Do you have any suggestions for a day out, meeting the following criteria?

• A day trip by rail from Western Wiltshire
• Enough at the destination to occupy about five hours
• Decent cafe (doesn't have to be Michelin...)
• Destination doesn't look post-apocalyptic, which includes places that have become car-dominated

 
Those restrictions seem to exclude Weymouth. 

Nailsea? (That includes Tyntesfield, a rambling National Trust property, just to the north).

 

That's Swindon off the list then!

 

These days, private cars dominate so many places, but there are many excelllent sections within towns and cities which aren't overrun ...

Places I have enjoyed by train from West Wiltshire include:
Bath
Bristol
Frome
Oxford
Salisbury
Stroud
Gloucester
Cardiff - Central and Bay
Barry Island
Penarth
Salisbury
Hamble
London
Marlow
Dawlish
Exmouth
Poole
Weymouth
Chepstow
Worcester
Malvern
Bournemouth
Southsea
Tiverton (by bus from Parkway and canal walk back)
Isle of Wight (if you allow a ferry and have a deep pocket!)

And places that I really should take a (further) look at might include:
Exeter
Reading
Cheltenham Spa
Chichester and onwards toward Brighton
Sherbourne, Gillingham, Axminster, Honiton
Didcot, for rail centre

Less that 5 hours (for me), but fun:
Yetminster
Avoncliff
Severn Beach
Lymington
Brockenhurst
Bicester Village
Oldfield Park (to Midford)
Yatton
Burnham (for Highbridge)

Overrun with cars IMHO from the station might include Dorchester, Weston-super-mare and Newport

Not listing post-apololyptic places, nor "home" places within West Wiltshire.  Many more options if you allow a relatively short bus ride from a railhead.  And others if you are looking for countryside / canal walk

 

Slight bias involved?  .  I have visited Nailsea, as friends live there. Would like to visit Tyntesfield again, but there doesn't seem to be a safe walking route between N&B station and the NT site?

 
Have you thought about Southampton or Windsor? If you don't mind two changes of train (at Reading and Richmond) and like gardens with a bit more, you might also consider Kew Gardens.

 

A number of years ago I did a walk from N&B to Bristol going through Tyntesfeld, Ashton Court and the Clifton Suspension Bridge.  Tyntesfield was accessed by a "back entrance" (stop giggling all of you at the back there) footpath from around the Wraxhall area.  It did involve a bit of roadside walking and a yomp though Nailsea but all in all I quite enjoyed the day out.

 

Probably rules out Slough too.

 
Exeter Central for shopping, museum, cathedral, riverside. It's not car friendly.

 
I wrote a post earlier this afternoon that seems to have gone AWOL. So, briefly, thanks for the ideas so far, and don't stop yet!

My request was (and still is) genuinely for ideas for a day trip for two in the near future. However, the search and follow-up raises a number of interesting points, some relevant to the concurrent thread on town centres.

I will post some further thoughts when I have time.

 

That can happen if another follow up has been posted while you are writing - you press "post" and can (I sometimes do) don't notice that rather than posting, it alerts you to another contribution and asks if you want to post anyway. 


Not sure if the original post specified "for two". Similar generation to you, or outing with a child or a parent?

Like the example so far - I left out Southampton because I find it a bit car infested near the station ...

 
Bradford on Avon has it's charms.  There's the attractive town itself and up by the canal lock there's a couple of waterside pubs and the Tithe barn retail outlets.  From there you can take a modest stroll along the canal towpath to Avoncliff and the Cross Guns pub located between the canal and the river Avon.  Just over the river bridge is Avoncliff railway station for the return journey.
Worth noting is that there are a couple of impressive National Trust gardens within a few miles radius iThe Courts in Holt and Great Chalfield Manor) plus the splendid Italianate Peto Gardens at Iford.

 

It can also happen if you are an innate Luddite (like me) and choose to 'preview' your post - to make sure it looks alright before it appears out on the forum.  If it does look alright in 'preview' I've then occasionally moved on to another topic - forgetting to complete the process by going back to click on 'post' for my efforts.

CfN.

 
Thank you all for the suggestions.

The list was whittled down ... and the final winner was... Lymington.

Except that dealing with some Brexit fallout left us too tired in the morning... so we decided on a shorter expedition to Salisbury.

We then spent a long time examining the vegetation between Warminster and Wilton... in both directions... during the Friday "signalling fault".  We have visited Salisbury before, but (rather hungry after the extended journey), we found a nice cafe we hadn't visited before. Refueled, had a successful visit to a single shop. Another drink, then it was time to come home. Saw several closed shops but the general image is still OK.

 
Salisbury also featured in my travel plans for Friday 2nd.
Having given up on my regular trips to Castle Cary from Paddington prior to Covid, I decided for my 81st birthday (in July!) to travel 1st class to Cary on October 2nd, have lunch at The Creamery at the station, (which I remember as a milk factory)and return. Returns from Waterloo, 1st class, for two of us were £111 (good value, I thought). From Paddington it would have been well over £200 each. We got, in comfort and speed, to Salisbury where we were tipped out of the train. Easy decision to abort and return whence we came. No through trains back to Waterloo, so stopping services via Basingstoke.
I then spent the evening battling with the nightmare that is the TrainLine web site. With difficulty (I am not good with apps - at the school where I volunteer we say that the only app that matters is the reading lap) I got a refund for much of the journey, but not for for the outward (for one person) from Waterloo, as I had touched in on departure. I was unable to find any method of claiming for an 'abandoned journey'. First time I had used Trainline as I avoided them when they charged a fee. And now, not again!

 
All the suggested place you could walk round on GoogleEarth.

 
I planned a day out in Taunton last Wednesday.

Definitely one to add to the "Overrun with cars from the station" list (IMHO, as mentioned). What was planned to be a day out ended up being an hour spent in the excellent (albeit very child-friendly, almost to the exclusion of anyone else) Somerset Museum. What might have become a second hour or so was curtailed by cries of "How much?!?" in the museum cafeteria, leading us to buying sandwiches from a supermarket on the way back to the station. No plans to return to Taunton any time soon.

 

What a darned shame - TravelWatch on Friday would be worth coming, and just a few yards from the station 

 

I had a look at some of the places using Google Streetview. Perhaps a topic for another thread: "Does Streetview make places look more dismal than they really are?"

When I find out the right way to condense the long-winded Streetview URLs into something neat for a message on this forum, I will post a few examples of what (for me, anyway) makes or breaks a potential destination.

 

My learned mentor grahame will be happy to help you with that. Please do go ahead and post such examples.

 
Google street views are usually undertaken early morning so the camera on the motorcycle can get round without stopping. You often get delivery lorries in the view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnKPUAL7eO0