An old familiar walk

Croft Wood with bluebells was the very first photo I posted on this blog back in 2007. Last year I used the Croft Wood bluebells to say that "I have said what I wanted to say, and wouldn't be making any more posts on Hidden Swindon". I changed my mind, however, as I often do ..... and here we are again at bluebell time in one of Swindon's loveliest tucked away little places, Croft Wood (behind the Marriot Hotel). This morning, as well as bluebells there was red campion, wood anemones and green ferns unfurling.

On my way to the wood I walked through the Croft Sports Field - football being played on a Sunday morning all over England. This sports field is overlooked by the Marlborough Downs and the Wroughton Science Museum is visible on the horizon (double click on photo for a clearer view).

Raining pink petals - this morning walking through the ever lovely Town Gardens in Old Town on my way to Croft Wood.

Liddington Hill

"I felt immortality as I felt the beauty of a summer morning"

Richard Jefferies

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The memorial to Richard Jefferies and Alfred Williams set on a large sandstone rock at Liddington Castle on Liddington Hill, dated 2000 so presumably to mark the Millennium. A place much loved by both writers particularly Richard Jefferies - Alfred Williams wrote these lines for Richard Jefferies who died in 1887 at the age of 39, ten years after Alfred Williams was born in 1877 (who died 1930). They did not know each as some people believe:

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Of times on Liddington's bare peak I love to think and lie,

And muse upon the former day and ancient things gone by,

To pace the old castellum walls and peer into the past

To learn the secret of the hills, and know myself at last,

To woo Dick Jefferies from his dreams on sorrow's pillow tossed

And walk with him upon the ridge, and pacify his ghost.

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Liddington hillfort looking towards Swindon

The chalk track up to the top of Liddington Hill

A dried up dew-pond at the top of Liddington Hill
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Today I met up with two of my favourite people to walk with - Hilary and Pippa both former colleagues, now firm friends. They were very patient with me as I wanted to follow a specific walk from the Ramblers Association booklet '20 walks around Swindon'. We discovered the long barrow which sits on the ridge of the hill, much damaged now by badgers but still with a sarsen stone protruding from the top. This part of the walk was lovely and although we could see the motorway in the distance, today we could not hear it. We came downhill and then started the gradual ascent up towards Liddington Castle; near the summit of Liddington Hill we found a dried up dew pond, possibly quite ancient.

Extract from Dew Ponds (1907) by Edward A Martin FGS

Messrs. Hubbard, in their " Neolithic Dew-Ponds and Cattleways," give some details as to the formation of these ponds, although the source of their information is not stated. They say that there is at least one wandering gang of men, who will construct for the modern farmer a dew-pond which will contain more water in the heat of summer than during the winter rains. The space hollowed out for the purpose is first thickly covered with a coating of dry straw. The straw is in turn covered by well-chosen, finely-puddled clay, and the upper surface of the clay is then closely strewn with stones. The margin of the straw has to be effectually protected by the clay, since if it becomes wet it will cease to attract the dew, as it ceases to act as a non-conductor of heat and " becomes of the same temperature as the surrounding earth." This would, of course, follow quickly if a runnel or spring were allowed to drain into the pond. The puddled clay is chilled by the process of evaporation, and the dry straw prevents the heat of the earth after a hot day from warming the clay.

On the the hillfort itself where we spent some time by the Richard Jefferies/Alfred Williams memorial - which overlooks Swindon. Liddington Hill can be seen from the Lawns, Coate Water and the great Western Hospital and many other parts of Old Town and east Swindon.

Cemetery sunset

The little gothic chapel at the heart of the cemetery

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Radnor Street Cemetery has featured on this blog many times - partly because of its proximity to my home (it is directly behind it) and also because it is always changing with the seasons and the time of day. I often watch the sun come up from the upstairs back room in my house though do not often get the opportunity to see the sun set from there as it is locked after daylight hours. This evening I walked through after 7.00pm (it was still open though should have been locked) the sun was setting on this Easter sunday, the birds singing. The cemetery is now a designated local nature reserve and the evening birdsong gave validation to this status - it is a little haven of nature overlooking our busy town.

