Dauntsey

Dauntsey railway station served the village of Dauntsey, Wiltshire from 1868 to 1965. It was situated on the Great Western Main Line which runs from London to Bristol. The station site is a mile and a half south of Dauntsey village and is near Dauntsey Lock which suggests that the station was important to the Wilts & Berks Canal. Dauntsey was a small station with three platforms, two of which are similar in length to the platforms at Corsham which is further down the line between Chippenham and Bath. The station had a main building with a canopy on the up platform (towards London) and the platform on the opposite side had a small brick shelter, also with a canopy. Dauntsey station became the junction for the branch line to Malmesbury in 1877. The up platform was extended west of the road bridge with a bay platform to accommodate trains on the branch line. When the GWR built the South Wales Main Line in 1903 it passed a few miles north of Dauntsey. In 1933 the connection between the Malmesbury branch and the main line was moved to Little Somerford on the newer main line, and the redundant section between Dauntsey and Somerford became a siding. The canopy used for the branch line platform was moved to Yatton station where it can still be seen today. Most of Dauntsey station was demolished in 1977 although the station house and the up platform remain.

The Wilts & Berks Canal Trust is a registered charity no. 299595, and a waterway society based in Wiltshire, England, concerned with the restoration of the Wilts & Berks Canal. The Trust is the successor to the Wilts & Berks Canal Amenity Group (formed in 1977) and a founder member of the Wiltshire, Swindon & Oxfordshire Canal Partnership, which embraces the Trust, the local authorities for the areas through which the route of the canal passes, statutory bodies, and other interested parties. The Trust's headquarters are at Dauntsey Lock, adjacent to the canal between Chippenham and Royal Wootton Bassett.

The Royal Agricultural University (RAU), formerly the Royal Agricultural College, is a public university in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England. Established in 1845, it was the first agricultural college in the English-speaking world. The university provides more than 30 land-based undergraduate and postgraduate programmes to students from over 45 countries through the School of Agriculture, the School of Business and Entrepreneurship, the School of Equine and the School of Real Estate and Land Management.

The Dauntsey Vale is a geographical feature in the north of the English county of Wiltshire. It is characterised by a wide, flat, clay floodplain of the upper reaches of the Bristol Avon river, which divides the Cotswolds to the west from the chalk downland of east and south Wiltshire. It is triangular in shape with its north edge running from the town of Royal Wootton Bassett in the east to Malmesbury in the west. This prominent north ridge is the setting for the village of Brinkworth, which at five miles long, claims to be the longest village in England. The western edge of the Vale is the edge of the Cotswolds, running from Malmesbury to Chippenham in the south. This edge is less pronounced than the classic escarpment which forms the western edge of the Cotswolds. It is characterised by a gradual drop in level, but more in the different building materials of the villages. For instance, Stanton St Quintin above the Vale has a distinct Cotswolds feel with the typical honey-coloured building stone and roof slates, while villages just a few miles away to the east like Christian Malford and Sutton Benger have typically thatched homes. The eastern edge of the Vale is more pronounced, with a steep and high hill forming a ridge running from Wootton Bassett in the north to close to Calne in the south. This ridge top provides the location for RAF Lyneham, the home until 2011 of the RAF's Hercules transport planes. It takes its name from the village of Dauntsey in the centre of the Vale.

Bradenstoke Priory was a medieval priory of Augustinian canons regular in the village of Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England. Its site, in the north of the county about 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) west of Lyneham, is on a ridge above the south side of Dauntsey Vale. In the 1930s the property was purchased by William Randolph Hearst and some of its structures were used by him for the renovation of St Donat's Castle near Llantwit Major, Wales.

Bradenstoke is a village in Wiltshire, England, lying to the north of the former RAF Lyneham airbase and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) northwest of Lyneham. Originally lying within Braydon Forest, the "stoke" means "settlement".Largely consisting of a long and narrow main street, the village has a church, one chapel (it used to have two chapels but the Methodist Chapel has been converted into a dwelling), a village hall and a pub. The Post Office closed in 2008.

