Bradford-on-Avon

The town made cloth from the medieval period and the money built terraces of weavers' cottages up the steep slope above the Avon, each with long upper windows to light the looms, along with clothiers' houses and a fourteenth-century tithe barn 51 metres long with a stone roof of around a hundred tonnes. Its oddest survival is St Laurence's, a small Saxon church of probably the tenth or eleventh century that was absorbed into the town: the nave became a cottage, the chancel a school, and it was only in 1856 that a vicar looking down from a hill recognised the shape of a church in the roofline and the building was identified and cleared. The medieval town bridge carries a small domed lock-up, originally a chapel, later a gaol for drunks.

What you actually see

• St Laurence's - a Saxon church built over and lost until 1856.
• The weavers' terraces - cottages climbing the slope with long loom windows.
• The tithe barn - a fourteenth-century barn fifty-one metres long, free to enter.
• The bridge lock-up - a domed cell on the medieval bridge, once a chapel.

When to go

April to October for walking the steep terraces and the canal towpath; the town is a short train ride from Bath and much quieter. The Kennet and Avon Canal runs above the town with an aqueduct nearby.

Honest expectations

The town is built on a steep hill and the cottage terraces involve serious climbing on narrow paths. St Laurence's is small and plain inside, with nothing but the fabric to see. Parking is limited.

Nearby

Bath lies northwest; the Kennet and Avon Canal and Avoncliff aqueduct are alongside.