Six miles from the sea at Bridgwater, the Parret, as if loth to lose its individuality, lingers in the rich valley, doubling the distance by its circuitous course to the Bristol Channel. At Burnham, just before the Severn Sea claims them, its waters are still further swollen by those of the Brue, a considerable stream, which, like the Parret, has a wealth of historical association, and is of some commercial significance. To the wharves at Highbridge, above Burnham, vessels of many tons burthen are borne by the tide; here also are the gates and sluice-locks of the Glastonbury canal navigation. Then the united streams fall into that part of the Bristol Channel which is known as Bridgwater Bay. A few miles to the north the Axe indolently pours into Uphill Bay the waters which it has brought from the flanks of the Mendips, where it runs a subterranean course some two miles long before issuing forth in a copious flood from Wookey Hole--a cavern famous for the prehistoric treasures which it has yielded to the explorer--to flow through a picturesque glen, and presently to drain the level plains of West Somerset.
Watering three counties, to the scenic interest and beauty of each of which it lends an infinitude of charms, the /Lower Avon/ is not to be measured for its importance by its length (seventy-five miles), since there are far longer streams that one would willingly exchange for half the romantic valleys and the rich country of this river, which has its source in a piece of ornamental water at Escourt Park, in the neighbourhood of Great Thurston, where the boundaries of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire almost meet.
Distinction is immediately given to the stream. Just below the village it enters the grounds of Pinckney House, and after it has passed Eastongrey and a dozen little thorpes, the river claims proud association with historic Malmesbury--the British Caer Bladon, and the Anglo-Saxon Ingelburne--which it enters on the west. This ancient town stands on the ridge of a narrow hill, sloping down steeply on its southern and northern sides, and is nearly surrounded by two streams which, uniting at its southern extremity, form the Avon. On the highest point of the ridge are seen the ruins of the famous Malmesbury Abbey, which once covered forty-five acres of ground. Leland, writing in the time of Henry VIII., described it as a "right magnificent thing." The present remains are small; but the south porch is one of the finest specimens of Norman work in the country. A portion of the structure is still used as a church. Another notable feature of the town in which William of Malmesbury, the historian, was educated, is a quaint fifteenth-century market-cross, to which also Leland gave none but honest praise when he styled it "a righte faire piece of worke." Malmesbury--which, by the way, was the birthplace of "Leviathan" Hobbes--has been built on the peninsula between the Tetbury stream, flowing down from the Gloucestershire town, and the first beginnings of the Avon, which here accepts its earliest tributary.