Exploring Tetbury brings a host of discoveries for Andrew Swift, including a station with its original signalbox, a Finnish railway carriage, a medieval street, a Victorian police station, a former workhouse and a 16th-century bridge.
Tetbury may be known for its antique shops, upmarket hotels and royal associations, but it is also a town of surprises and hidden corners. This month’s walk – along paths and pavements, as well as muddy tracks – is an introduction to a few of them.
Approaching Tetbury from the west along the A433, when you reach the crossroads by the colonnaded market house, carry straight on. Follow the road as it drops downhill and at the bottom turn right into the Old Railway Yard Car Park.
The station closed in 1964, but two buildings survive – the Goods Shed, now an arts centre and café, and the original signalbox – restored and reinstated after a spell as a garden shed. There’s also, curiously enough, a Finnish railway carriage, which arrived in 2018.
Leaving the car park, cross over and walk up the road you just drove down. After 100m, cross back and turn left down steps to begin the ascent of Chipping Steps, a medieval street which was once a main entrance to the town. It leads to The Chipping – the medieval name for a market square – now used as a car park. Head diagonally across it, cross the road to Christ Church and turn right past a row of Georgian houses. Priory House, set in its own grounds at the end, dates from 1767, although its former stables, which you can find if you turn left along Eccles Court, incorporate part of an ancient manor house, some of whose blocked-up windows survive.
Just past the stables, bear right along a walled path. Turn left at the main road and at the crossroads turn left into Long Street. The Victorian police station on the corner is now a police museum. After that, though, the 17th and 18th centuries predominate. There can be few streets with such a magnificent and varied range of ancient buildings as this.
A little way along, on the west side, the Old House (now Josephine Ryan Antiques) dates from around 1600, although its facade was added a century and a half later. The Elizabethan provenance of Porch House, to its left, however, is undisguised, although the two-storey porch which gives it its name was added in 1677.
Long Street’s grander houses were built for clothiers and wool staplers, some of whom also traded here. The long central bay of the Highgrove shop, further along, was originally the loading bay of a warehouse connected with the adjoining building. Beyond it is the Close Hotel, described in 1594 as ‘a fine new house’ and for centuries home to the town’s leading families.
Cross the zebra crossing and turn right at the crossroads along Church Street. The Market House across the road was built in 1655, when Tetbury was at the peak of its prosperity. Talboys House, which you pass a little further on, dates from 1620.
Cross the zebra crossing and carry on, crossing the end of The Green before turning left through an archway and climbing steps to St Marys’ Church. The first view of its interior is as stunning as it is unexpected. Tetbury’s medieval church was demolished in 1777 – except for the tower and spire – and replaced by this glorious Hallenkirche, flooded with light. The tower and spire were eventually demolished in 1891, after becoming unsafe, but rebuilt to the original design.
On leaving the church turn right and head diagonally across the churchyard to emerge on The Green. Turn right and at the end turn right down Fox Hill, passing the old Fox Inn on the left.
At the bottom, a 16th-century bridge crosses the Tetbury branch of the Avon which rises just over a mile away. This stretch of the fledgling river once marked the boundary between Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, and the letters W and G can still be made out on the northern parapet directly above it.
On the far side, turn right down a lane. After 150m, just after crossing the Avon, turn right through a kissing gate. A few metres further on bear right along a muddy track beside a barbed wire fence.
When you eventually emerge onto the Bath Road, the cottage you can see to your right was a tollhouse built when the road was turnpiked in 1743. Originally, the road ran not across the bridge, but down the track to the right of it. When the bridge was constructed in 1775 a new tollhouse was built 100m up the road.
It is only as you head down the old road that you appreciate the scale of the bridge. After curving under it, the old road dwindles to a narrow path climbing steeply uphill. Turn left at the top and, when the road forks, bear left down Cottons Lane. Turn left at the end across a packhorse bridge and then right to follow the Cutwell Brook for 50m before crossing a narrow footbridge and continuing along its right bank.
When you emerge on Charlton Road, you can see another tollhouse 75m to your left. Turn right uphill, passing a green with a Victorian post box and an old pump. St Saviour’s Church, which you pass on the left, was built in 1848 for those who could not afford the pew rents charged by St Mary’s. It was not built on the cheap, however – one of those involved in its design was the famous architect Augustus Pugin.
At the end of New Church Street, a left turn along Hampton Street takes you past a row of wool warehouses built around 1784. They were later converted to a brewery, and, if you look up when you reach the end, you will see a monumental tower added in 1898, when the brewery was rebuilt after a fire.
Head back to the crossroads and cross ahead at the traffic island to walk along the west side of Long Street. Although you visited Long Street earlier, walking on this side gives you a much better view of the buildings opposite.
Cross the zebra crossing by the Close Hotel and, at the end of Long Street, head straight on past the Snooty Fox – originally the White Hart. Ahead lies Tetbury’s main market place. On the far side, its portico supported on slender columns, is the Talbot Inn, first recorded in 1580 and closed around 1988. As you turn left, you pass the former Crown Inn, built in 1693, closed around 2012, but still the starting point for Tetbury’s annual Whitsun Woolsack Races.
A little further on, Kingsley House Nursing Home, on the right, occupies the former workhouse. Beyond that, the road drops down Gumstool Hill, which the Whitsun racers have to negotiate with woolsacks weighing up to 27kg on their backs.
At the bottom of the hill, turn right along a footpath to cross a bridge over the Avon leading to the goods shed and car park.
Andrew Swift has written books such as On Foot in Bath: Fifteen Walks around a World Heritage City (akemanpress.com).