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.
26th April 2020 in the Time of Covid and 'we' set off on another perambulation around the lanes of north-west Wiltshire. A beautiful sunny Sunday in the sunniest April since records began. Is it climate change? The wettest February since records began, now the sunniest April - will we have the coldest June since records began?
Cow parsley in Bradford Road. Readers (s?) will know that this verge, where wild strawberries grew, was strimmed to within a millimetre of its life some years ago by an unknowing, unthinking council. Wild strawberries no more.
The new Redcliffe estate filling the designated (by Wiltshire Council, Corsham Town Council etc) 'strategic gap' between Corsham and outlying settlements. Clearly the call of "Mind the Gap" wasn't sufficiently assertive.
For my traversing of Skynet Drive (and possibly much longer), this ambulance was sat with its engine running. This was my first brush with the emergency services today and whilst not as dramatic as the second, it was equally mysterious.
New maple leaves in the Skynet Drive verge; cut miscanthus beyond
A gurt patch of ground ivy at the junction of Skynet Drive and Park Lane, the location of a lovely hornbeam which was cut down because it enabled people with nothing better to do to justify their existence (photos of hornbeam elsewhere)
Difficult to get the light right here. Maples on the northern boundary of Basil Hill with (overexposed) cow parsley opposite.
Poplar and sycamore at Hudswell (originally Hudd's Well)
A poplar of some sort along with a pine or spruce (of some sort) in the garden of what used to be called 'the CO's' house' (maybe it still is). The CO was (is?) the commanding officer (usually a half-colonel) of Basil Hill.
Forget-me-not in the garden of Pockeredge Farm, formerly (maybe still?) owned by a local vet whose sell-off of land enabled the building of Katherine Park. Did the proceeds enable a move to France (maybe someone out there knows).
Pockeredge lower lake with two types of poplar (possibly black and a hybrid) on the far bank
The new footbridge at the site of Corsham Station. This typical, brutalist monstrosity (see the Ladbrook Lane bridge later in today's pictures), built for promised electrification which never materialised, replaced the old, vernacular bridge.
Corsham Station's goods shed seen from The Cleeve side of the new footbridge
Little Lypiatt Farm in Rough Street is not so little
Rough Street is not so rough; it is a lovely country lane and provides one of the links between Neston and Corsham
Stitchwort in the Rough Street verge
Oak flowers on a Rough Street tree
Ridge Farm twixt Neston and The Ridge
The road twixt Neston and The Ridge (Brockleaze at the Neston end, maybe here too?)
Mister Oak in his ivy suit on the Neston-Ridge road
Gypsy gates with a peculiar bamboo screen at The Ridge
Felled and logged (ish) at The Ridge - look at the girth of that trunk (the bit with the hole in the middle) - this must have been a massive, old tree
Pond Close Farm at The Ridge ... available for rent at £6,500 per week in high summer, somewhat reduced at other times
"I hear the cottonwoods whisperin' above ...'. Poplar (cottonwood) seeds carpet the tarmac at The Ridge
An ash plantation (unusual!) at The Ridge
The old road, now gated, from The Ridge to Eastlays Quarry which is now a giant wine cellar for the rich and famous. Mine? Wine?
A Ridge bus stop (those were the days) with duck sign (this appears to be a local theme - see later) and lawnmower (whose?)
The pond at the Monks Lane/Neston Lane junction (perhaps the duck theme comes from this)
An inscription on a 'gatehouse' (perhaps) leading to Monk's Park/Monk's House - the latter is an enormous grade II listed country 'pile'. And the JTG? From British Listed Buildings - "Later C19 alterations for Hon. J.T. Goldney"
The view from Monk's Park, across Boyd's Farm at Chapel Knapp, to Oliver's Camp on the western escarpment of the Marlborough Downs
The rear of the grade II listed Monk's House - an enormous country pile
The gate pillars of Monk's Park and House, and other substantial properties, give no indication of what lies beyond
Dry stone wall and emerging horse chestnut leaves in Monks Lane
Lilac and wisteria in Monks Lane
From the sublime (previous pic) to the ridiculous. Full boxes of Mr Brain's pork faggots dumped in the Monks Lane verge. So all those little piggies were reared and slaughtered for nothing (in fact, to despoil the environment).
The old Seven Stars Inn (see the plaque) on the Corsham-Melksham road at the Monks Lane junction
Crossing Lad Brook in Ladbrook Lane
The new Ladbrook Lane railway bridge - another bloody monstrosity which replaced an old, vernacular bridge. This age will be remembered as one of architectural barbarism.
A quiet corner in the old part of Corsham Cemetery. A simple, wooden cross seems more fitting than many over-elaborate structures.
An extension (pre-Covid) under construction to the west of the existing cemetery site
The northern end of the new cemetery extension
Now we've crossed from the cemetery to Corsham Park where ...
... we encountered Freddie Ljungberg now in isolation in Corsham. He kindly agreed to have this photo taken.
Cow parsley in the south lime avenue of Corsham Court
Corsham's Martingate Precinct now seems in a sorry state with relocations, along with short-term and long-term closures
A quiet Newlands Road on Sunday 26th April 2020
London plane, horse chestnut and lime on Corsham's 'Rec' on Sunday 26th April 2020
And a quiet Pickwick Road
Covid NHS rainbow on the wall of a Pickwick Road house
And a quiet A4 in Pickwick
Alkanet in the Bradford Road close to Rudloe (I've never seen it as prolific - perhaps the weather of lack of pollution?)
Shared ownership available with Russian spies who will use the homes on the southern side of Bellway's Dickens Gate greenfield development to gather information on the adjacent British Aerospace Airbus establishment
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