The Brinkworth Brook is a tributary of the Bristol Avon. It rises near Broad Hinton in Wiltshire in the West Country of England, and flows in a north and then westerly direction, joining the Avon at Great Somerford.

Royal Air Force Lyneham otherwise known as RAF Lyneham (IATA: LYE, ICAO: EGDL) was a Royal Air Force station located 6.3 miles (10.1 km) northeast of Chippenham, Wiltshire, and 10.3 miles (16.6 km) southwest of Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The station was the home of all the Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport aircraft of the Royal Air Force (RAF) before they were relocated to RAF Brize Norton. RAF Lyneham was the Royal Air Force's principal transport hub, operating the modern Lockheed Martin C-130J Hercules, and the ageing, but very adaptable, Lockheed C-130K Hercules. The airfield was designated as a Master Diversion Airfield: it was one of the primary airfields to which aircraft could divert in the eventuality of their home bases being closed due to weather, or other unforeseen events such as aircraft crashes. The airfield became renowned for being the "gateway" between the United Kingdom and Afghanistan; the station was also where repatriation of British personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan took place. The bodies were transported through the nearby town of Royal Wootton Bassett, with crowds lining the streets to pay tribute to the fallen. The station closed on 31 December 2012 with the majority of its personnel and other assets having moved to RAF Brize Norton. On 31 May 2011, a parade was held, attended by the Princess Royal, to mark the departure of the squadrons. The final Hercules left Lyneham on 1 July 2011. Daily flying operations ceased on 30 September 2011.The site is now known as Ministry of Defence Lyneham (or MoD Lyneham) and is home to the Defence School of Electro-Mechanical Engineering (DSEME).

Ministry of Defence Lyneham or MOD Lyneham is a Ministry of Defence site in Wiltshire, England, about 7 miles (11 km) north-east of Chippenham and 10 miles (16 km) south-west of Swindon. The site houses the Defence School of Electronic and Mechanical Engineering. Also here is Prince Philip Barracks, housing the regimental headquarters of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME), 8 Training Battalion REME and the REME Museum. Previously, the site was RAF Lyneham which closed on 31 December 2012.

Brinkworth is a village and civil parish in northern Wiltshire, England. The village lies between Royal Wootton Bassett and Malmesbury, about 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the M4 motorway and 9 miles (14 km) west of Swindon. The west end of Brinkworth village is Causeway End. The civil parish of Brinkworth includes the hamlets of Braydon Side, Callow Hill, The Common, and the tithing of Grittenham, a rural community to the south of the village of Brinkworth.Much of Brinkworth village is a linear settlement along the east-west B4042, extending for some 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km). The village is sometimes described as the longest in England although others such as Meopham, Kent make the same claim.

Great Wood is a nature reserve of Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, about 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Royal Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire, England.

Great Somerford Halt was a station on the Malmesbury Branch Line of the Great Western Railway in Wiltshire, England. It was open from 1877 to 1933 for passengers, and 1879 to 1922 for goods. The station, at first named Somerford, was opened in December 1877 as part of the Malmesbury branch which left the Great Western Main Line at Dauntsey, 2+1⁄2 miles (4.0 km) to the southeast. The station was on the road to Little Somerford and separated from the northern edge of Great Somerford village by the River Avon. A small goods yard and siding were in use from January 1879.The name of the station was changed to Great Somerford in 1903 when the GWR opened a more direct route to South Wales, the South Wales Main Line which left the earlier main line at Royal Wootton Bassett and passed half a mile (900 metres) to the north near Little Somerford, where a new station was built. The reduction in traffic led to changes in 1922 at Great Somerford: the goods yard closed and staff were withdrawn from the station, which was now named Great Somerford Halt.In 1933, Little Somerford station was linked to the Malmesbury branch and became the junction station. The line south to Dauntsey, along with Great Somerford Halt, was closed on 17 July 1933, as usage of the halt had declined to an average of one passenger per two trains. The track as far south as Great Somerford was retained until 1959 and used for storage of rolling stock; the track further south had been lifted by 1949. The site of the station and goods yard is now occupied by a sewage works. The station master's house, next to the road, survives.