Bradford-on-Avon | Inflatable Kayaks & Packrafts

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The Bradford-on-Avon Loop

Returning from a week’s e-biking in Wales took me right past Bradford-on-Avon, a good chance to paddle the River Avon again, this time the full 17km to Bath via five weirs. Last year I did the shorter loop from BoA, returning via the Kennet canal which runs alongside- and even crosses the river via a couple of aqueducts. Back then I thought the river was the far more agreeable stage.

We were midway through this summer’s fifth heatwave, with up to 35°C forecast in Bradford. I wasn’t sure if paddling was a good idea but hoped the shady Avon would be a few degrees cooler with added splash to hand. I also assumed river levels may be much lower than normal, with water diverted to keep the canals full. In fact the Avon’s level was the same as last year, if not a tad higher. Perhaps the exceptionally wet winter have filled the aquifers right up to see it through the summer drought.
Again, I tried to buy a day pass as mentioned here, but the volunteer at the C&RT canalside gazebo in BoA had not heard of such a thing and advised I just go an enjoy my paddle. Looking later online, I couldn’t fathom how to buy a C&RT day paddle pass for the Avon.

As before, I put in below the 14th-century Barton Bridge. All around seemed much less busy, as if people were staying indoors on very hot days, any activity being too enervating. I’ve known that feeling this summer. Soon I was gliding under leafy mature tree canopies which make this section of the Avon so appealing. No one else was on the water. An odd racket turned out to be the riverside train chugging unusually slowly from Bath towards Bradford. I planned to be on that train in a few hours to see where I’d paddled from.

I eased the boat down Avoncliff weir (above left; KM2), the easiest on this stage of the river, then worked my way out through the thick weeds and reeds under the aqueduct. That led to the steeper Limpley Stoke weir at KM5, where I noticed a nasty rebar rod right below the awkward portage.
Looking at the weir from below, it might be possible to accelerate off the river-right side of the wider, 4-foot straight drop (above right), but we know how that can end, even without hidden rebar.
A plain old steel canoe chute as found on the Tarn in France (left), would be so easy to install. But chutes, far less paddleboat-friendly portages are not what you find here, even before you get to the cruise boat reaches nearer Bath where canoe chutes and 6-m wide tourist boats would not be a great combination.

Soon after the Frome confluence the Avon turns north and the wind eased me through reed clumps and under shady banks. A few people were splashing about at the Dundas Aqueduct KM6.5 (below) where last year I climbed up and hopped onto the Kennet canal back to Bradford – a bit of a dogwater slog.

I checked the map on the tablet. Up ahead at KM8.5 was Warleigh weir (below), a popular bathing – now known as ‘wild swimming’ – spot which I heard before I saw. With temps in the mid-30s, this was a good place to pass the day. I should have tried to verify exactly where the best spot was to portage here, but looking online later I was none the wiser.
Most of the talk was portaging between canal and river. But as long as there’s not a straight waterfall drop, it can be done anywhere, so I paddled slowly among the bathers towards the weir’s end river left, and dragged the TXL down the piled up rubble to the water; no helpful steps here.

Working my way out through more reeds, soon I was back on the deserted Avon. This really is one of the loveliest rivers I’ve paddled in England. Yes, 500-year old weirs interrupt the flow but other than that, it looks natural and feels like it’s not changed in centuries. Perhaps the absence of powered boats combined with awkward paddle portages help keep it that way.

Huge grey herons (above) lifted off like pterodactyls to make a short hop down stream, while cormorants dived under my boat. A couple of times the thick, grey-blue reeds became a bit of a maze and I had to haul myself through boat-wide passages. At one point I found myself squeezing just a paddle’s length from a pair of mute swans leading a troupe of fluffy grey cygnets and got a nasty warning hiss. I wonder what I’d do if attacked, though am pleased to read that swans ‘breaking your arm with a wing’ is a myth. It’s just the beak and clawed feet you’d want to dodge.

Out in the sun is was now baking and my water was running low. I took to dousing with river water and even took a glug. The toxic state of British rivers (above) has become a worry in recent years and must have affected rec paddling following the Covid boom, but someone recently explained it takes a storm to mobilise nasty effluent run-off, along with opportunistic sewage discharges by the loathed water companies. So with no rain for well over two months, I figured the water was OK. According to a Rivers Trust map, sewage-wise, this part of the Avon gets off quite lightly until you reach Bath.
I had a chat with a paddler in an old fibreglass kayak enjoying his retirement with a drift back downstream. I asked him about shooting the apex of Bath’s Pulteney weir which was my plan, but he explained getting out and pulling the boat over was the normal way to do it.
Later, a group of ‘boarders glided by upstream, led by a kneeling woman using a kayak paddle.
‘That’s the way to do it; kayak paddle. Much easier.’ [if not standing] I could not help blurting out in a fit of mansplaining.
And to underline that point, another seated woman at the back of the group was struggling left to right with an overlong SUP paddle.
The Avon turns southwest near Bathampton, losing the shady banks and at times putting me into the hot wind. I was flagging, very thirsty and by now counting the bridges. The river water dousing effect wasn’t really lasting.

