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.

'Cliff and Chasm', a former HMS Royal Arthur training site, on the massive spoil heap created by the extraction of stone rubble to create space for the BAC factory underground at Spring Quarry during the war. The spoil heap was known as 'Paddy's Hill' as ten-thousand Irishmen had been recruited for the extraction of two-million tons of stone.

1st October 2024 - the planning application designated  PL/2024/05527 for another data centre on the Donkey Field (adding to the existing five with another in the pipeline on the Stephen's Plastics site) is discussed at length in the 'News, Westwells/Neston, Donkey Field development' webpage here: Donkey Field development. Following the felling of a number of healthy, mature trees* by the owner in the woodland bordering Rowan Lane, Natalie Williams and yours truly itemized the (remaining) trees around the perimiter of the field on 30th September 2024. Photos were also taken of many of the trees; the results may be seen in the galleries below.

*This felling is a precursor to the planning application. The trees were covered by a TPO shown in the .pdf file below. Health and safety reasons were given as the reason for the removal of the six, supposedly diseased, ash trees adjacent to Rowan Lane. But actually, one can imagine that there are possibly two or three reasons for the felling. The first may be that the owner is preparing the ground (pardon the pun) for a right-of way to replace those being lost on the Donkey Field through the proposed development. The second may be the 'excuse' of ash disease (our foremost tree expert/pathologist, Oliver Rackham (1939-2015) said the following: "DEFRA produced a lengthy report on Ash Disease. Their science-based advice amounts to 'do nothing'. For once I agree.", "Chalara does not always (or usually?) kill the tree. Finnish and Czech scholars show infected ashes getting better as well as worse from year to year. In May 2012, I was on the Estonian island of Saaremaa where disease had been present for many years. More than half the ash trees showed symptoms but not many were dead", "I understand that there are many left alive in Poland after at least 22 years"). The third may be the fear of litigation if a tree should fall. But let's take Leafy Lane Wood as an example here. There are a number of ash trees in the wood but three substantial, mature trees have fallen in the wood over the past seven years - all of them apparently healthy beech. As FDR once famously said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself".

Trees bordering Rowan Lane

Trees bordering Westwells Road

Views across the Donkey Field

Trees along the Cinder Path

Google images of the woodland along Rowan Lane before tree removal

Jaggards Lane winter. I have just (Jul 2014) found the YouTube video below, by Marina Graham, which records a journey in January 2010 from Jaggards Lane to the junction of Ladbrook Lane and Lacock Road.

There are many photos of the derelict HMS Royal Arthur in the Westwells images gallery but the following 'portfolio' of images by John Grech found on YouTube contains many excellent pictures as does Stefan Barbaruk's gallery directly below..

And here, in the gallery below, are photos taken by Stefan Barbaruk who used to live at the displaced person's hostel adjacent to the Royal Arthur site after the war:

Westwells images. Click on image to enlarge and view caption

The following pictures were taken on or around the 'spoil heap' created from the waste stone extracted from Spring Quarry during WWII and later used as a training area, known as 'Cliff and Chasm' for the Petty Officers' Training School, HMS Royal Arthur. The spoil heap is also known as 'Paddy's Hill' as ten-thousand Irishmen were recruited by the McAlpine company to clear two-million tons of stone from the quarry.

On the north side of the heap, at the Spring Quarry site (now Spring Park), are the buildings of Ark Data with three substantial data centres already operational and two more planned (January 2015) - see: http://www.arkdatacentres.co.uk/the-arks/spring-park/. Ark Data's directors include Baroness Lydia Manningham Buller LG DCB, a former director general of MI5. The directors (nine in all) hold, between them, 427 active directorships of various companies; one Andrew Pettit is a director of 197 companies (how/why - answers on a postcard please ..)! I have a problem directing a life involving a wife, house and a couple of cars (not forgetting children/grandchildren) - never mind 197 companies.

Maybe time for a 2015 motto - "if you want something done, ask a busy person".

Time for an update (June 2016) ... Mr Pettit is now a director of only 147 companies having resigned directorships in a further 229. He, along with Jeffrey Thomas (21 current, 19 resigned directorships) are directors of both Ark Data and Hartham Park. A little local empire building.

The photographs below were taken by Steve and Karen Munday at a Royal Arthur summer event in 1986 (?). 'We' (the Turner family) were there too but neither family can be sure of the year or the reason for the event.