Way back at the end of May, we managed to get away on the mini break that I’d impulsively booked for my daughter’s birthday whilst I was still on sick leave and pretty much incapacitated by my CFS relapse. I had returned to work on a very slow phased return after Easter and despite the fact that I was really struggling, I was determined that I was going to get away and have a change of scene, even if I had to spend the three days simply hopping from coffee shop to coffee shop. But in fact it went better than expected, and even though we had to adopt a slower pace than normal, and even though I still had to stop for an afternoon sleep on the first two days in order to keep going, it was wonderful to do something that finally felt as if I was gaining some normality back.

I had managed to keep our destination a complete surprise (difficult at times to not suddenly let slip a reference) …. and then we got to St Pancras, our tickets wouldn’t open the barrier and the friendly South Eastern guy, instead of just checking for validity and letting us through, looked at them and announced loudly “Oh, Bath Spa. I love Bath Spa. Have a wonderful time at Bath Spa”, so that, although we weren’t actually getting off there (that was for the benefit of the return leg), my daughter was left in no doubt that we would be heading to Paddington and then on to that neck of the woods.

We alighted in Chippenham (one stop before Bath Spa!) to pouring rain (after weeks of sunshine – it’s always the way!), before catching the bus straight to our ultimate destination, Malmesbury.

I had done a lot of online research before settling on Malmesbury, a historic market town in North Wiltshire. It’s the oldest recorded borough in the country, and more importantly for our purpose, the burial place of King Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred the Great, and the first King of a unified England: my daughter loves the Anglo Saxons! It also had independent shops and cafes for some gentle pottering if I was tired, the option of a little bit of country walking if I had more energy, and it was close to Castle Combe (claimed to be the prettiest village in England, and only accessible by public transport via a bus from Chippenham) as well as Bath, one of our favourite cities.

Despite all this, as the time got closer, I had become increasingly nervous that it might be a disappointment, and wouldn’t live up to the wonderful experience of my own birthday trip to Devon. It was a huge relief as the bus approached, and we could see the town perched atop its hillside setting, with the remains of the Abbey dominating the skyline, and I felt even better as we passed a quaint bridge over the River Avon and drove up the High Street with its stone cottages, independent shops in historic buildings and ancient market cross. First impressions were indeed very favourable!

In order to escape the continuing rain, our first stop was to the Abbey to visit Athelstan’s tomb. His remains aren’t actually there, as the part of the Abbey where he was buried was destroyed following the dissolution of the monastery during the reign of Henry VIII and, according to the helpful local man who was keen to tell us all about the building, his body is likely to now be somewhere in the cloisters, but it was still interesting to see. The memorial doesn’t date from the time of Athelstan either, but it was created in the 14th century, and was dismantled and re-erected following said destruction. It is believed that Athelstan chose to be buried in Malmesbury rather than Winchester like his forebears, because of his love of St Aldhelm (the first Abbot of the Abbey), and also because it was a town an the border of Wessex and Mercia, thereby emphasising his position as first King of all England.

There was a little cafe inside the abbey with a few tables and chairs and squishy sofas, and we decided to support them by having a quick lunch stop – a little apprehensively at first because it was so quiet and we felt a bit self conscious having a chat and disturbing the silence. We obviously set the trend as the tables around us soon became occupied, and we enjoyed a hot drink and a cheese scone (which many people had recommended on Trip Advisor, tasty but randomly cut into 3 slices which I have never seen before!) whilst admiring the beauty of the building around us.

From there we headed to the Athelstan Museum, which had free entry and contained a charming and well thought out collection of interesting artefacts and information relating to the history of Malmesbury. It reminded us of an excellent museum in Devizes that we visited years ago whilst on a Kennet and Avon narrow boat holiday and which we still reminisce about fondly because it was so good, and on the basis of this we decided that Wiltshire are clearly ahead of the game with their museums.

I was definitely flagging by this point, so as soon as we could, we headed for our Airbnb accomodation so that we could check in and I could have a lie down. We were in a self contained converted out building at the bottom of the hosts garden, just a short walk and down some steps from the High Street. It had its own private garden area which I had been so certain that we would be using as we had basked in a dry and sunny spring, so this sudden onset of rain seemed particularly cruel!

I have mentioned before that I love a town trail, and I was spoilt for choice in Malmesbury – there were so many on the Explore Malmesbury website, and I had diligently printed some out beforehand. We opted for the highlights trail to begin with and there were plenty of highlights to keep us entertained! The town isn’t just famous for being the burial place of King Athelstan. It was also home to the first person in England to be killed by a tiger…

as well as a flying monk, Eilmer, who jumped from a tower wearing a pair of home made wings in about 1005AD. He flew a furlong (200m) before he crashed, and broke both legs, but put this down to the fact that he had neglected to provide himself with a tail!

