rudloescene.co.uk - Walks in the Time of Covid l

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.

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We should (should!) be nearing the end of 'Walks in the Time of Covid' now. This stroll on 1st May 2021 to Lower Rudloe, Box Hill and Box ended at the Queens for my first pub experience since I-don't-know-when. My luck was in as the rain started just as I reached the pub. Title photograph is, of course, of Rudloe Manor and hornbeams with their spring colour.

The 'original' iron fencing at Leafy Lane Wood is, it seems, being replaced by the new owners (Bewleys). Notwithstanding the damage caused by falling trees etc, tis a pity as this fencing is quite substantial and is more typical of northern counties.

Even here, at the margin of the woodland, there are (or were!) unusual plants. Unfortunately and typically, workers have not been made aware of the three-cornered garlic that grew here and it has been 'grubbed out' (see gallery of last Covid walk).

Probably a turkeytail fungus (Trametes versicolor) on a fallen trunk in Leafy Lane Wood

'New' maple leaves on the old, iron fence in Leafy Lane

'Someone' (one of the nearby homeowners?) has been dumping grass cuttings along the Leafy Lane side of the The Coach House wall, on top of wild plants/flowers. The scale of the dumping indicates that 'they' should have room for a compost heap!

The Maidments must be the only farmers in Wiltshire (and elsewhere) that don't support the Tories

'That' junction again (old A4 and new A4 routes - see last Covid walk) with bright spring growth

Emerging maple leaves in the grounds of 'Rudloe Cottage' at the southern ('top') end of Lower Rudloe Lane. Rudloe Cottage is the former home of Albert Sylvester, Lloyd George's principal, private secretary (see G Carosi's Corsham Revealed More).

Substantial beech in the grounds of Rudloe Cottage, Lower Rudloe Lane

Woodland in the area of (Box Hill) hillside above Lower Rudloe Farm

Beeches in the grounds of Rudloe Manor

Beech and gatepost at Rudloe Manor

View, from Rudloe Manor, across the By Brook Valley to Bannerdown

Maidment's cows twixt Lower Rudloe Farm and Folly Farm

A substantial area, on the hillside above Lower Rudloe Farm, has been cleared and laid to gravel for ... (answers on a postcard please)

Asarum europaeum (aka European wild ginger, hazelwort etc) in 'the other' Lower Rudloe Lane (the bank of this sunken lane is replete with all kinds of wild flowers - see gallery below)

The A4 at right, speed limit 50 mph; single-track Lower Rudloe Lane at left, speed limit 60 mph. What a crazy world we're living in.

View from Beech Road towards the brow of Box Hill with Maidment's field and 'The Cottage' and its substantial garden beyond

In Beech Road

The chimney of Allwood with spring growth on A4 trees beyond

New maple leaves in Beech Road

Bluebells in Beech Road, local window factory below

'Greenacres', a new prefab in Beech Road with a nod to Frank Lloyd Wright by the look of it. Remember the 60s, American comedy Green Acres with Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor?