the Bristol Avon, a pictorial map

A while ago, Hamish Evans of the We Are Avon campaigning group asked if I'd be up for drawing a map of the Avon. I'm always up for drawing a map, of course; but it took ages for me to get down to it. In the meantime, Hamish has walked the entire length of the river, and you can read about this walk here on the Bath Newseum page.

This Avon (there are several, of course) is a lovely river, and I've boated, canoed and swum in it. But I wouldn't swim in it these days, because I'd probably get ill. Which is a darn shame, and part of what Hamish's campaign is all about.


I had fun hunting through Michael Drayton's huge geographical poem Poly-Olbion for apposite quotes... you may need the aid of a decent OS map to get some of the references. But there are worse ways of spending time.

Then Bradon gently brings forth Avon from her source:
Which Southward making soone in her most quiet course,
Receives the gentle Calne: when on her rising side,
First Blackmoore crownes her banke, as Peusham with her pride
Sets out her murmuring sholes, till (turning to the West)
Her, Somerset receives, with all the bounties blest
That Nature can produce in that Bathonian Spring,
Which from the Sulphury Mines her med’cinall force doth bring...

...Then came the lustie Froome, the first of floods that met
Faire Avon entring in to fruitfull Somerset,
With her attending Brooks; and her to Bathe doth bring,
Much honoured by that place, Minerva’s sacred Spring.
To noble Avon, next, cleere Chute as kindly came,
To Bristow her to beare, the fairest seat of Fame:
To entertaine this flood, as great a mind that hath
And striving in that kind farre to excell the Bath.

By the way, you can get a copy of this map in my Etsy shop; Here's the large version, and here's the small one