Maud Heath's Causeway
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Maud Heath's Causeway is a pathway in rural Wiltshire, England, which rises above the Avon floodplain on sixty-four brick arches, as it carries an undistinguished country road between Bremhill and Langley Burrell.
The causeway is the gift of the eponymous Maud Heath; a sundial on the spot reports that she made her fortune carrying eggs to market at Chippenham. She was a widow and childless, and when she died "in the year of grace 1474, for the good of travellers did bestow in land and houses the sum of eight pounds a year foreer to be laid out on a causeway leading from Wick Hill to Chippenham Clift", which was the path along which she had tramped to market several times a week for most of her life. Five hundred and some years later, the charity still maintains the path out of her bequest.
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The Langley Burrell terminus at Wick Hill features an inscription in stone "From this hill begins the praise/Of Maud Heath's gift to these Highways". Further up the hill is Maud Heath's Monument, a statue of the eponymous lady, erected on a high column in 1838 looking out over the Chippenham mud flats. The statue, in a bonnet and authentic plebeian clothes from the reign of Edward IV, was erected by Lord Lansdowne, and features a poem by the critic William Lisle Bowles, who was vicar of Bremhill at the time, which reads:
'Thou who dost pause on this aerial height/ Where Maud Heath's Pathway winds in shade and light/ Christian wayfarer in a world of strife/ Be still and consider the Path of Life.'[1]
The monument has been listed Grade II on the National Heritage List for England since December 1960. A brief guide to the causeway was written by K.R. Clew in 1982.[1]
References
- 1 2 Historic England, "Maud Heath's Monument (1283362)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 13 November 2017
External links
- "Maud Heath". Chippenham Museum. Archived from the original on 2 February 2014.
- Walk: Bremhill and Maud Heath's Causeway – The AA
Media related to Maud Heath monument at Wikimedia Commons
Coordinates: 51°28′49″N 2°04′45″W / 51.48023°N 2.07915°W