Malmesbury also has the oldest continuously operating hotel in England, The Old Bell Hotel, with parts of the building dating to the 13th century when it was a guest house for the adjoining Abbey. A stay there was way beyond my budget, but we did pop in for a drink as a respite from the weather which was too windy to keep an umbrella up, meaning that both us and the trail leaflet were pretty sodden! It was a mix of antique and modern quirkiness inside, and ensconced in some comfy armchairs next to a radiator in the lounge area, we relaxed and enjoyed a delicious Spring Spritz mocktail, with elderflower, cucumber syrup, soda water and mint.

Dinner was at the nearby Birdcage Pizzeria, taking its name from the Market Cross over the road, which is nicknamed the birdcage by locals. Each pizza was named after local streets or landmarks and there were so many veggie options that it was difficult to choose. I fianlly opted for the Reeds Farm – portobello mushroom, stilton, spinach and pine kernels. Yum!.

Luckily, the next morning was dry and we obviously had to take advantage of that fact to use our little outside space to sit and have an al fresco breakfast, so I nipped up to the bakers in the High Street for some freshly baked pain au chocolats. It wasn’t exactly sunny, but it was warm, and after the rain, life felt good!

We then caught the bus into Chippenham and with an hour to kill before our onward bus to Castle Combe, had a quick explore. We followed a river walk through the park (and saw a pair of swans with lots of tiny cygnets) and ended up in the historic St Mary Street which apparently features in the opening credits of Antiques Roadshow. As we don’t watch it, the significance passed us by, but it was full of listed buildings and very pleasing. We were going to have a quick look in the church but there was a coffee and cake morning going on, and although we were invited in by several old ladies, we felt it would have been embarrassing to turn down the refreshments, have the briefest of visits and leave. Instead we went to a nearby charity shop and I bought a dress!

Castle Combe was undeniably very pretty – a picture perfect, quintessentially English village of honey coloured stone – but when all is said and done, it literally consists of one street, and there are only so many photos that you can take! Plus, I was very aware that these were people’s houses and it almost felt intrusive to be there – although from what I have read, other visitors don’t feel the same way and residents have complained of them peering into their windows and flying drones over their gardens!

Having already had a walk around Chippenham, I was in need of sustenance, so we began with a coffee and hot chocolate at the Old Stables (the only cafe in the village) as we were aware that it would probably get very busy later in the day. As the name suggests, it is in a converted stable block, and is just off the main street, and obviously we sat at an outside table because the weather was still dry. We then wandered down the road towards the much photographed bridge over the river.

I was glad that we had visited, but I was even more glad that I had printed out the details of a 3 mile circular walk for us to do, which gave us the opportunity to explore some of the surrounding countryside. We quickly lost all of the tourists as we wandered along quiet lanes, through woodland, over old stone bridges, and along the course of a stream, before finally crossing a golf course (which always slightly unnerves me, as I sense the disapproval of the golfers, despite sticking to the path, and I am always a little anxious about being hit by a flying golf ball), and turning back towards the village.

The only problem was that we just had the printed instructions and no map, and although we thought that we had allowed plenty of time to cover a 3 mile walk, we had no idea where we were in relation to where the village was, and certainly by the time we reached the golf course, and with the clock ticking, we started to panic about missing our bus and having to wait another 2 hours for the next one. What on earth would we do to fill the time. It meant that we ended up speed walking the final part which wasn’t a very good idea when I was still only operating on low energy levels.

I suppose if we had missed the bus we would have stopped and had a pub lunch in Castle Combe, but as it was, we just about made it in time and opted for a cheap and cheerful Wetherspoons deli deal back in Chippenham. This Spoons had an outside terrace area that overlooked the river, but it started raining as we got there (yay!) – and we saw a rat scuttling about – so we headed inside, where we found a table upstairs that also had a river view, but in the dry and with no vermin!

That probably should have been enough for one day, but as I am my own worst enemy, I decided that an hour’s rest back at the airbnb was enough to power me through another walk, this time a 2.4 mile riverside circular – especially as the sun had come out again. Malmesbury is more or less completely encircled by the River Avon, and as we followed the river, the walk took us across pastures and through woodland, as well as past more historical sites that we hadn’t seen the day before. It was a real highlight of the trip and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone visiting the town.

