View down the Brimscombe valley below Walls Quarry

I drove down the Brimscombe Road and on a whim parked on the narrow verge. I thought I'd try to look out over the valley I was driving down as it always fascinates me. The combe is very steep at the top and there are some fine perched houses on the far side of the valley leading up to Swells Hill and Bownham Common.

I got into conversation with home owner who told me some interesting history about Walls Quarry which is situated behind me on the other side of the road from where i took this photo. I’ve added an ‘Extra’ of the quarry face which you can just see behind the buildings. Originally the only house was a two up-two-down stone cottage which is down at the far end of the quarry. He bought the whole section of this quarried hillside and the cottage from two 80 year old spinsters who had been born and lived there all their lives. He then built the next house up about thirty years ago and converted some of the old industrial buildings above his new house, the ones nearest the camera.

In the quarry there are varied layers of limestone strata, each of which were used for differing purposes, some for building stone, others for rough stone walls for fields etc, and other for turning into lime. 

The other ‘Extra’ picture is from a hundred yards higher up the road’s footpath, also looking back down to the village of Brimscombe in the main Golden Valley, and with Stroud in the far left. From my desk here I can just see these buildings and the trees below the edge of the common above.