Episode 6 of our Hidden Wiltshire podcast is now live in which we explore the countryside around Castle Combe whilst giving the village itself a (reasonably) wide berth. It’s hardly hidden as the entire world know about it!

This area of Wiltshire is characterised by babbling brooks and deep combes, or bottoms as we like to call them here. The podcast follows a walk I did in July 2020. I wrote a blog about it for Hidden Wiltshire. What I hadn’t noticed at the time I did the walk was the ever present By Brook river which attracted man to the area from Mesolithic times. It was of great importance to the cotton and paper industries, and the valley of the By Brook around Long Dean south-east of Castle Combe was home to many weavers.

This photograph shows an ancient footbridge that crosses the By Brook in Deverell’s Plantation to the west of Castle Combe.

This area was of importance to Bronze Age, and Iron Age man as well as to the Romans. The Fosse Way Roman road runs nearby and the walk passes the site of a Roman villa and a very significant Roman bath house.

The podcast is available from all the usual sources or on the Hidden Wiltshire website using the link below.