Beam engine failed

Earlier in the month to Chippenham, and we thought to take the scenic route, that is to say picking up the A4, aka the Great West Road, aka the Bath Road, just the other side of Reading. We also thought to take a look at the Kennet & Avon Canal, which runs more or less alongside this road for a good part of its route.

Realising along the way that this meant climbing out of the Thames Valley, over the hill and down into the Seven Valley, with reference 1 being an intermediate product. Lots of locks. The catch was that this involved pumping water up into something called the summit pound, which is where the Crofton Beam Engine came in.

Got off early for us, at 09:30, and there was a modest delay getting past Heathrow and onto the M4. Then, before turning off onto the A4, we took a short break at Reading Services, where I managed to get us into the HGV park rather than the car park, getting out of which involved some slightly dodgy manoeuvres, but I got away with it.

Into the service station proper, which was bright and clean enough, but the offering was not very attractive. Plenty of fast food and coffee to be had, but tea seemed more troublesome. There were also plenty of gambling machines, albeit corralled in a special den. But it did give me a break, after which we pushed onto the A4. 

Plenty of old towns and villages, most of which seemed to come with post-war council housing estates.

We then took the road to the Bedwyns, in the hope of getting to both canal and engine. From where, for what turned out to be the only time, we found our way to the canal, complete with places to park. It looked like a bit of a destination, complete with various camper vans and a fisherman - although it did not run to narrow boats.

It looked as if you had to carry the necessary with which to work the lock gates yourself; presumably this comes with the narrow boat hire. And one could see the pull: it all looked splendidly peaceful. But how long before it palled? Would we really take to just drifting along, day after day? Without plumbing. That said, there used to be a canal boat magazine editor who used TB, and it was clear from him that there were plenty of people who were into drifting along. One also got the idea that there was a cod version of the canal boat world of which Simenon writes in a number of his Maigret stories. People who lived on boats, other people who lived on the land, and the lock keepers, who were perched between the two: neither fish nor fowl.

No narrow boats, but the fisherman obliged by catching a perch, maybe nine inches long, which he showed us. A prettily coloured fish, sporting quite a lot of spines of which one needed to be careful.

From there we pushed onto Great Bedwyn, where we found that the church was open to visitors. A very old church, substantially but decently restored in the mid 19th century, to be found at reference 3.

The interior. We know that the (hammer beam) roof is relatively new, but the stonework is in pretty good condition and I don't know how old that is. Maybe the piers are old but the trim has has been touched up. In any event, the restorer may have thought that there was no particular virtue in being old; the point was to restore the interior to some mythic, imagined design condition.

Some very old stone work, being the remains of the memorial effigy of the one-time crusader Sir Adam de Stokke, who died in 1313. According to Bing:

'... Sir Adam de Stokke was born in 1234 in Wiltshire, England, to Robert de Stokes and Isabel de Praers. He married Eve Hungerford around 1254, and together they had at least seven sons and two daughters. The Stokke family was of Norman origin, tracing back to post-Conquest England, and had established prominence in Wiltshire by the 13th century...'.

A participant in the eighth crusade, towards the end of the crusading adventure in Palestine, who lived to raise a substantial family and die at what was, for the time, a ripe old age of 79. Perhaps, as he grew older, he took to boring his younger neighbours with oft-repeated tales of the derring-do of his younger days. Perhaps they soaked it all up, in those days of no television and little reading.

A slightly less ancient memorial. But still from a time when country gentlemen liked to dress up as soldiers for their memorials. And, one supposes, some of them really had been soldiers.

Some ancient heating pipes. From the days when iron was cheaper, at least in relative terms, than it is now.

In the margins we learned that a one-time vicar of the parish was one Thomas Jenner, brother to the famous Edward Jenner, whom BH includes among her ancestors.

Out to push on to find some more canal, a quest which failed. We did manage to get to the beam engine, but it was firmly shut and there was nowhere handy to park either. I learn now, from reference 2, that the place is only open on an occasional basis.

And so to Savernake Forest, where there was somewhere to park for our picnic, taken inside the car on this occasion. Very slummy. Around the car park it was mainly fairly new growth, with a sprinkling of old trees. Maybe the place did time as an army camp during one of the two world wars.

It might have been new growth, but it would clearly be a very pleasant place to take a walk, and there were some substantial planted avenues which we did not see. There may even have been the odd Wellingtonia - but all that will have to wait for another occasion, without diversions to canals.

An ivy covered tree stump. No doubt a haven for all kinds of low life.

Pushing on, entry to Marlborough was blocked by something called the mop fair, once a market and hiring fair, now a funfair. This pushed us back up to the M4, where the day had started. Which made us a little late for our rendez-vous at Chippenham.

Somewhat later to the Angel, in the middle of Chippenham, an old provincial hotel, serving the market and the coach road to Bath, now part of the BestWestern family - although, according to gmaps, it is actually managed by Legacy Hotels and Resorts, of reference 7. Nothing is ever simple these days.

