Monday – Wigmore – The first day of meteorological autumn and it certainly feels like it. Thick clouds overhead and a strong breeze the temperature is 15°C but feels much less with the wind chill. Across the road is Plough Farmhouse, the barns all converted into dwellings and a holiday home park. Next to it is The Castle pub, although this is not indicated as a pub on the old OS maps. A public footpath leads down onto Wigmore Lake. There is no longer a lake here. The River Teme flowed through here and on through Amestrey gap before joining the River Lugg. During the Devensian Ice Age, a wall of ice blocked the gap, forming the lake and diverting the Teme through Downton Gorge, its present course. The Romans ran a road, Watling Street, through here, that from Lientwardine (Bravonium) to Kenchester (Magnis). The area was drained by farmers over the last three centuries.
A run of chickens watch my passing. Small gardens have a fruit cage with sweet corn and tall purple kale and a greenhouse with a fine crop of tomatoes. The footpath seems strange as it seems to be passing through someone’s garden. Beyond is a large apple orchard. At the foot of the gardens there is no way out so I return up and see a gate with a small notice stating that the footpath has been moved by statutory order. Unfortunately the Ordnance Survey map has failed to record this. The sign says follow the way markers.
Through the gate and one notices an absence of way markers. A track runs between holiday homes and eventually at the bottom there is a sign stating that this indeed is the public right of way. A stile leads into a field of sheep, many with purple backs where the marking paint has run. At the foot of the field is another stile which is getting overgrown and pretty difficult to cross onto a wooden bridge and then out into a large open field. The footpath is barely discernible and in other places completely ploughed out. On the other side of the fence is a long hedge of Blackthorn and like many other Blackthorns this year heavy with sloes. Ahead is a hill dark with a conifer plantation, Gatley Long Coppice, and further along the great sweep of Croft Ambrey, with the hill-fort looking out over this area. The path crosses the point where the Roman road ran but there is nothing to see here.
Over another tricky stile, across a bridge and through a gate onto a rough meadow. A stream, one of many marked as Wigmore Lake, forms a small horseshoe shaped pool, almost like a moat. This is part of Parky Meadow Nature Reserve. A seat is by the edge of the meadow. Plastic tubes hold newly planted saplings. A Robin sings and a Goldfinch twitters.
Back along the field edge. A flock of Linnets chatter high in Ash trees. A Common Buzzard and a Red Kite fly over the sheep field. Nuthatches call from trees around the edge of the field. A large old outhouse stands behind the Castle pub. Calls of young Swallows come from nests almost hidden under the guttering.
Tuesday – Cheltenham – Off to Cheltenham for the annual car service. The drive most of the way is not much fun as the sun is blazing through the windscreen. Mist hangs over woodlands and clouds over the Malvern Hills. It looks like autumn. From the car dealers I head off along the Tewkesbury Road. Just past the old gas works, now a supermarket, steps lead up onto a wide path, the former GWR Cheltenham and Honeybourne railway line, into the city. A line of feral pigeons sit on the edge of a multi-storey building. A steel tubular bridge carries the path over a major junction and the River Chelt, under St George’s Road before following the route of the former GWR Cheltenham railway line. A Jay screeches in a tree. I cross the road and down onto a path on the old railway. The line once terminated here at St James’s Square Station. A large supermarket and tall new glass blocks stand on the site. Seats are made of blocks of wood and railway rails. The River Chelt flows past and into a tunnel. It emerges and runs along the foot of the gardens of large Georgian houses. It passes under the road and then behind Victorian houses which have bridges from their gardens to the pathway. It then goes underground again. Into Royal Well Place which comes to Royal Well Road which passes Royal Crescent. A Unitarian chapel is now an auction house. Another chapel opposite has disappeared and the small block is now a car park. Beyond is the Ladies College.
Along Montpellier Road then round to Montpellier Walk, which parallels it. The shops are all high end clothes and jewellery, several barbers and hair dressers and cafes. The shop fronts have statues of Grecian women at each side. At the end of the street is a hexagonal Victorian pillar box. On Montpellier Arcade is a traditional shoe repair shop. There are brightly painted life sized lions scattered around the streets.
Past the huge Queen’s Hotel and along The Promenade. The Imperial Gardens have brightly coloured flower beds. Sir Edward Elgar conducts from the middle of a water feature. The Town Hall backs onto the gardens.
Thursday – Leominster – The weather over the last few days has been characterised by occasional sunny spells and a few torrential downpours. The heavy rain clouds seem to be heading east and blue sky coming from the west. The water level in the River Lugg has risen a few more inches. A Dipper is wading in the middle of the river upstream of Butts Bridge.
Apples continue to fall in the orchard. The water level in the River Kenwater also seems to have risen a little. Into the churchyard. Yew trees have a good number of scarlet berries. The Beech trees along the edge of the wall between the green behind the east ends of the Minster and the churchyard seem to have no mast at all, which seems odd given the fecundity of pretty much every tree and bush this year.
