A wonderful morning walk around Stancombe farm

I'd arranged to have our car serviced today which entailed driving up the hill and on to Bisley, where there is an excellent garage run by Roger, an old friend, and adjacent to his other business, 'The Green shop'. It might seem incongruous but the business approach is the same in both sectors, and their buildings are constructed using the the principles they are advocating. I had a long talk with Roger about the issues which I have been involved with recently with the town council, and Roger is in a similar position within the Bisley Parish council.

I left the car to be worked on and went for a walk with my camera in the direction of the Stancombe Beech farm shop. I decided to circle around the farm land rather than try to cross the extremely muddy fields, and used footpaths which I hadn't walked along before. It meant that I could see views across the farm and the overall landscape in every direction. The farm is run by Ashley and his brothers and sister who all take on specific and varied roles. Their father is now retired but had brought the farm back to life after the 2nd World War and created a well known business producing and selling excellent local honey.

I looked over the freshly ploughed fields and noticed the acres of broad beans and potatoes already growing well. I took a lot of pictures which I've added to my Flickr gallery here. There are pictures of views north, south, east and west including the old footpath called the Wysis Way, which was rather overgrown. I saw large bees, butterflies, flying insects of all types, spiders with egg pouches amongst the foliage, budding trees, cow parsley galore and numerous spring flowers associated with hedgerows and woodlands. A buzzard flew out of a copse and circled slowly upwards until it was high in the sky. A crow in the long pasture of one field was busy in the middle of the field. When it saw me it took off and from the picture I took I could see that it was carrying away in its mouth the remains of a bird with very long legs, probably the young of some sort of field bird such as a partridge or even pheasant. I heard skylarks high above me, saw sparrows, robins, blackbirds and pigeons, and heard a lot of birds singing that didn't come into view.

It felt so good to be out in the sunny countryside as it was beginning to spring to life. I remembered Ashley having told me of his interest in archaeological finds, partly prompted by working in the fields where there were a lot of ancient remains to be found. He said that immediately after ploughing the first rains wash away the mud and earth on stones and other material so that you cans see possible remains very easily. As I walked beside the recently turned red earth where the potatoes had been earthed up, I spotted what looked like a shaped hand stone for cutting with. I quickly grabbed it from the top of the ridge and pocketed it, knowing I was likely to see Ashley once I reached the farmyard and their shop.

I followed the Wysis way towards the road leading to the farm shop and came across the place where a patch of Cotswold stone wall was being repaired. I had noticed the work going on a few weeks ago but although the tools and even a hat and radio were sitting in place the site was empty, and I assumed a tea break was in force. At the farm shop I found Ashley and Sally, his sister, and had a quick chat before walking back to the garage, which was another quarter of a mile away. I showed Ashley my 'stone' find and he politely told me it was nothing of the sort. He then showed me the real thing, which his father had picked up two weeks ago in another field only fifty ty-yards away. It was a Bronze Age arrowhead in perfect condition and absolutely wonderful to behold. I asked him to put it in his palm so that I could photograph it, and that picture is also in the Flickr gallery. As he said, it had probably been lying in the soil since the person dropped it about 4000 years ago, and his father would be the first person to touch it again.

I eventually got the car and drove back to the farm shop to stock up with vegetables and some little seedlings, including some spinach beet, little gem lettuce and a courgette plant as well as some annual flowers and bags of good compost. Then as I set off to drive home, I spotted the stone waller had returned to work, so I parked and went to take some pictures of him at work. Adrian was very friendly and we chatted for a few minutes. He told me he grew up in Tetbury but now lived at Brimscombe, about a mile up the valley from our house. He was an engineer for a long time, but five years ago retrained to become a stone waller in order to be able to do what he loves and to work outside with traditional skills. He explained that he was patching the wall mostly and it wasn't how g=he would do it iof he was starting from scratch. The use of a concreted ridge on top of the wall is anathema! Check the gallery to see him and his work too.

My blip picture is of the particular part of the field where I photographed the sunflower crop they grew last summer, although that was taken from the opposite direction, and this later view too.