Along the way taking in a Rolls Royce which looked like an overgrown Range Rover, No. 1 KSR. Car check tells me that it was a 'Cullinan Black Badge Auto' from 2023, capable of more than 150mph. Did it belong to the famous science fiction writer, Kim Stanley Robinson of reference 11? The things people spend money on; for which see also reference 12.

Somewhat later still, we went out to take refreshment, which eventually took the form of some very cheap cheese flavoured rolls from Tescos, taken on a bench on the banks of the Avon. Entirely satisfactory. From there to a hostelry next to the hotel, which appeared to be a gathering crowd for superannuated motor cycle people, where I took a pint of something called 'Neonate'. A perfectly decent pint despite the curious name.

PS 1: reference 8 popped up during this posting. Presumably no-one actually wades through all this stuff. Written by one lot of AI engines to be read by another lot of AI engines: which might be funny, if there were not so much capital getting locked up in this sort of thing. There is only so much to go round.

[curiously, it looks much better in this snap from Street View than it does in real life. Maybe you need to be at the right distance, in the right light, to appreciate its lines]

PS 2: Gemini tells a splendid story on the clue:

'There is an old hotel in Chippenham called the Angel. Out the back there is a relatively new bedroom block, the middle portion of which is taken up with a full height atrium - which must let in a lot of cold in the winter. It also takes up a great deal of space. Do you have any idea why they did this? Heritage people fussing'.

Backed up with the supplementary:

'The relatively small number of bedrooms face front or back, not into the atrium. Some of this last is occupied by an open staircase with oddly rickety handrails. There is no lift. What can you tell me about the Portman atrium boom'

It seems that the atrium boom was kicked off by a high-budget and very successful venture in the centre of Atlanta, then copied all over the world, then trickled down into office blocks and eventually down to low-budget imitations in provincial hotels, towards the end of the last century.

'That layout—where the rooms face front-to-back, leaving the atrium solely as an empty, oversized circulation lightwell with an open staircase—makes it an accidental comedy of British provincial hospitality design. It is essentially an awkward translation of the grand "Portman Atrium Boom", scaled down and shorn of its original budget, mechanical systems, and purpose...'.

The start of Gemini's response to the supplementary. Corroboration to be found at references 9 and 10. In any event, his story would make an excellent foundation for an essay for an architecture class, provided only that the teacher asked the right question. And provided that not all your classmates used the same chatbot.

One of the many images turned up by Bing.

Gemini's fine closing shot. His parting line: 'Working title: The Sky Inside: How the World's Grandest Architectural Craze Froze Provincial England'. Pity that I don't know an architect who could add a reality check to all this.

PS 3: for the avoidance of doubt, I should add that we have stayed at the Angel several times and will likely stay there again. Curious atrium aside, it is convenient and serves our purpose well.

PS 4: Tuesday morning: a slightly depressing piece from the pink part of yesterday's Guardian. Money talks, as ever. And the lady herself has splendid credentials. Only slightly depressing because the UN has to be a broad church, accommodating all kinds of unsavoury characters and countries. But slightly more depressing if all the small or poor countries were to swing in behind her.

PS 5: Tuesday afternoon: thought about going to see the 'Cherry Orchard' at the Harold Pinter theatre. Decent seats £150 each and more, with the matinée tomorrow more or less sold out, and other dates looking pretty heavily sold. A play we have seen several times over the years and a play I would have liked to see again, 'a new adaptation' notwithstanding. But £500 for an outing is a bit rich for us. Pass, to snooze at home.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/10/aide-memoire.html.

Reference 2: https://www.croftonbeamengines.org/.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary%27s_Church%2C_Great_Bedwyn.

Reference 4: https://www.forestryengland.uk/savernake-forest.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savernake_Forest.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiring_and_mop_fairs. Marlborough gets a mention.

Reference 7: https://legacy-hotels.co.uk/.

Reference 8: ‘Bold but sane’: what we learnt from Anthropic’s 240,000-word IPO filing: Prospectus details AI lab’s ‘mission’, $800bn data centre commitments and extraordinary governance structure - George Hammond, Ryan McMorrow, George Steer, Financial Times - 2026.

Reference 9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_Atlanta.

Reference 10: https://www.hyatt.com/hyatt-regency/en-US/atlra-hyatt-regency-atlanta. Some very flashy images to be seen here.

Reference 11: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson.

Reference 12: https://www.romansinternational.com/used/cars/rolls-royce/cullinan/black-badge-4074.

Reference 13: The notion that this woman can lead the UN is scandal itself - Nesrine Malik, The Guardian - 2026.

Reference 14: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2011/06/cherries.html. It seems that it is actually fifteen years ago that we last cherried. I think I saw the 'Three Sisters' done in Russian since then. Very pseud of me - but I did have an excuse in the form of a Russian speaking correspondent.

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