Travel to Horningsham Wiltshire from Edinburgh

There does not seem to be any bus at all serves Horningsham, so you will need to taxi from Warminster.

The easiest route (which avoids London) is to take a train almost every hour on Cross Country from Edinburgh to Bristol Temple Meads then change on to a train bound for Portsmouth via Southampton.

It is a 6 1/2 journey to Bristol, then an hour to Warminster. Going to London Kings Cross, then London Paddington to Westbury then Westbury to Warminster would be about an hour faster.

Get a Two Together Railcard to give you 1/3 off all trains after 0930 on weekdays (all day at weekends). Take the 1003 from Edinburgh to Bristol. You arrive at Warminster at 1749.

Do not book that ticket as a through ticket- book the journey as Edinburgh to Birmingham New Street, Birmingham to Bristol and Bristol to Warminster- that fare is about £160, saving you around £60 on the through fare.

Travel through London and the through fare is around £130. Book as Edinburgh to London KC (0930 arrive 1547), London Paddington (depart 1528) to Warminster (arrive 1749) and the combined fare is around £95.

All fares quoted are before the railcard reductions.

Stuart - I haven't checked the actual times but I think there must be a typo - you have the Paddington train 20 minutes before arriving at Kings Cross.....

The Edinburgh train arrives at KC at 1347- giving a generous 90 minutes or so. Sure you could do the transfer in an hour less than that, but the idea is to avoid stress.

@Deb has stated that they have all day, but....

For completeness, it is very likely that the fastest and probably cheapest route is EDI to Bristol on Easyjet (often as low as £24 before baggage fees), the Airport Flyer bus to Temple Meads station for an extortionate £9, then train.

I am also pretty certain that the cheapest rail route is the 0652 or 0852 EDI- London Euston train on Avanti (£40 Advance Fare) then London Waterloo to Salisbury (under £10 advance fare) then Salisbury to Warminster (under £10 advance fare). Clearly the 2T railcard can't be used on the Avanti service, but even so, still cheapest.

It becomes a bit of a zero sum game, but on the 0852 train you can lower the £40 price by another £5 or so by buying an advance to Carlisle without railcard, then an Advance Carlisle to Euston with railcard- either continuing on the same train or on the next (faster) train from Glasgow which arrives in Euston 30 or so minutes earlier.

I am not a fan of doing such multiple splits- it creates potentially too many potential issues if there is service disruption and just feels a bit close to fare evasion for my personal liking. But I offer it up.

Sometimes I pay more a bit more just for ease of mind and clarity of intention, especially if I am likely to end up needing a late night taxi from the Railway. Purely personally I would book a through Advance Carlisle to Salisbury ticket. It includes the tube transfer. For me it works out at about 30 pence more than the sum of the 3 parts. I don't care.

Thank you for the helpful responses. I better understand the many options and will likely train direct to Bristol. We will purchase senior rail cards and monitor our options as this trip approaches.