A LITTLE JAUNT INTO THE COTSWOLDS - PINKTOBER 18

We had a good Zoom service at Church this morning, following which we went out for a little jaunt into the Cotswolds. We are always fairly indecisive about where to go, but Mr. HCB wanted to go out towards Lechlade and then on up into the Cotswolds.  We quite like to get off the main roads, off the beaten track, and enjoy just “pootling” along at our own speed so that we can enjoy the countryside all around us.

We ended up in a little Cotswold village called Eastleach - which apparently used to be two separate parishes - Eastleach Turville and Eastleach Martin - but they were combined in 1935 to make the civil parish of Eastleach.

Until today, although we have stopped here before, we didn’t realise that there were two Anglican churches very close to one another, in fact, just across the River Leach.  We parked outside All Souls’ Cottage and walked through the churchyard of St. Michael & St. Martin, bottom right in my collage, where we could look back to the bridge beyond which stands the church of St. Andrew.  Rumour has it that the churches were built by two sisters who argued, and each put up their own church.  However, the real story is that the estates of Eastleach Martin and Eastleach Turville were always separate, and each church was built by the Lord of the Manor for use by his family and retainers.

Standing to the side of the church of St. Michael & St. Martin, as we looked towards the bridge, we could see a young couple playing “Poohsticks” - and for those who don’t know, this is a game first mentioned in “The House at Pooh Corner”, a Winnie-the-Pooh book by A. A. Milne. It is a simple game which may be played on any bridge over running water; each player drops a stick on the upstream side of a bridge and the one whose stick first appears on the downstream side is the winner.  We could hear the young couple laughing and then we heard the young lady shouting “Hey, you sabotaged mine!”  They carried on laughing with one another and it was a joy to hear them.

A little further along the river is a stone clapper bridge known as Keble's Bridge after its nineteenth-century curate John Keble, a much-loved poet and Oxford scholar.  Many of these type bridges can be seen in Devon, but they are also found in Snowdonia and Anglesey, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire.  These earliest known bridges are called clapper bridges from the Latin “claperius”, meaning “a pile of stones” and were built with long, thin slabs of stone to make a beam-type deck and with large rocks or block-like piles of stones for piers.  You can one over the River Leach at the top left of the collage.  In fact, as we walked over this clapper bridge, we remembered the last time we had been in Eastleach, we had seen a wedding party walking across it and having their photographs taken - at the time we said it looked rather precarious because the bridge isn't that wide!

We then walked back along the road, having crossed the clapper bridge, and happened to see the young couple, who had been playing the game.  They were in their early twenties, so I asked if they had enjoyed their game of Poohsticks - they looked at one another and giggled and said they had then the young man said he had won, but the lady then said that hers had been sabotaged, so we told them we had heard her say that!  We asked if they were local but they said they weren’t but lived in London and had come for a weekend and were really enjoying the Cotswolds.  If you closely at the bottom left photograph, you will see them both on the bridge, with the young lady looking over and the young man raising his arms in triumph!  

In the same photograph, you will also notice Mr. HCB - minus his hat because he forgot it - with a bag adorned by a large pink bow.  I took the bow just in case I didn’t find anything pink today and as you know it is Pinktober so every photograph has to have something pink.  However, I did spy some pink campion wildflowers on a Cotswold stone wall, so they take pride of place in the middle photograph.  

Please remember to click on this link so that those who are unable to pay for a mammogram can have a free one.  Thank you.  

There are also more photographs of the beautiful trees, wearing their autumn garb, some wonderful topiary in a garden next to the river and a shot of a horse having a drink.  The middle left photograph shows a clock tower built at the end of a row of almshouses in 1871, which looks quite strange because it stands so tall above the almshouses.  

We had a lovely time in this Cotswold village, which will bring back a lovely memory for us in the coming winter months and when we got home, it was good to see our older son, Martyn, and his wife, Dawn, on their return from holiday, so all in all a great afternoon. 

“Keep something beautiful
     in your heart
          to survive difficult times
               and enjoy good times.”
John O’Donohue : Anam Cara - A Book of Celtic Wisdom