A HORSE’S tail flicks above the wall of Minchinhampton Common as the car crawls by in the evening sun, the speed restriction of 30mph leaving the evening grazing uninterrupted. My windows are down and, at this quiet pace, the sounds of the sheep and chickens hidden behind the walls of the common escape over the top, as if to emphasise their agricultural necessity.
Driving the Cotswolds is one of the greatest pleasures of the English countryside because, sitting silently in among the hills and towns, the villages and views, a constant source of outstanding beauty is keeping me company—4,000 miles of dry-stone walls. They may date back to the Stone Age, but it was the farmers of the 18th and 19th centuries who used the area’s abundance of natural material to build the walls we see today.
Minchinhampton’s hilltop common sets the scene for the landscape of the high Cotswolds; a quiet town of mellow, blonde stone leading out onto a vast grassland with views over the surrounding valleys. The stone journeys in colour from white gold to dappled ashen brown, some pieces fat and ragged, others inch-thin and sleek to touch. The farm walls on the common are finished in cock-and-hen style, with stones placed vertically on top, whereas garden walls often have flat stone finishes or even smooth cement caps.
Minchinhampton’s church rises across the far side of the common, a far-away continuation of the walls. In the shade of the trees and walls, a donkey is enjoying being petted by a family out for a stroll. As the common widens, traffic jams pile up as cows amble leisurely into the road, crossing to the literally greener grass on the other side. For the animals lucky enough to graze this part, the walls act only as a reassuring presence in the distance, never as a confinement; the barriers are neither tall nor strong enough to stop even the laziest escapee. These walls are the darkest grey of weathered stone.
Denne historien er fra July 01, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra July 01, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
