In 1794, in the prosperous town of Bradford on Avon, a navvy spat on his palms, picked up a spade and lifted the first sod in the construction of the Kennet and Avon Canal. It opened in 1810 and connects the river Avon at Bath with the Thames at Reading. Thus goods could be transported by water from Bristol to London.
Canals were supplanted by railways and by the beginning of the 20th century the Kennet and Avon had fallen victim to the success of Brunel’s Great Western Railway. In the last quarter of the 20th century many canals were restored and re-opened for leisure use. The K&A fully re-opened in 1990. Today Ian Alexander-Sinclair and I will start to walk from Devizes to Bath along the canal and I will tell you what we see.
Meanwhile, the Bristol Avon is not to be confused with Shakespeare’s Avon that runs through Stratford. There are at least six rivers of this name in England, Scotland and Wales. Yesterday I visited Shakespeare’s Thames to see a project put on by the Globe Theatre. Here is how it is described on their website.
“Over the spring weekend of 23 – 24 April 2016, the banks of the Thames will come alive with an extraordinary celebration as Shakespeare’s Globe invites the world to join The Complete Walk.
37 specially-made 10 minute films will be screened along the iconic 2.5 mile stretch between Westminster Bridge and Tower Bridge.
Each film explores one of Shakespeare’s plays and includes scenes shot in the locations Shakespeare imagined when he wrote them. Picture Cleopatra in front of the Pyramids, Shylock in Venice’s former Jewish Ghetto, Hamlet on the rocks of Elsinore and much more.
These scenes will be combined with extracts from the BFI’s Silent Shakespeare series and our Globe On Screen filmed stage productions. Featuring a host of the world’s greatest actors, The Complete Walk is an accessible, interactive way to celebrate Shakespeare’s life, work and legacy, exactly 400 years on from his death.”
I didn’t see every film and tended to skip the silent ones in favour of those shot on location. Outside the National Theatre a bronze Sir Laurence Olivier held sway as Hamlet, while the film extract was being shown opposite St Paul’s Cathedral.
Today’s title is taken from The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
“O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day;
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away.”