Welcome to the Rudloe and environs website.

Here you will find news, articles and photos of an area that straddles the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in north-west Wiltshire.

Contributions in the form of articles or photos are welcome. Even those with completely contrary views to mine!

Thanks to the website builder 1&1 and Rob Brown for the original idea.

Rudloescene now, in January 2014, has a sister, academic rather than anarchic, website about Box history here: http://www.boxpeopleandplaces.co.uk/

It contains thoroughly professional, well-researched articles about Box and its people.

Contact rudloescene through the 'Contact' page.

The 19th-century St Paul's church in Malmesbury Road, Chippenham on 9th November 2022. Wandering around the upper reaches of New Road in order to escape the retail nightmare of B&M, I drifted from the frying pan into the fire. I always try to strike up conversations with shop assistants, bar staff, waiters etc and have made many acquaintences in doing so. Eddie, Karolina and Dora of Kingsmead Kitchen, Slavo of Thoughtful Bread (now gone), Max (a polyglot) and Raul of Cafe Rouge. All in Bath of course - locally I would count Janet, Helen, Jessica and Mickey of Corsham Bookshop more as friends than acquaintences; then as a devout vegetarian, Toby and Rob (now gone) of Toby Haines Butcher's are 'strong' acquaintences. Tony at Green Ginger remains following Stuart and Nina's departure but all are (or were) good 'friends' as were Frances, Anna and Mike of Camomile Cafe (now gone thanks to Covid). But what is this all about? Strolling into a local shop by the name of Cousin Norman's, I enquired about the price of a cap with the inscription Make Chippenham Gert Lush Again which I thought quite pertinent. A sharp intake of breath indicated that I thought the price too high, on which the 'owner' (I would imagine) enquired how much I would want to pay (which was about half of her stated cost). She then informed me of how little profit margin there was at the high price. I then enquired (quite innocently I would say) as to how the business was doing. She then adopted a quite adversarial position (we know about 'road rage', well this appeared to be 'shop rage') and asked me how I was doing financially (she said she was firing my question back at me). I then tempered my 'position' and enquired about the future of all 'local' shops. With a face like thunder she rejoined "All local shops will be gone within two years" followed by a conspicuous silence. My parting shot was that I was only trying to make conversation - to which... further silence.