Wiltshire couple sleep through crash that demolished garden wall

Peter Mullett, 63, and Philip Mudd, 68, slept through the 5am crash outside their home next to The Beehive.

They didn’t even wake up when police knocked on their front door in the early hours of Saturday morning to tell them the crash had happened.

Instead, officers posted a note through their letterbox saying: “Your wall. We have knocked the door and had no answer.”

Peter Mullett clears up the stonework after a car demolished his garden wall when the driver lost control on the humpback bridge over the Kennet & Avon Canal. Image: Trevor Porter 70599-1 (Image: Trevor Porter)

Peter said: “The crash happened at 5am on Saturday morning (February 17). There was a noise like a lorry.

“We heard banging and then went back to sleep. We didn’t realise the wall had gone until we woke up at 8.20am and saw the damage.

“By that time, the police had already closed the road and towed away the vehicle.”

Philip added: “I thought it had snowed. There was white foam all over the road and there was no traffic.

“The police had used something to dissolve the diesel fuel that had leaked from the vehicle after the crash.”

The force of the impact demolished a section of their 3ft-high wall and sent a huge lump of stone flying over the 5ft-high wall next to the former Beehive pub.

“The force of the impact was extraordinary,” Mr Mullett said. “There was one large piece of stonework halfway down the lawn.”

The approach to the humpback bridge. Peter Mullett is calling for the 30mph speed restriction to be moved further from the bridge on the Trowbridge side. Image: Trevor Porter 70599-3 (Image: Trevor Porter)

A Wiltshire Police spokesperson said: “We attended a road traffic collision on Trowbridge Road, Bradford on Avon at about 5am on Saturday (February 2) involving a single vehicle which appears to have been in collision with the wall of the bridge.

“The road was closed for two hours to allow emergency vehicles to attend.

“There were no reported injuries and no arrests.”

It’s believed the driver lost control of their vehicle having failed to negotiate the left-hand curve of the road over the bridge, ploughing straight on into the wall.

They were said to have escaped with just a bump to their forehead.

Mr Mudd said that after police had closed the road, a taxi driver bringing rail passengers from Trowbridge to Bradford on Avon was forced to drop them off at The Boathouse.

“I’m sure they missed their train as they had to make the 20-minute walk to the station with their suitcases,” he said.

Now they are calling for the 50mph speed limit on the road to be lowered to 30mph on the Trowbridge side of the bridge before vehicles reach the Widcombe Equestrian Centre, the Bradford on Avon Marina and The Boathouse pub.

“We think the speed limit should be lowered because drivers come flying down that stretch of road,” said Mr Mullett, a former civil service IT specialist.

“Some of them are going too fast to make it over the humpback bridge over the canal and then carry straight on.”

The bridge has previously been the scene of several near misses and accidents as the curve of the road coupled with the humpback catches some drivers by surprise.