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.
27th February 2021 - a Saturday and a harbinger of spring perhaps with the sunshine and the throng in Corsham Park. On entering the park from the South Avenue, being a nerd of the first order, I counted the number of people in view - fifty-four. But this, of course, wasn't the end of it as I couldn't see people by the lake or in the 'north field' beyond the fence/gate (shown in the title picture). Is the throng the result of the fine weather, Covid exercise or the overdevelopment of this small Cotswold town? There comes a time when a walk in the country loses its wonder (of being 'at one' with nature) if the High Street multitude shifts to the country, and that certainly was the case here.
Beyond the throng, looking west across the ditch (don't you just love ditches) towards the North Avenue and Withy Bed
We cross the Dry Arch into the northern section of the park (Repton's North Park)
But now we encounter a throng coming the other way (the Chippenham throng?) whose vehicles we may see parked in Easton Lane
The horse chestnut at the foot of Chequers Hill has lost a substantial limb (see the debris to the right of the tree). Compare this shot with that of the tree and its neighbouring lime at Localities/Corsham/Corsham Park - Nov 2018
One of the vehicles parked in Easton Lane. From a distance, I thought that paint had flaked off but it's a black world. Black Worlds Matter (apparently).
The vehicle throng in Easton Lane at the foot of Chequers Hill - numbers have increased significantly in recent months/years
The now empty Methuen Estate cottage on the former London-Bath coaching road (right of way CORM122) at Chequers. The cottage was formerly occupied by a tutor at Bath Spa University, Corsham Court.
A closer look at the Chequers cottage on the old London-Bath coaching road
The view north from beyond the cottage with the A4, in the dip, dissecting Methuen Estate lands. Most of the land to the north and east of Corsham is Methuen-owned. Most of the land to the south and west, Fuller-owned. Feudal Britain lives on.
In the old London-Bath coaching road (right of way CORM122) heading for Chippenham across the A350 and on to right of way CHIP108. Crossing the A350 is far easier/better than taking the tortuous extension of CORM122 to Easton Lane.
Cassandra? Me? Surely this queueing onto the McDonald's (formerly Chequers) roundabout for McCrappys is going to lead to an accident? Drivers heading south on the A350 should not unexpectedly find themselves in a queue for burgers.
And now, on the other side of the roundabout we find the groundwork for the new KFC entrance. Looks like we will have queues for 'fast' food onto and beyond the roundabout ... and more litter of course.
The nascent exit from the new KFC. The New British, American-owned Jerusalem will see clients exiting onto this already-busy roundabout eating buckets of factory-farmed, water-, hormone- and antibiotic-injected chicken. Taking back control?
A couple of potential, local clients for the New British Jerusalem
More Methuen land up for grabs to the detriment of the environment. The current narrative of protecting the environment, saving woodland, producing organically, eating less meat etc is lost in the world of growth at all costs.
And talking of "growth at all costs" (last picture), just this week, approval has finally been given for SouthPoint Business Park (planning application 20/02511/REM) which is just south of here between the A350 and the B4528 (Patterdown-Lacock). This is 43.5 acres of farmland lost at Showell Farm with an over-the-table £5.3 million going to the (former) landowner. Strange that no matter the plot size (10 acres at Rudloe (Bellway), 30 acres at Bradford Road (Redcliffe) or here, 43.5 acres), the over-the-table price is always in the region of £5 million. Anyway, just locally, with these and all the other greenfield (farmland) developments, we are talking hundreds of acres lost. And can you hear the future cry ... 'but we haven't got enough farmland to grow the food we need'.
Pudding Brook runs through the KFC development and the putative, new developments - don't you just love brooks
You saw it first here folks - this season's blackthorn blossom on the banks of Pudding Brook
Looking back whence we came, down the old coaching road in the direction of Chequers
Behind the new KFC we find the entrance to right of way CHIP108 which leads, eventually, to Easton Lane (Chippenham end)
Emerging from right of way CHIP108 onto Methuen Park (road) by the entrance to M&S and TK Maxx
Beyond Methuen Park (road) the right of way (which I did not take) leads to Easton Lane thence Saltersford
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