Baxter’s Field: A Beggar’s Curse
A piece of parchment flew through an open window of the bus today and landed on my lap. It was entitled A Beggar’s Curse – I have tried to make a transcription. If you build on Baxter’s Field, Gainey’s Well will lift the water table, Peasants will harrow your...
Inundation: Past, Present, Future
Dunwich We biked to Dunwich through reeds and windmill creeks, That led through sluice and weir flatlands To a shingle-scape of submerged churches: Drowned Domesday town Where All Saints, Greyfriars, the harbour, Merchants’ houses, quays, wharves, inns, Ale...
The Rodborough Fields Beggar’s Curse Suspended
If you build on this field, Springs will o’er-turn your water table, Peasants will harrow your dreams, Cut ridges in your anxious brow. If you build upon this field, Weavers will riot in the night, Stretch nightmares on tenterhooks, Turn your eyes Stroud Scarlet. If...
Steve Kelly: Rodborough Memories
Steve Kelly I remember how you loved the Boulevards, The spring-green trees, the shade of summer, The array of autumn and the tracery of winter; I remember how you loved to chat, Out there in the front garden, Pleased as Punch with all your building work; I remember...
Minchinhampton Common
Up a Holloway to Minchinhampton Common A combination of a talk about the Common at the Subscription Rooms and a read of Robert Macfarlane’s book, “Holloway”, led to my cycling over Rodborough and Minchinhampton Commons in late May. There was a fine, soft rain,...
LS Lowry and the Local Landscape
Let’s be honest, Manchester and the Stroud Valleys seem to be about as similar as chalk and cheese, or cotton and wool. When you gaze at a typical Lowry picture, all lean hunched figures and all tall lean factory chimneys, then the green fields and unpolluted rivers...