The hillside avenue of trees - wonderful views towards St Mark's Church and the Railway Village

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Sunset and magnolia in the Town Gardens

The Victorian bandstand and magnolia trees in the Town Gardens

The peaceful Town Gardens this evening around 7.00pm - the sun setting, birds singing and just a few people wandering around. A perfect end to a lovely Easter Sunday.
More photos of the magnolia trees and the bandstand from Easter weekend 2008 on this link: http://swindonia.blogspot.com/2008/03/magnolia.html

Springs in Broad Blunsdon

Spring water pouring through a wall on Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill in Blunsdon

Broad Blunsdon is on the northern edges of Swindon on the other side of the A419 - I have never been there before today and found a tranquil little village of stone cottages, narrow lanes - and springs. One spring was pouring out of a hole in a garden wall near the top of Chapel Hill. Further on there was the clear sound of running water just by a cottage aptly called Spring Cottage. We hunted around for the source of the water and found it burbling away beneath a drain in the road.

More about the history of Blunsdon here:

http://swindonia.blogspot.com/2008/03/ruins-of-blunsdon-abbey.html

An ammonite, yews and the old church

A small outhouse at the Lawns appears to have been built with stones from the old church, now only the chancel stands. The outhouse has a large ammonite plus a smaller one near the apex of the roof. The larger one a strange and rare fossil for an outhouse ....... I wonder where it was originally located.

The chancel of the old Holy Rood church - it has featured on this blog many times. It was Swindon's original parish church and is first mentioned in documents dating from 1154. It was rebuilt about 1300 but fell into disrepair after the new Christ Church was built. Partly demolished in 1852, leaving only the chancel and a few arches (perhaps this is where the ammonite stone came from) English Heritage has scheduled the remains of the church as an ancient monument.
There is a concentration of yews in this part of the Lawns, not least in the churchyard, which is not accessible to the public. The one in the far corner of the churchyard looks very ancient indeed.

The afternoon sunlight shafting through a row of yews just outside the old churchyard ( I counted thirteen).

Land of Richard Jefferies - goodbye!

Dayhouse Lane, looking towards Liddington Hill with some of the stones from the small Coate Stone Circle just visible in the meadow on the left
(double click with mouse over photo to enlarge - for a better view of the circle)

The unbroken views toward Liddington Hill from Coate Water - this will be replaced by another uniform housing development if the Save Coate fight loses its long battle to preserve the landscape

Today I was on Dayhouse Lane which runs alongside the Richard Jefferies museum by Coate Water - the lane runs towards Badbury and Liddington Hill which was greatly loved by Victorian writer Richard Jefferies (1848-1887). Richard Jefferies wrote about this land (and his walks through it) in much of his writing. There are many references to the old house and the land around it: The old house by the silent country road, secluded by many a long, long mile and yet again secluded within the great walls of the garden. Often and often I have rambled up to the milestone which stood under an oak, to look at the chipped inscription low down - "To London, 79 miles" (From The Life of the Fields first published 1884)

The Old House still stands, now a museum and so too does the milestone - though the road it stood on is now redundant replaced by a dual carriageway to speed motorists towards the M4. The land around Dayhouse Lane (and Dayhouse Lane itself) will soon start to disappear if developers win the right to build houses, a business park and a university there. There is a small stone circle in one of the fields just off Dayhouse Lane and stunning rural views towards Liddington Hill. Walking along there today the sense of unspoilt countryside went a long way to ameliorate the distant thunder of the M4 motorway.

Richard Jefferies was born at Coate Farmhouse, Coate in 1848. In those days Coate was a small hamlet close to Swindon on the Hungerford Road. Richard Jefferies spent the first 29 years of his life there and wrote extensively about nature and his rambles up to Liddington Hill and beyond. His book Bevis is thought to be an autobiographical adventure recalling his childhood around Coate Water. His later work became a somewhat inner journey which he wrote of in Story of My Heart. He married a neighbouring farmer's daughter Jessie Baden of Daye House Farm and they had three children. Sadly, Richard Jefferies' health deteriorated at a young age and he died in Worthing in 1887 at the age of 39.

