Kennet and Avon Canal Walking Holiday
in Southern England
from Reading to Bristol (east to west)
via Newbury, Hungerford, Pewsey, Devizes and Bath

Enjoy a self-guided Kennet and Avon Canal walking holiday on the 93 miles of the Kennet and Avon Canal Towpath between Bristol and Reading.
The hiking route is a great first walking holiday experience as it is easy walking. The Kennet and Avon Canal Towpath walking trail is clearly way-marked to provide reassurance on your walking holiday in Southern England.

The route passes through the cities of Bristol and Bath which are great places to visit, with good shopping, restaurants and pubs.
This Kennet and Avon Canal walking holiday is great hiking for visitors to the UK as it offers a taste of England’s history mixed with the modern UK of today. This is a gentle walk, full of contrasts, with bustling cities and quiet river and canal banks.

The canal connects the Bristol Channel at Bristol with the River Thames at Reading providing an inland waterway between Bristol and London. On its journey it passes through the magnificent Avon Valley and the Vale of Pewsey.

Highclere Castle, the filming location of
Downton Abbey, is located just 5 miles south of Newbury, and so this
town is ideal to take an extra day to visit Highclere Castle.  It is not
possible to walk from Newbury to Highclere unfortunately as there are
no suitable footpaths, however the castle can be reached easily by taxi.

John Rennie undertook the surveying for the canal, with building commencing in 1794 and completed in 1810. The Dundas Aquaduct and the Avoncliff Aquaduct carry the Kennet and Avon Canal over the River Avon.
However the canal enjoyed only thirty years of exclusivve business, with the main trade being coal, before it suffered the competiton of the Great Western Railway which opened in 1841.
The canal was then deliberately run down and neglected until the post war years when forty years of hard work and renewed interest resulted in the the canal being re-opened in 1990.