A Kennet & Avon glossary
There are always names, words and expressions peculiar to a geographic area and Wiltshire, Berkshire and the Kennet & Avon Canal have more than their fair share. This is a list in no particular order that I’m compiling and to which I’ll be adding over time.
Wessex: There is no administrative county of England called Wessex, but anyone would be forgiven for thinking there is. After all, there’s a Sussex and an Essex, and you’ll find Wessex in many place names and businesses, such as the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Wessex College, Wessex Press, Wessex Hospital, Wessex Auto and Wessex Water. Of course it all goes back to the House of Wessex, a line of Saxon kings beginning in the sixth century who, by the time of Alfred the Great in the ninth century, controlled much of the South of England and into Mercia, the present-day Midlands.
The popularity of the name Wessex today, however, probably owes more to the novels of Thomas Hardy, who referred to a half fictional, half real landscape, incorporating Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, Hampshire and even to Cornwall.
moonrakers: This is a nickname for people from Wiltshire and you’ll see it in the names of pubs, hotels and even a narrowboat hire company. It also has a close association with Devizes where the legend began. The story is set forth in Edward Slow’s Wiltshire Rhymes and Tales in the Wiltshire Dialect published in 1894, and specifically in the story “The Wiltshire Moonrakers.”
Supposedly local smugglers had hidden barrels of illicit liquor in The Crammer (a pond) in Devizes and were trying to retrieve them using rakes late at night. Unfortunately excise men came upon them and asked the smugglers what they were doing. In the story, which is almost unintelligible thanks to being written in dialect, the smugglers go into country bumpkin mode and say they’re trying to rake up the big wheel of cheese in the pond, pointing to the reflection of the Moon on the water. The excise men, thinking the smugglers are daft buggers, leave them alone. The Crammer is still there in Devizes and there is a plaque explaining the legend.
downs: On a rather pedestrian level, a down is basically just a hill, but the chalk downs of the South of England collectively convey a sense of romance, mysticism and intrigue, from the White Cliffs of Dover to Stonehenge. The pure white limestone, the remnants of primordial seas, is easily eroded away, giving a conflicting sense of the permanent and ephemeral. The Uffington White Horse, first carved into the chalk thousands of years ago, has to be continually refreshed with pounded chalk like a sacrificial offering. The Kennet & Avon Canal goes through the North Wessex Downs, which includes the Berkshire Downs, the North Hampshire Downs, the White Horse Hills, the Lambourn Downs, the Marlborough Downs, the Vale of Pewsey and Savernake Forest. The South Downs, that give use the White Cliffs of Dover, and the North Downs, are separate ranges of hills.
barrows: Looking at an Ordnance Survey map of Wiltshire you’ll see that barrows are literally written on the landscape of the downs. They’re everywhere, especially if you include all the OS markings of tumuli and mounds. A tumulus generally just means a mound of dirt covering a grave (often mistaken for a hill or other natural formation), and a barrow is generally longer, perhaps containing several graves, and may have a long, stone-lined passage. There may be a geographic or astronomical alignment. The most famous barrow along the route of the K&A is West Kennet Long Barrow in the Avebury complex.
henge: Although most would point to Stonehenge as an example of a henge, it’s not quite appropriate. A henge is actually a circular feature on the landscape consisting of an outer bank and inner ditch. That arrangement makes no sense for defensive purposes, so henges were almost certainly communal/ritual spaces and not forts or dwelling places. Henges will have an entrance that spans the bank and ditch and there may be other features like causeways or ceremonial avenues that further distinguish it.
Stonehenge gave its name as a backformation to the word henge, but Stonehenge actually has an outer ditch and inner bank (and smaller external bank), so it’s not truly a henge. And the massive stones of Stonehenge make people think a henge must have standing stones. Certainly the Avebury superhenge has standing stones, but really the henge comes before the stone. And there is a Woodhenge associated with Stonehenge, with timber posts that may have supported a circular roof. The wood has rotted away but concrete markers today give some idea of the layout.
Wilts.: short for the county of Wiltshire
Berkshire (abbreviated Berks.): the county that includes both the city of Reading and Windsor Castle is pronounced BARK-shr with the second syllable sounding like the word “sure.”
John Rennie: John Rennie (the elder) was a Scottish engineer responsible for much of the design and construction of the Kennet & Avon Canal. His most outstanding creations are the Dundas and Avoncliff Aqueducts between Bath and Bradford-on-Avon. Although the aqueducts are built of local stone, Rennie was also innovative in his use of cast iron, including the Southwark Bridge over the Thames in London, although that bridge was replaced in 1921.
Charles Dundas: the man for whom the aforementioned aqueduct is named was the first chairman of the Kennet & Avon Canal Company. He was also a member of parliament and later named the first (and only) Baron Amesbury.
I.K. Brunel: Isambard Kingdom Brunel was the Victorian engineer responsible for a number of bridges, railways, tunnels, buildings and even ships that formed the backbone of the Industrial Revolution. Although he’s sometimes known more for his failures, his successes were spectacular. You’ll see his name more closely associated with Bristol than further east along the route of the Kennet & Avon Canal, but nevertheless his impact threads its way through the south of England and the Midlands. Brunel was the chief engineer of the Great Western Railway and he also designed the original engine shed at Temple Meads Railway Station in Bristol. Brunel also largely finished the construction and was responsible for the design of the massive piers and the abutment that support the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol. Also in Bristol you’ll find Brunel’s SS Great Britain, an innovative steamship design that when it was built was the longest passenger ship in the world.