I’d also forgotten about Bathampton weir (KM13.5; above; below) near a road bridge, but heard the familiar rush of falling water. I struggled with the boat down water-worn steps caked in dried weed, watched by a cruise boat doing a u-ey.

Now on the outskirts of Bath, three more bridges brought me to Robert Adam’s 250-year-old Pulteney bridge (left, below) just before Bath’s superb, award-winning neo-classically set Pulteney Weir (below). Up till this point, with the dense, tree-lined banks, you’d never guess you were in the middle of a city.
The original Pulteney Weir was once the usual diagonal arrangement, like the medieval weirs upstream, but with the installation of much needed city flood barriers in 1971 and no need to power a mill anymore, it was rebuilt as a curved parabola.

Form follows function: the radically increased length of the weir edges (along with a sluice gate) modulates the flow much better. Check out a great series of historic photos here.

In normal-flows like above, a seemingly kayak-friendly notch is evident at the apex but should not be mistaken for an actual canoe chute. As you can see in the vid below, with someone downstream to help line you up, the notch looks easy enough, even in a canoe and a long sea kayak, but in higher flows even tourist boats edging up from below have been known to capsize when sucked in by eddies.

In 2012 the weir even stood in for the Seine as a film location for the Russell Crowe character’s suicide in Les Miserables.

Arriving at the weir I was expecting hyperactive teenagers goofing about, as upriver or in days of old (left). But only silent waterfowl lined the weir’s terraced edges like sentries, waiting to nab a passing fish.
I paddled round to the roller ramp river left for a better look and decided lining up for the unseen apex might be risky, or just embarrassing to fluff given it’s prominent location.
Once below, I let the eddies suck me in towards the apex before getting flushed back out and carrying on downstream.

Just before the rail bridge after nearby St John’s church an easy take-out ramp appeared river left. On Google there’s also a floating jetty another 300m downstream, right before Halfpenny footbridge leading directly into the station. At the ramp a guy was sat against the wall, working his way through a slab of Holsten, explaining he was summoning up the nerve to take a swim. But he was already pretty far gone so I hoped he’d just stay where we was.

I was well overdue for a drink too, but in Bath you’re never more than a stone’s throw from an overpriced juice bar on the way to Bath Spa station for the short ride back to Bradford, closely tracing the Avon I’d just paddled.
That would have been a great end to this trip but that slow train I’d seen earlier was indeed a bad sign; buckling overheated rails had already caused derailments elsewhere in the UK, and train services out of Bath were delayed or cancelled. So I piled onto a crowded bus which barely passed the river, bought another two litres of fruit smoothy in Bradford and settled in for the hot drive home.
Don’t be too put off by the Avon’s awkward weir portages; on a fine day this really is one of the best river paddles in the south and makes you wonder what the rest of the Avon could be like, up- or downstream.

They say Bradford-on-Avon near Bath is one of England’s prettiest historical towns. I blundered through the other evening trying to outwit the satnav, and it didn’t look too shabby. With something to pick up near town, I wondered if the Avon river was paddleable, and found Andy Ballard’s nice canoeing vid above. He describes an 8-mile (13km) loop which follows the river halfway to Bath, before hopping up onto the parallel and lock-free Avon & Kennet canal at the Dundas viaduct to return to BoA. That will do nicely.

‘Pay attention at the back!’
Completed around 1810 towards the end of the ‘Canal Mania’, the Kennet & Avon Canal essentially crossed southern England’s watershed to link the then key port of Bristol at the mouth of the Avon with London on the Thames. At Paddington in London, the Grand Union was completed around the same time, and led up to the north’s mines, foundries and mills, and where the network of canals became much denser (below right). The Regents Canal I paddled a few years a go linked these two waterways to the Thames tidal docklands.

The Thames and Avon rivers had long been navigable inland as far as Bath and Reading and the K&A linked those two towns over 87 miles. Kayaking the Wey Navigation and packrafting London’s Regents Canal taught me that Britain’s canals helped kick off the world’s first industrial revolution. At a time when roads were rubbish, they linked or added to long-established river navigations to extend inexpensive and reliable cross-country transportation of heavy, bulky or fragile commodities.
At this time the decrepit road network along ther Bath Road (A4) was still suffering from 1500-years of neglect following the Roman era. Coaches carried passengers and packhorse trains were superior to wheeled carts, but turnpike fees (tolls to help pay for road upkeep) made them costly. Hostilities with France included attacks on coastal shipping in the English Channel, necessitating secure inland transportation to help provision the war effort. The former Wey-Arun Navigation linking London and Surrey’s gunpowder mills with the navy fleet at Portsmouth was another example.

Once 18th-century nimbyism had been overcome, canals soon became a reliable investment opportunity which made nearly all shareholders richer, while seeing commodity prices drop for all. But Britain’s canal boom was short lived and 30 years after completion, the K&A was trounced by the Great Western Railway, itself trounced a century later by the M4 motorway.
Since WW2 canals and their adjacent towpaths have been widely restored and especially in cities, can be historically interesting byways. But recreationally they’re more suited to dog walkers, cyclists and powered river craft than paddlers. The lack of a current means they can work both ways, but portaging locks can break a journey’s flow, as they can on a rivers like the Thames, where canoe chutes are few. And the popularity of canals and towpaths can make them busy places compared to a natural river winding through the landscape, with the odd aerated riffle to spice things up.