Home – The greengages are finally coming to an end. There are still plenty of plums but I will need to get some steps to reach many of them. The Coxes Orange Pippin apples are nearly ready to crop. I am still having trouble with the water harvesting off the chicken run. I have discovered araldite does not adhere to some smooth plastics. I redo it all and hopefully things will work now.
Sunday – Leominster – A grey cloudy morning with a blustery breeze. It feels completely autumnal now, the leaves are the beginning to turn and there is a coolness in the air. By the time I reach Butts Bridge the sky has darkened and the wind picked up. The water level in the River Lugg has not risen any further since the beginning of the week.
The market is small, barely a dozen vendors. It seems unlikely that anyone will stay for long. The swarm of Pond Skaters are still active on the River Lugg just beyond Ridgemoor Bridge. A Common Buzzard flies over the town centre sending up flocks of feral pigeons.
A thunderstorm rolls through in the late morning. Down to the Millennium orchard with the strimmer. A group of us mow the grasses and dead umbellifers. A lot of apples are now falling.
In the evening there is an eclipse of the moon. We miss most of it, just catching a dark smudge on the upper right of its disc. I go up to the chicken house and throw the Rhode Rock off the nest where she has been defecating with some gusto and messing the eggs.
Monday – Leominster – Down to the Millennium orchard to collect some of the apples I saw yesterday. Two sacks of Tom Putt and one each of Dymock Red and Bloxwood Foxwelp.
By mid-afternoon the sky is turning dark. The lightning app is recording strikes this side of Malvern. However, there is only a brief spell of light rain, then the sun shines. It is pretty much an impossibility to determine the number of House Sparrows in the large Laurel by the shed. There is much twittering but individuals just appear at the feeder, grab a seed and disappear back into the dense foliage. Blue Tits come from the opposite direction and likewise grab a seed and return up into the mixture of Elder, Yew Ash and roses.
Thursday – Durham – We have both been to this city at different times in the past but neither of us have visited the cathedral. We are staying in the west side of the city in The Avenue, developed in the 1870s by John Forster including The Tower, now the hotel, built for himself. Directly to the north of the house is the site of the Battle of Neville’s Cross between the English and the Scots under King David II who was commanded by the French, who had just been resoundingly beaten at the Battle of Crécy, to invade England under the terms of the “Auld Alliance”. It was another resounding defeat with King David being captured and imprisoned.
Down the hill towards the centre. Colpitts Terrace dates from 1856. A wonderful viaduct takes the East Coast Mainline towards the station. It was built between 1854 and 1857 for the North Eastern Railway (NER) to the design of Thomas Elliot Harrison, the NER’s chief engineer and built by Richard Cail, a local contractor. On down the hill and into North Road where the former Miners’ Hall, dated 1875, looks rather forlorn. On to the River Wear and across by Framwellgate Bridge, an early 16th century replacement for early 12th century bridge. It was widened in the early 19th century.
Into Silver Street. Steps climb the hill through a narrow passage. These were a pilgrim route to the cathedral however it does not reach the cathedral and drops back to Silver Street. Moatside Lane leads up to Palace Green between Durham castle and cathedral. Into the cathedral.
The cathedral is the seat of the bishop of Durham and is the mother church of the diocese of Durham. It contains the shrines of the Anglo-Saxon saints Cuthbert and Bede. The present building was substantially completed between 1093 and 1133, replacing the Anglo-Saxon White Church. The present cathedral was designed and built under William de St-Calais (also known as William of St Carilef). In 1083 he founded the Benedictine Priory of St Cuthbert at Durham and having ejected the secular canons (and their wives and children) who had been in charge of the church and shrine of St Cuthbert there, replaced them with monks from the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow. The Galilee chapel was added to the west end of the cathedral in the 1170s, and the western towers built in approximately 1200. The east end, the chapel of Nine Altars and a rose window, currently closed off, was expanded in the Early English Gothic style in the 1230, and the Perpendicular Gothic central tower was built in two stages in the 16th century. A replica of a Sanctuary Knocker is on the door. Like all major religious centres, it is busy which does little for the ambience. The marble font dates from 1663. Above it is a wonderfully carved wooden cover standing some 40 feet high. There are fewer tombs than in many similar cathedrals, apparently so they did not distract from the tombs of St Bede and St Cuthbert. Two tombs are of the Nevilles with badly damaged effigies. The reredos is a large intricately carved screen in Caen stone, a gift John Neville, completed in 1380. The organ was built by Henry Willis in 1876 and is richly decorated. There are a number of windows of fine modern glass. The monks’ dormitory and the great kitchen are museums, including a display of Magna Cartas, one of only four original copies of the 1215 version and copies of the 1225 Forest versions.
