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.

While this webpage is entitled simply Middlehill - Jul 2021, it is in fact a pictorial record of Wiltshire Wildlife Trust's Himalayan balsam 'pull' in and around the By Brook on 29th July. Wiltshire Wildlife's Connor (in orange waders in the title picture) organised the pull. According to the RHS, 'Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) is a relative of the busy Lizzie, but reaches well over head height, and is a major weed problem, especially on riverbanks and waste land, but can also invade gardens. It grows rapidly and spreads quickly, smothering other vegetation as it goes'. Ironically though, it is a very attractive plant, the flowers of which produce large amounts of nectar attractive to numerous bee species. It also goes by other names: Indian balsam, jumping jack and policeman's helmet!

Himalayan balsam grows so readily and rapidly that surely we could make use of it as fuel. Instead of the current unsustainable and environmentally hostile fad of using wood pellets from American forests to burn in our power stations, could we not cultivate, harvest, dry and bundle Himalayan balsam (and its partner Japanese knotweed).