I tried to do the right thing and buy a paddling day pass from the Canal & Rivers Trust in Bradford basin (not sold online, afaict). But what looked on the map like a C&RT office turned out to be a cafe and gift shop. Oh well, at least they got a fiver in their car park.

Signboard in the car park noting the dawn of rubberised fabrics in 1848 (interesting BoA Museum page) and which became Dupont hypalon we know and love, and then PVC. It explains the brand name of Avon Rubber Company and their RIBs (middle) and moto tyres (right). The factory was by the secind weir at Limpley. Avon RIBs were bought by French Zodiac in the 1990s, and after 112 years the Avon tyre factory up river in Melksham closed in 2023.

I have a mooch around the huge, 14th century Tithe Barn, a feudal tax warehouse where peasants surrendered part of what they produced to the nearby abbey. Then in the 1530s, Henry VIII grabbed all religious properties for himself.

An experimental Roman dug-out canoe later repurposed as a sarcophagus. Along with a Saxon church, there are many historic buildings in BoA, most dating for the Industrial Revolution.

Easy put-in just by the barn. Loads of kids on paddle boards, plus a £20 slackraft to even things up a bit.
Soon I pass under the Avoncliff aqueduct which I’ll be crossing in a few hours.

Some are already turning, despite being right by the water.

The first weir at Avoncliff. A Medway-style chute would be nice, but I read the weir face steps are shootable at much higher water levels. Sounds a bit sketchy to me.

The exposed steps make for an easy portage.

Once below, a brisk current flushes me through the reeds.

The second weir at Limpley Stoke. The steps river right are steeper here, but easy enough if you dodge the rebar spike. Not sure I’ve seen stepped weirs in the UK before. Avon Rubber’s original factory was here at Limpley Mill.

There’s a road bridge soon after followed by a 7-inch weir. The skeg scraped a bit around here but despite no rain for months, I never had to get out and walk the packraft, like in the canoe video.

Reeds and trees. I’m amazed how well the Sigma zips along, helped I’m sure by a bit of current and backwind and the Multi Mat floor. At times I even perceive an IK-like glide. No one’s ever said that of a packraft. The TXL+ really is a great do-it-all boat. Are you getting a bit tired of reading that?

After 4.1 miles (6.6km) and 85 minutes (just under 3mph) I reach the Dundas Aqueduct where the Kennet canal crosses high above the river. Just after, on the right are steps to take out.

Once on the right bank it’s a 20-metre set of stairs up to the aqueduct. Wouldn’t fancy hauling a hardshell up there by myself.

Tow path on the aqueduct. By way of a rest I submit to a questionnaire for the National Trust.

Video Andy warned the canal can get raucous with piss-up barges. But not on a balmy, late summer’s Tuesday afternoon.

I got stuck in to the flatwater paddle back to BoA, looking down onto the valley on the right. It gets a bit dull and samey, then becomes a flat-out slog. The hands get sore and the elbows creak. I even overtake a couple of rental barges chugging along in a trail diesel fumes like an Algerian truck. A smell from the 1980s. No Euro 5 here.

Paddling along in the perfectly still water I had the feeling the boat was pulling to the left as if some weed was caught in the skeg or I wasn’t holding my paddle evenly. This wasn’t evident on the more lively river, earlier. I suspected I knew what it was: the skeg was warped, leaning over to one side and with a longitudinal curl at the back that would steer the boat left. I’ve not had this before on rock solid polyethylene skegs which don’t deform no matter how abused or badly packed. The unused one above with no tape or scratches is straight. I gave the bent one 2 minutes in a microwave but it came out the same. It is 3 years old from my original green TXL.

The state of some of these boats, honestly! On the street they’d be towed away.

Take out by the Lock Inn back in town. There a lock right by that bridge leading into the C&RT basin. It was a bit further (4.3mls/6.9km) but surprisingly took just 80 long minutes (3.2mph) with no weir interruptions. Near the end I was flagging and considered hopping out and two-path walking, but that would ruin the story. By now I’m ready for an early dinner.

Unless you’re getting swept down Spain’s Canal de la Toba, as expected, the river stage was a lot more agreeable than the parallel canal, and the two weirs portaged were not awkward. At much higher (or normal?) flows that might be different but anyway, the whole point of packboats is you don’t need to do loops if there is transport at hand.

All the way to Bath? (Read this a year later)
Had I thought it through a bit more, I’d have registered the railway also following the Avon valley, and which carried on 10km down river to Bath’s amazing Pulteney Weir (below). Bath Spa station is just 10 minutes away for the 16-minute train ride back to Bradford on Avon, looking down onto the river you just paddled. It’s a better way to do it.

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Paddling the River Avon to Bath

Packrafting Bradford-on-Avon 13km loop