy as well which made it feel much colder than 4 degrees.
From Calne we went first of all to Lacock. We had a look around the Abbey – the inside rooms were closed for winter cleaning and conservation work but we could walk around the Abbey cloisters and look in some of the external rooms that open off the cloisters. Lacock Abbey was founded in 1232 as an Augustinian convent for Catholic nuns. It was sold to Sir William Sharrington in 1540 when all religious houses were sold by King Henry V111. Sharrington converted the upstairs of the Abbey into a family home and his descendants continued to live here until 2011 when it was given to the National Trust. After looking around the Abbey we had morning tea in the courtyard tearoom – inside thankfully enough and then had a walk around the very pretty Lacock village. From Lacock we went to Devizes to the Wadworth brewery as we were hoping

to see the Shire Horses that we got stuck behind last week on our way to Southampton. I had a chat to the lady behind the counter in the brewery shop – ususally you have to do the 2 hour brewery tour to see the horses but when I explained that we were visiting from Oz and had seen the horses pulling the cart last week she said she would take us to see them – it was very quiet so she said she was happy for something else to do. They had 3 horses in the stables – Archie, Sam and Max - and we were able to give them all a pat through the bars – they are huge horses. One of the grooms appeared while we were looking at them and let Max out of his stable so we could have a better look at him. Before leaving the brewery we bought some bottles of Wadworth beer and a t-shirt for Ian. We had our packed lunch sitting in the car near the Devizes canal and then drove on to Avebury.
Avebury henge and stone circles are one of the greatest marvels of prehistoric Britain. Built and altered between 2600-2400BC the henge survives as a huge circular bank and ditch. Within it was a circle of originally about 100 great sarsen stones, the largest circle in Britain. A lot of the stones are now

missing and some have been replaced with little concrete pillars showing where the stones used to be. We had a walk around the site, it was interesting but freezing cold in the wind and not as impressive as Stonehenge.
After Avebury we went on a quest to see some of the white horses in the area before going to Ann and Tony’s house in Wanborough – just near Swindon - where we are spending the night. We saw the white horse near Winterbourne Monkton and another one at Broad Town as well as driving through some beautiful countryside along the way. We then headed over to Lambourn to see the one north of there but by the time we got to Lambourn it was nearly 4:30pm and getting a bit dark so we decided not to worry about going to look at it and made our way along the winding country roads to Wanborough instead. Once in Wanborough we stopped for drink at one of the local pubs to kill some time while waiting for Ann to get home from work. Once we got to Ann and Tony’s house we sat chatting with Ann and catching up on all the news until Tony got home from milking at about 7:30pm. Ann and Tony live in a big, lovely old house provided by the farm owners who Tony milks for so they are very fortunate to have such a great place to live and it is just down the road from the farm so very handy for Tony going to and from for milking and calving. Once Tony got home we walked to a nearby pub for tea and had a delicious meal. Back at Ann and Tony’s we sat up drinking and chatting for a bit longer before heading to bed