England #24 - The Barge and the Crop Circle Visitor Center in The England Chronicles - September 2024

((Wednesday & Thursday, September 18 & 19 2024)

I loooove The Barge Inn. I may be just a tad obsessed with it. Way back in 2010, when Kim and I made our first trip to England, we spent several days in Wiltshire and one of the things Baker B insisted we HAD TO DO was go to the Barge. (He didn’t go with us that time, but did in 2013). The Barge was a crop circle hotspot and he’d done a lot of reading up on crop circles. All of Wiltshire is a crop circle/alien/mysterious stuff from the ancient past hotspot,  and the crop circles were especially a big thing back in the 90s and early 2000s. They still are a kind of big thing, and they still appear every summer, but now there’s a lot of question about whether they are man made and the ones in recent years really have not been that impressive for the most part. But my point is that the Barge at one time was a big crop circle/UFO gathering spot. It’s also VERY historic - built in 1810, burned down in the 1850s and was rebuilt, and is on the Kennet & Avon canal, so is also a canal boat hotspot, for recreation/living now, but for goods transport back in the early days. 

On our first trip, in 2010, we didn’t get to go inside because it wasn’t open when we got there and didn’t have any hours posted. We had to drive all the way back to Clevedon that afternoon so couldn’t wait around. We had to settle for gazing at the building and walking on the canal. In 2013  Baker B went with us and spent the first week by himself in Devizes, which is close to the Barge and Avebury. He went to the Barge nearly every day. When Kim and I joined him for the second week (we’d been in London) we spent a lot of time at the Barge, soaking in the amazing ceiling murals, looking at the UFO/crop circle sighting map, and gazing out at the Alton Barnes white horse on the hill across the canal while drinking alien/UFO themed beers (Croppie! Alien Abduction! Other ones I’ve forgotten!)  Last time Kim and I went, in 2017, we had dinner there but very sadly it had changed owners and was an Italian gastropub run by a French couple, and although the food was good they had drastically played down the UFO/Crop Circles connection and gotten rid of the UFO/alien beers. Happily they had kept the amazing murals though. 

Right after that it went out of business. There was a big community effort to buy it, and ..it succeeded! Well, I don’t think the whole community actually bought it, but a local couple who had lived there for many many years did, and turned it back into a community pub. Hooray!

So, back to THIS trip, we drove over from All Cannings to have dinner. It was only about three miles, and probably less than two if you walked along the canal, which we couldn’t do since it was getting late in the evening by then. We were SO pleased to find the Barge back to its old self this trip, with crop circle and alien decor as well as excellent food. I had a delicious veggie curry and an equally delicious Stonehenge Bitter. 

 My only regret was they sat us in a weird little room way off from the main part of the pub, maybe because we were eating dinner and not just having beers. There wasn’t a view of the canal and the Alton Barnes horse like there is from the main area, and we were oddly isolated. We probably should have asked if we could sit in the other room but it didn’t even occur to us! 

Gazing a little sadly from our odd tucked-away room into the main part of the pub: 

They have aliens above the bar, which was fun:

And crop circle posters - the same ones were in the Crop Circle information Center. 
 

Kim ordering for us: 

  A view of the canal from the main part of the pub: 

Through the bar and into the Mural Ceiling Room: 

After we were done with dinner we walked along the canal. It is SUCH a gorgeous place! It’s always full of canal boats, and is just incredibly scenic. 

A lot of the boats are VERY decorative:

 The Alton Barnes white horse: 

A not-at-all good picture of the supermoon, which was very impressive in reality.    

We walked around till we were ready to keel over, then went back to the Airbnb. And yes, of course we got lost trying to find it in the dark, and I think we ended up going past the Welcome to Devizes sign at one point but we finally made it. 

Since I said I was including the  Crop Circle Visitor Center here, I’ll throw a few more pictures in. We went there the next day - it’s very close to the Barge. Unfortunately it was a disappointment, mostly because the exhibition part wasn’t open due to not having anyone working that day, yet we got charged seven pounds anyhow. I believe that was actually a mistake - we had to go to a shop next door for the tickets and I don’t think they realized the exhibit area upstairs was closed. We were confused (imagine that!) and didn’t know there was more to it since it actually does have a lot of information and displays downstairs. We chalked it up to giving them a little financial support, and at least we did get to see the downstairs informational section. We also saw it way back when Baker B was with us and it was in a slightly different location. It was much smaller then and free, so they’ve expanded quite a bit. 

 I would have loved to see whatever was upstairs, but what we did see WAS really interesting. Next time we’ll know there’s more to it!