Back down Silver Street to the Market Place where someone is singing loudly into a microphone with a backing track. Across the place is the Town Hall and the Guildhall of 1665, with 18th century alterations. The 1851 Town hall and front range is by P C Hardwick. Nearby at the top of the Market Place is the church of St Nicholas built in 1857-8 by J P Pritchett. The buildings around the Market Place are mainly mid 19th century. The statue of the Third Marquess of Londonderry, 1858, made to the designs of Raffaelle Monti stands in the open square. Back over the river and up Crossgate where we find a fine pub, The Holy Grale!
Friday – Finchale Priory – North of Durham is Framwellgate Moor and on a large bend in the River Wear is Finchale Priory. Beside the lane leading to the site is a former ammunition site with a large number of earth covered bunkers. The priory was founded in 1196 on the site of the hermitage of St Godric, a retired sailor and merchant, who settled here after a life of adventure and travel. The priory was an outpost of Durham Cathedral and functioned as a holiday retreat for the monks of Durham until its suppression in 1538.In 1196 it was granted to Hugh Puiset, son of Bishop le Puiset, in return for the closing of his Augustinian Canons’ foundation, (a daughter house of Guisborough) called New Place on the River Browney. He then granted Finchale to the Durham house, and at the same time granted to the Prior and Convent of Durham the right to elect the Prior of Finchale. The monastic complex was built in the latter half of the 13th century, with alterations and additions continuing for the following three hundred years. There are many excellent examples of heavily decorated capitals on the original arcade columns, tracery in the filled-in nave arches of the church, and on the south wall is a double piscina and two carved seats of the sedilia. The buildings are quite extensive given the damage over the years since Dissolution in 1537 and some destruction caused by those wanting to make it more “Picturesque”.
The water level in the River Wear is low exposing large areas of sandstone of the Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation, sedimentary bedrock formed between 318 and 309.5 million years ago during the Carboniferous period. A Little Egret, a Mute Swan, several Mallard and Grey Wagtail are on and by the water. It is a beautiful place with the river flowing past a high wooded bank and farmland.
Monday – Home – Yesterday I collected another four sacks of cider apples, a mixture of Herefordshire Red Streak, Broxwood Foxwelp, Dymock Red and a few Tom Putt. Today is spent crushing and pressing them, resulting in nearly six gallons of juice.
It seems that the Rhode Rock hen has gone broody and refuses to leave the nest. I remove her a couple of times. She drinks a lot of water then returns to the nest. Unfortunately the other two layers only use the nest she is occupying. I might try putting straw and a dummy egg in the other one and see what happens.
Tuesday – Home – White and grey clouds drift across the sky resulting in intermittent sunshine. Yesterday’s gales have diminished the wind getting lighter during the day and is now a breeze. The greengage is pruned and the rotting fruit on the path is cleared away. Several large courgettes are harvested. The grape harvest results in nearly a kilogram of fruit which is boiled, mashed and put through a jelly bag.
Leominster – A Manchester bound train being pushed by Class 87 diesel locomotive departs from the station and shortly after a Wales bound train, this being being pulled by a diesel locomotive arrives. The recent rain has caused the River Lugg to rise although the level is still low.
Through Pinsley Mill. The track-side Willowherbs and thistles are now all casting their fluffy seed into the wind. Into the Millennium orchard. I cast an eye over the cider apple trees. Genet Moyle, Dabinett and Lady’s Fingers are all holding onto their apples still despite yesterday’s gales. I think I will wait a couple of weeks before collecting any more.
Into the churchyard. For some reason flies are annoying at the foot of the graveyard. A Grey Squirrel sits on the gravestone with an acorn in its mouth.
Home – Despite there being no egg in the left-hand nest, the Rhode Rock is not fooled by the rubber egg and moves back in her favoured position. The Silver Rock is likewise disinterested in the right-hand nest with its fake egg and has somehow squeezed in beside Rocky and laid her egg.
Wednesday – Home – The grape jelly is made. It has set very well. It still seems a bit of a mystery why some jam and jellies set and other do not. The “meadow ” is strimmed. One of the hens has now decided to use the empty nest box which makes things easier! Conkers are now falling in larger and larger numbers from the great Horse Chestnut.
Sunday – Leominster – Grey clouds with ripples of white drift slowly eastwards. Weather warnings were issued for heavy rain but we had just a few heavy showers. A Robin sings behind the houses on the street. Down to the river to the sound of more Robin song, a Chiffchaff wheeping and Rooks cawing. The water level in the River Lugg continues to slowly rise. I have decided not to visit the market this morning partly because the weather will have put most traders off and secondly my back is not good at the moment so I am not keen to walk too far. A Carrion Crow barks from one of the Black Poplars.
