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.

This page features walks on the 14th and 15th April and concentrates on trees and flowers in the environs of Rudloe. The title photo is of a substantial goat willow just below the A4 on Drewett's Mill Lane.

Mentioned alsewhere but worth repeating, I have longed for a time of peace and quiet in the countryside. Tragic that it has come about through such circumstances but the two photographs below illustrate the new, if temporary, normality. However the empty roads have brought about further irresponsibility and risk-taking on the part of drivers - three examples follow. We were walking up the A4 in the area of the upper Beech Road entrance when a young man in a small saloon car came charging down Box Hill doing about 60mph and then, without slowing, plunged straight into the shadows of Beech Road. Anything (someone on horseback) or anybody (we had just emerged from there seconds before) could have been there, unseen by the driver. The second and third examples were seen on a single journey, by car, to Corsham (to collect a prescription) - on arriving at the roundhouse mini-roundabout, a car was about to enter the roundabout from Park Lane but had to wait for a car on the main road travelling west. I had enough time to proceed while the car waited but the car behind me didn't (have enough time) and followed me through, resulting in the waiting car having to brake sharply (and blast the horn). On the return journey, at the Hare & Hounds  mini-roundabout, a car was approaching the roundabout from the west and indicating right to go down Pickwick Road when a small, white, sporty saloon car came charging through from the east causing the right-turning vehicle to brake sharply (and blast the horn). And this on a short, 1.5-mile journey when peace and quiet reigns.