First walk of 2025 to Pensford Viaduct, Bristol, UK

It's time to get my hiking boots on for my first walk of 2025 to Pensford Viaduct. I have passed by many times on the bus and always wanted to see it. The 16 arch 300 meter long viaduct was built in 1874 and closed in 1968. Sadly it never made it to its 100th birthday in use. I'll tell you why later on.

My walk started in the little village of Publow, where I came across this odd looking structure. Can you guess what it is? It's built of stone, dates back to the 18th century, is octagonal and has a dome top. There's a front door and a small opening on either side. No idea what it is? Let me tell you... it's a lock up! These were popular in the old days, usually for villages to lock up drunken people till they sober up the next day, or to hold people till they were taken to the courts further away.

The next stop is across the fields to the 14th century Church of All Saints. Publow is only a small village with a thousand odd residents, and like nearly all villages in UK, there's bound to be a local church, often many centuries old. Not being a church goer, I didn't stop by for a visit and continued with my walk across more expanse fields. Luckily I didn't come across any cows grazing in the fields. I always get a little worried when I see cows on my walks as I've heard of incidents of walkers getting injured or even killed. Those don't happen often, but still...

The River Chew runs along this area with various little streams running off it. I must have crossed over 4 or 5 bridges on my walk. This one was very well built, and definitely one of the prettiest bridges I've seen on all my walks. You can see the attention to details and its well designed structure. It's always nice to see how people appreciate nature and make sure they create the best experience for the walkers.

After the second bridge we found a beautiful spot in the shade and stopped for lunch. We sat on the tree trunks watching the River Chew flow by. A small stream runs off on the left, and there's a pool on the right where the local children play. It was so idyllic.

Us Brits love talking about our weather because such a boring subject and can turn in the blink of an eye. You may (or may not) have noticed it was a very nice day when I started my walk. After lunch it suddenly started to rain and the raindrops were quite heavy, which was quite odd I thought. Then I realised, it wasn't raining, they were hailstones! It was crazy. Within half an hour, we had glorious blue skies, raining hailstones, then back to the good old English dull spring weather. Luckily, there's plenty of daffodils en route to add a bit of colour to our walk.

Another sign of spring in England are spring lambs, they're normally born around this time of the year. These breed of lambs here are quite unusual, I haven't seen them before. Mama sheep is dark brown and the baby lamps are black and white. And what's more unusual is this sheep that's on its own. Do you think its head look like a bunny 😊?

After the 3 hour and roughly 6km walk, I finally arrived at Pensford Village. It's actually only 5 minutes walk across the road from where I started at Publow in the morning. Pensford is most famous for its viaduct. This is the obligatory photo when you come here. The 13th century Church of St Thomas a Becket sitting on the River Chew, and the amazing Pensford viaduct behind it. I'm glad I arrived here at the end of the walk, and could spend as much time as I wanted taking this all in.

The church is no longer in use and has been converted into a private dwelling. It has an amazing view, but I'm not sure I want to live by a cemetery.... I saw a kid come back from school when I was here, maybe for kids it will be really cool to tell their friends they live inside a church by a cemetry. The tower at the end of the church is open to public but you can't go up by yourself, only the downstairs little entrance was open.

Remember at the beginning I said the viaduct never made it to its 100th year in use? The last passenger train ran up till 1954, and then it was used to transport goods up till 1964. After that, occasional sight seeing trains would go past the viaduct, I wish I was on one of them, the views must been awesome!! Then in 1968 there was massive flood in the village. This sign is outside the church cemetery and you can see how high the flood line was. After that, the viaduct was closed due to safety issues and has been so since.

Nowadays, visitors can walk safely underneath the 30m viaduct, getting up close and personal to it. It's such a truly magnificent structure. I was in awe, standing at the base trying to see all 16 arches. This is when I wish I was a bird and can fly overhead to get the full view, or maybe it't time to get a drone?

Hope you enjoy your virtual trip today.