The Coate Tree Collection

By the Coate Water entrance to the Coate Tree Collection is a small lake formed by a dam of sarsen stones - the water flows under a foot bridge to feed a stream, which in turn feeds the river Cole.

The Tree Collection is between Coate Water and the Polo Grounds behind Marlborough Road - it is laid out on two fields, the first being Spring Field, see above. Today very aptly named.

Bullrushes by the small lake - other side of the Spring Field path

The Old Oak

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The second field in the Tree Collection is the Old Oak Field which takes its name from the above tree. Today I sat on the bench under this magnificent old tree and ate my lunch in tranqulity.

A young magnolia
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The Coate Tree Collection is a lovely place, no more so than in spring. I'm not sure how long it has been in existance but I should think it has been growing over the past 20 years. It holds a collection of beautiful young trees, many of which produce spring blossom and will no doubt bring much pleasure to future generations. The majority of the trees have been sponsored in memory of someone and I can thinks of no better or more peaceful way in which to recall the memory of a loved one.

Ellendune and Elcombe

Elcombe Manor

The hamlet of Elcombe tucked away at the foot of the Downs between Wroughton and the M4 - just a few houses, a well, a manor house, and a working farm.

The Parish Church of Wroughton - previously known as Ellendune

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Today I and went over to Wroughton to meet up with a friend. We walked over to the hamlet of Elcombe, via Wroughton parish church - the Church of St John the Baptist and St Helen. I picked up a leaflet that said the following:

The Church is built in Ellendune which is thought to be an ancient hill fort. Near to this place 825AD, at the Battle of Ellendune, the Kings of Wessex took over dominance from the kings of Mercia; one of the most important battles in English history. There is evidence of a church building on this site since at least the 10th century AD.

The Saxon Chronicles have an entry under the year 825AD as follows:

The Cornish Britons and the men of Devon fought at Galford, and the same year Ecgbryht, king of Wessex, and Beornulf, king of Mercia fought at Wroughton; Ecgbryht took the victory; and there afterwards he sent Aethelwulf, his son and Ealhstan, his bishop to Kent with a great host. They drove King Baldred north over the Thames; and the people of Kent turned to him, and Surrey, Sussex and Essex because they had been wrongly forced from their loyalty to his kinsmen. The same year, the King of the East Angles and the people sought the peace and protection of king Ecbryht, for fear of the Mercians; and the same year the East Angles killed Beornulf, king of the Mercians.

Nick Harper at the Victoria, Old Town

On Friday night, Nick Harper, who is almost local (having been brought up near Marlborough and still living in that area) kicked off his tour in Old Town at the Vic. I had never been to this venue before and in truth was a bit apprehensive, expecting it to be busy and loud on a Friday evening. When we arrived this was not the case and people were just sitting quietly around waiting for Nick Harper to start playing. Though when leaving the intimacy of the downstairs venue around mid-night the pub had indeed become a lot noisier and very busy (it was Friday night after all).

Nick is the son of Roy Harper and I first saw him perform at Swindon's Arts Centre a few years back. He is a brilliant guitarist, in fact I have never seen a guitar played the way he plays - he almost always breaks a string before the end of the evening. He also a superb song writer with a witty slant on most scenarios plus a lot of interaction and banter with the audience - some of whom seemed to be part of his large contingent of mates.