Towards the end of the walk, the path went through a wooded nature reserve and the instructions told us to look out for the disused railway tunnel that used to serve the old branch line. In fact we spotted the information panel before we noticed the boarded up tunnel entrance itself, and got quite a surprise when we turned and saw a life sized model engine, half hidden in the undergrowth – although what was even more startling, was the incredibly creepy engine driver looking out of the window of the cab. It made quite an impression!

Once we had finished, it was tempting to go back to the Old Bell Hotel for another cocktail, but my daughter remembered seeing a notice about fantastic views from the beer garden of the Kings Head pub, so we headed there instead, and enjoyed a drink overlooking the meadows that we had just walked through – and as they also had a very tempting tapas menu, we stayed on for for small plates too.

Our final day began with a really tasty avocado breakfast bowl at The Summer Cafe, sitting perched at the bar in the window, watching the world go by. before a final mooch around the town. I didn’t feel ready to leave, but we couldn’t be so near to Bath (10 minutes by train) and not visit – plus we had a reservation to attend!

I was very weary by this point so we didn’t do as much walking around Bath as I had anticipated., and instead, spent some slow time book browsing. Bath has three independent book shops – Toppings, Mr B’s Book Emporium and our favourite, Persephone, who re-print neglected works of fiction and non fiction, mostly by women and mostly from the 1930s, 40s and 50s. We visited them all, although I did have to sit down whenever I spotted a chair (and at one point even sit on the floor), while my daughter did some more intensive browsing. We were also very excited to discover an excellent second hand book shop (Skoobs) in the Guildhall Indoor Market. This was a great – and unexpected – find. We’d spent a few days in Bath in 2022, and thought we’d explored quite thoroughly, but had somehow completely missed this market. They actually had a large selection of Persephone books, including the one that I had been intending to buy (The Homemaker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher), so I snapped it up – along with two others – and was very happy indeed.

As for the reservation, it was to have afternoon tea at the Pump Rooms for a special birthday treat. At £44.50 it was a lot more than I have ever paid for an afternoon tea before – it’s about £25 in the provinces, although I appreciate that a London afternoon tea (which I’ve never done) would be considerably more expensive than that – and I was also worried that it might be a bit too touristy. However, after much indecision I decided that we would probably never actually go under normal circumstances, and that celebrating a birthday would make it a worthwhile experience, and thus a booking was made.

And I have to say that it was such an amazing experience and absolutely worth the money, and we both agreed that we would definitely go back again in the future. The service was superb and we were made to feel very special. At the moment, they are serving a Jane Austen themed afternoon tea, in celebration of 250 years since the author was born, and our waiter explained that the food on the menu had been researched in order to be authentic. By having the vegetarian option, the authenticity was slightly stretched as I’m not sure that either labneh or hummus would have featured on the Austen tea table (although the cucumber, mint and labneh and the hummus and coriander sandwiches were very tasty and a welcome change to the usual cheddar and chutney), but the parmesan and pea croustade with pea shoots, and the egg salad bridge roll, were no doubt more in keeping.

The scones were fresh and delicious, and the sweet selection was completed by lemon shortbread with raspberries and cream, a mini lemon meringue pie and a chocolate opera cake. I was momentarily disappointed when I noticed that our opera cake did not come decorated with the little chocolate with a profile of Jane Austen’s profile on that I had seen on the website – and could see on other people’s cake stands!! I was on the verge of asking why ours was missing (a decision not taking lightly as I never complain!), but on further study, I could see that said chocolate was on a kind of mousse cake which I am assuming was not vegetarian – and maybe there was something in the decoration that wasn’t vegetarian either? – so I kept quiet, and enjoyed what I had!

We were entertained throughout by the Pump Room trio which really elevated the experience. They played a selection of classical music from the Regency period, except for the moment when they struck up a rendition of Happy Birthday, and a waiter appeared bearing a special cup cake for my daughter, and everybody clapped and cheered. I would have hated it as I am a shrinking violet and can’t think of anything worse than being the centre of attention , but she was over the moon. It was such a lovely touch and was quite literally the icing on the cake!

Our whole trip far exceeded our expectations. We had never heard of Malmesbury before, yet had such a lovely time, and it made us wonder how many hundreds of other towns and villages are out there that we have also never heard of, not just in the UK but all over the world, each with their own quiet charm, their interesting history, their scenic walks and their independent shops and cafes, just waiting to be discovered. It’s exciting to think of the hidden gems that we might come across next, and the research has already started!