Great Western Coffee Shop

Out on GWR trains today, as detailed in the catering thread elsewhere on the forum.

Finn wasn't allowed to come on the Pullman service, staying back at bobm's place. After collecting him we went for a stroll.

Where?

(http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt68/bignosemac/rps20191120_200410_zpsqocbhvi2.jpg)

Hmm... anywhere near a River Avon?

Stones throw... (with a good arm, and over the train!)

A little elementary detective work tell me you boarded a train today dogless for a substantial train ride with an accomplice from Swindon. I deduct from the picture supplied that you were sometime later reunited with a canine which suggests returning to Swindon.
RS's inspired river Avon discovery, to me, points to the Avon that flows to Bristol, that being the closest. So, to narrow the geography, Wiltshire?

Suggests Avon, Cliff?

Just. Although a nearby (former) canal took its name from another county...


Warm...

I was going to ask the canal question, extant or resurgent. No need now. Wilts and Berks I presume.

Hilperton/Holt way?

Sorry, no. Wrong canal.

I perhaps should add that there was a drive from my dining accomplice's place of residence before this walk. I do like to break up my motoring with comfort breaks...

I'm thinking the canal might be the Somerset Coal Canal, suggesting that you were somewhere near Dundas (or as my autocorrect nearly had it, Dundalk)...

Somersetshire (sic) Coal Canal, so somewhere near Dundas Aqueduct?

White rabbits.

Limpley Stoke?

Much scratching of head going on. The canal bit had thrown me but then I remembered that I'm a member of the Somersetshire Coal Canal Society and the Limpley Stoke Valley springs to mind.

Edit: Looks like I was just beaten to it.

We're there. I'll give it as a three way tie between Jonty Mort, johnneyw and Red Squirrel. With grahame mentioned in dispatches. Finn in the opening photo was by the former Limpley Stoke station, which is near Dundalk Dundas Aquaduct.

I've passed this former station (now in private hands) on trains through the Avon Valley many times, but never seen what it looks like from the village side. Being above the road through the village there's not much to see.

(http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt68/bignosemac/rps20191120_225115_zps2k2wckey.jpg)
(Back side of running in board and former station building)

After taking that photo, Finn and I retired to the delightfully named Brassknocker Basin, which is the only remaining navigable stretch of the Somersetshire Coal Canal, just outside Limpley Stoke. This stretch of water is now an extended mooring off the main line of the Kennet & Avon Canal. On this canal cul-de-sac is a very nice cafe - The Angelfish - where I had my coffee break on the drive home from Swindon to Templecombe.

(http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt68/bignosemac/rps20191120_225811_zpsgya0raqm.jpg)
(In the distance, beyond the shallow arch canopy over the water, is where the Somersetshire Coal Canal continued under the A36 into Somerset proper. Now blocked off.)

You may (all) know this already, but I would recommend a walk along the old Combe Hay flight of locks on the Somersetshire Coal Canal. As a wizened old waterway hack there are not many places that have surprised me... but that was one. There's a remarkable amount surviving for a canal that hasn't been navigable since c. 1900.

Know it well but didn't recognise it. In fact it's about time I visited my aunt, who lives not far from there...

Nice old Landy in the photo though!

I've seen numerous pictures of the Combe Hay flight. And I've read a fair bit about the history of the Somersetshire Coal Canal and the Somerset coal field for which it was built to serve. I've always had an interest in 'lost' transport routes, be they water or rail, and industrial heritage and archaeology.

I'll put Combe Hay on the bucket list. Probably one for a dry late spring/early summer day next year. Finn can chase the rabbits while I photograph the lock remains. ;)

I was there during a day out along the Limestone Link walk and I agree, its quite remarkable.  The Somersetshire Coal Canal Society Facebook page had some drone footage taken of it by one of the members a while back but even that doesn't full convey the scale of the flight.

Well spotted. Better than the Landy though was what was parked outside Station Garage up in the village by the (closed) pub. A Triumph Stag. Another bucket list item for me - to own a Stag.

I had a brief chat with the mechanic working on the Stag. Belonged to a friend of his. He was fixing some minor issues and getting it prepared for sale. Sadly the asking price was about £18,000 beyond what I could realistically scrape together.

My offer of £500 was politely declined. I was allowed to have a look around it though. Light was fading so I didn't take any pictures. Plus, it was brown. Not the colour I want when I do finally get my own.

Always thought they were lovely to look at but weren't they a bit notoriously prone to overheating?  Talking Pictures TV are re running the late 1970s detective series Hazel (co written by Terry Venables) and his motor was a Stag. Good theme tune too, written by Andy Mackay of Roxy Music fame.

The overheating issue with Stags is well known. This though is, in the main, an historical issue. As the Stag has become rarer and more desirable, those that remain roadworthy are well maintained and have had modifications to address that overheating.

In the past, 'modifications' meant shoehorning in a different engine. But these days the original Triumph V8 can give you trouble free motoring with a larger radiator, synthetic oil, better hoses and belts, and quality coolant.

When (not if..) I buy mine I'll be wanting the original V8 with the necessary modifications to allow frequent driving pleasure.

Can there be any better motoring than cruising along an A road, roof off, wearing string back gloves and RayBan Aviators, listening to that 3 litre V8 soundtrack in a Triumph Stag? That's one of my bucket list dreams.

Open to the navel big collared shirt, hairy chest, medallion, and smelling of Hai Karate, are of course optional.

The Hop Pole? I can't recall a garage there or see it as a likely spot for one. And it's not that near the station, so I conclude you're talking about another ex-pub which I can't remember/may never have known.

Each to their own!

Station Garage is opposite The Hop Pole.

Opposite? Well that explains it; I've always been looking in the other direction.  :D

I think it was somewhere at or near Combe Hay that Robert Weldon tried his caisson lock - the canal equivalent of Brunel's atmospheric idea, and definitely one where you would say to the inventor "you test it, we'll watch". As far as I know, the site of the experiment has never definitively been identified.

You can still get Hai Karate and wouldn't a Coffee Shop medallion look just grand?  ;D

Some information on its possible location from these links

http://rtjstevens.co.uk/caisloc2a.html

https://www.coalcanal.org/features/Caisson/Caisson.php

I can remember, a few years back, that SCC Society members had a few trial digs to find the site of the elusive Caisson lock around the Combe Hay flight.