In between songs he talked about the Love, Hope and Strength Foundation to which he is committed:
LHSF is an international, music-centric cancer charity dedicated to providing support for cancer centers, and inspiration to those affected, throughout the world. The mission is to save lives, right now, with the advances that have already been made in cancer care. We do not fund cancer research, rather we use our funds to purchase medical equipment and supplies, raise awareness through special events, documentaries and media, build cancer centers and find bone marrow donors. (Mission Statement)

To find out more check out Nick Harper's website Harperspace
http://www.harperspace.com/nick-harper-lhs.html

It was one of the best music evenings I've had in quite awhile. The venue was small and intimate but with an excellent air conditioning system. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Woolstone and the Uffington White Horse

Uffington White Horse Hill - viewed from a distance, the horse is not quite visible. Just a short drive from Swindon through the most beautiful of spring-line villages all with their own pond (fed by the chalk springs running off the downs) is the magnificent, ancient Uffington Castle hillfort. Although the white horse cannot be seen clearly in my photograph it can always be seen clearly from the train as it hurtles past between Swindon and Didcot. When, returning from London, I see the white horse come into view I know I am nearly home, away from the city crowds, back to my dear Swindon. People who do not know my town see the somewhat soulless centre and judge it wanting - I see its soul in the ancient landscape that surrounds it and in the very land it is built on.

http://www.berkshirehistory.com/archaeology/white_horse.html

The historic White Horse Inn in Woolstone - the sign is a replica of the ancient Uffington White Horse. The White Horse Inn advertises in the Swindon Advertiser every Christmas - offering seasonal fare in an atmospheric setting, I have often seen 'olde worlde' illustrations of it and have to admit to being impressed when it came into view.

The chalk water stream that runs through the village - celandines and snowdrops growing along the bank. I cannot photograph the sound of running water as it falls from higher ground - it is nature singing. A house near by the stream - it appears to have been built with chalk bricks.A friend has done some research and the bricks are probably clunch (which is a chalky limestone)

Alfred Williams talks about Woolstone in his 1913 book Villages of the White Horse:

Every village of the down-side has one or more large chalk-pits situated upon the open hill, from which material is obtained for building, or for rubble to make up the roads and farmyards. In some localities the chalk is worthless for building being rotten and crumbling for many yards deep below the surface but here and there good consistent stuff is quarried, which when dried is useful and durable.
I walked through the charming village of Woolstone yesterday while out with the Ramblers - because I was with a large group of people I was unable to explore as I would have wished. I understand there is a little old church which I didn't get to see. There was also a Roman villa on the site of the village, no doubt built there to take advantage of the clear chalk spring water which flows through the village. http://www.berkshirehistory.com/castles/woolstone_villa.html

Rambling - Barbury Castle and Smeathe's Ridge

A group of walkers setting off along Smeathe's Ridge today

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The Northeast Wiltshire Group of the Ramblers meet in Swindon on Saturdays and Sundays and car share to the start of the walk. The walks are usually around the Marlborough Downs taking in the spectacular views, though they often go further a field.

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This morning was just so lovely - the first spring-like day of the year. So I was off for a ramble - car-shared up to Barbury Castle. I didn't know (it was pointed out to me this morning) that the left-hand hillside leading up to Barbury Castle is an Iron Age field system and in the morning shadows it was very apparent today. I couldn't get a decent photo as there were some horse riders using the very narrow road as well, so we couldn't stop. Smeathe's Ridge was just stunning in the morning sunlight, the views are spectacular but it was the sheep running down the hill in single file that pleased me to watch. Just past Liddington the Ridgeway splits in two - the Ridgeway path follows Smeathe's Ridge which is the highest ground and is absolutely beautiful. The Old Ridgeway along this section is lower down and has been tarmaced - it is used a lot by motor cyclists and other vehicles, we came back along this section. If you are walking the Ridgeway along Smeathe's Ridge you will need to walk through or around Barbury Castle and come down the west side hill - the old Ridgeway leading to Avebury is at the bottom of the hill.

For more information about the Ramblers see www.ramblers-wilts.org.uk

Ken White - exhibition of new work

Ken White is a Swindon artist, he started his working life in Swindon's Railway Works as a sign writer and later went to Swindon Art College. In the 1970s he painted murals on the ends of buildings that became quite famous although sadly not many of them remain. His most powerful paintings, however, are of life in the Railway Factory and in that respect he reminds me a lot of Alfred Williams who wrote 'Life in the Railway Factory' back in 1913. Ironically, Ken's best known work was the 'scarlet lady' painted for Virgin Atlantic and which became their logo. Although he has worked around the world he remained devoted to his wife and family, he and his wife Jan still live in Old Town, Swindon. Ken's exhibition of new work starts today, 10th February and runs to 28th March at the Arts Centre in Old Town, Swindon.

His website address is http://www.kenwhitemurals.co.uk/history.html

I dropped by today and thoroughly recommend it, his lino-cuts are superb and his paintings atmospheric. The little exhibition is evocative of a Swindon long gone. Ken is a great artist but remains, as always, quietly spoken and modest.

NB: Permission obtained from Ken White to use the above photos

Still snowing - Radnor Street Cemetery

Looking towards the Railway Village with St Mark's Church in the distance

A couple of young boys disappearing uphill with their toboggan

Dixon Street - through the cemetery gates

Looking towards the Radnor Street entrance
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Friday ....... what a week! Swindon is snowed in this morning. I made a valiant effort to get to work via Radnor Street Cemetery only to find there were no buses running. I made a phone call offering to walk in but was told to go back home, the office was closing. I didn't need to be told twice, a day off, so much I could do, only I couldn't because of the weather.

An ancient church at Inglesham

A cat gargoyle on the outside of the church

The carving of the Mother and Child is almost certainly Saxon in origin - until 1910 it was on the outside of the south wall and used as a sundial but its original position is unknown.

Most of the walls are covered with paintings, often over painted up to seven layers thick


The bells date from 1717, made by Abraham Rudhall of Gloucester

St John the Baptist Church, Inglesham, Wiltshire
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This is somewhere I heard about a while ago and today came upon it almost by accident whilst walking the Thames path to Kelmscott. For someone who does not subscribe to religion, preferring to carry out my reflections on the mysteries of life whilst striding out across the Wiltshire Downs or mooching around along the upper Thames, old churches seem to play a significant role on this blog. Perhaps because they hold clues to the history of the people who used them, in some cases, over several centuries.

Inglesham is a small village the other side of Highworth and just before Lechlade. The old church is now looked after by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings which was founded by William Morris, who lived nearby in Kelmscott. There is a well polished plaque inside the church which says "This church was repaired in 1888-9 through the energy and with the help of William Morris, who loved it". Although it has been added to and renovated over the centuries, sections of it date back to the early 13th century (King John gave the church to the monks of Beaulieu in 1205).

A fascinating ancient building, situated close to the upper Thames, this old church is left open and is well worth a visit. There are some traces of a medieval village to be seen in the surrounding fields which declined with the passing of the wool trade.

Source of information: Anthony Barnes who produced a pamphlet named 'St John the Baptist Church' for The Churches Conservation Trust - a charity set up in 1969 to care for and repair ancient churches for present and future generations.

Tithe Barn at Stanton Fitzwarren

White doves on the roof of the tithe barn

The Tithe Barn
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The old tithe barn can be found In the tranquil village of Stanton Fitzwarren situated on the outskirts of Swindon, just past Stratton and on the road to Highworth. Apparently, there has been a village on this site for over 2000 years.

Norman Church at Stanton Fitzwarren

St Leonard's Church in Stanton Fitzwarren

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This beautiful little Norman church was built on the site of an older church. Today, I had a mishap with my camera which was set for close-up shots and as a consequence most of the photos I took were blurred. The inside of the church is exquisite with a Norman font and pulpit. Although tiny, the church has magnificent wood carvings and beautiful windows - one internal window is an engraved and just depicts an ear of corn. The ceiling is exposed wooden rafters which are a work of art in themselves. The church is on a gentle incline which slopes down towards the lake in Stanton Park.

Very old small font just inside the main door -
possible preserved from a Saxon church which originally stood on this site.

Norman font
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Thought to date back to around 1170, the font belonged the church that preceded the present one and which was destroyed by fire. The upper part of the font has a frieze of entwined scroll bands and other interlacing patterns typical of that period.

For more about the lovely, hidden village of Stanton Fitzwarren have alook at this website:

http://www.stantonfitzwarren.com/home.html