Back over the railway bridge. A Magpie squawks from the track-side trees. A young but full-sized Wood Pigeon flaps and harasses an adult. Along the ginnell where a Dunnock disappears under the hedge.
Into the Millennium orchard. Herefordshire Redstreaks and Beeflings cover the ground under the trees in large numbers. Most of the Tom Putt have fallen now. Only a few Genet Moyle, Lady’s Fingers and hardly any Dabinett are down. Another branch of the willow by the Millennium stone circle has fallen. A Chiffchaff calls. A Little Egret flies over. Into the Peace Garden. A pair of Grey Squirrels dart up a tree. A Small-leafed Lime has numerous winged seeds. The water level in the River Kenwater has also risen a little.
Into the churchyard. A large clump of flowering Ivy emits its cloying scent. More Robins sing in the trees.
Tuesday – Leominster – A cool day that started only a little above freezing. White clouds drift across a blue sky. Jackdaws chack on the rooftops. Along the ginnel to the railway bridge. The smell of fried food comes from the White Lion. A Red Admiral butterfly feeds on Ivy flowers. A Robin sings in the riverside trees. Rabbits are below on the edge of the woodland. A Dipper tweets from a stone upstream from Butts Bridge. Someone is fishing downstream.
A northbound train, a driving van trailer (DVT) 82216, painted with Hope House, hospices in the Marches, driven by 87 022, named “Cock of the North”. The powerless DVT resembles a locomotive on purpose so when a “push-pull” train is operating in “push” mode it does not appear to be travelling backwards. Back along the ginnel. A Comma butterfly and bees, probably Gooden’s Nomad Bee Nomada goodeniana, a Cuckoo Bee, are now on the Ivy. Another southbound diesel towed train passes. A small flock of Jackdaws circle high above the Minster before drifting off westwards. Into the orchard. Herefordshire Redstreak apples are falling as I pass.
Into the churchyard. A Grey Squirrel is repeating its strangled cry from a dray of sticks in a Small-leaved Lime. Another is responding from some way away.
Sunday – Leominster – Rain fell during the night but the morning is brighter although much of the sky is covered with high little pillows of cloud. Robins sing and Jackdaws chack. Onto the railway bridge. Three rabbits are on the bed of the old track. The water level in the River Lugg remains low. A Dipper is singing from a rock upstream from Butts Bridge.
Back down the ginnel where the scent of Ivy is particularly strong this morning. I knock an apple off of the heavily laden tree that is growing in the compound over the fence. It is pleasant although the flesh is a little soft. Into Pinsley Mill. A Great Tit sings from across the railway, a disjointed version of its normal two note song. Into the Millennium orchard. The Bramley trees have somewhat small fruit this year and the majority of those are the fallen are badly damaged. I still managed to gather a few. Bell practice starts as I walk through the churchyard. A collie is staring intently at grey squirrels scurrying around the trees but does not waste energy trying to catch them.
Onto the Grange. A couple of fathers and their sons are playing cricket.
Monday – Michaelmas – Home – Traditionally the start of the new farming year; debts were settled, rents paid, workers hired and the Michaelmas Fair. In the garden the stone fruits and berries are all finished but there are still plenty of apples and pears. The Russian Vine over the garden wall is turning to a rich red. The tall Holly has numerous red berries. The courgettes are finished. The chard is still doing well but the purple sprouting has been attacked by aphids and may not recover. The grass has really started growing again and needs mowing but it also needs to be dry, which it is not. Conkers are falling in large numbers making a loud bang when they hit the summerhouse roof.
Last week I went on a scrump to the Millennium orchard and gathered four more sacks of apples, mainly Herefordshire Redstreaks and Dymock Reds. Yesterday they were pressed and another three gallons obtained. I reckon one more visit will be enough.
The Rhode Rock hen is still broody. I put straw on the right-hand nest box to encourage the other two laying hens to use it, which works but Rocky keeps stealing it. Not sure how much longer her broodiness will last.
Tuesday – Home – Another bed is weeded. Some of the “weeds” are foxgloves which Kay takes to transplant elsewhere. One of the paths has numerous windfalls from an apple tree that hangs over our wall, so I sweep them up, rescuing a couple that have not been bruised badly or suffered bird damage. Then the path across the garden covered in rotting damsons is cleared. Later the grass is cut. It is a very frustrating job as the grass is long and very succulent so clogs the lawnmower time and time again. I do the best job I can. I notice that there are runner beans on plants by the fruit cage. I had thought nothing had happened to them, but there seems to be a decent crop which I pick for dinner.
Lientwardine (Bravonium) to Kenchester (Magnis). The area was drained by farmers over the last three centuries.
supermarket, steps lead up onto a wide path, the former GWR Cheltenham and Honeybourne railway line, into the city. A line of feral pigeons sit on the edge of a multi-storey building. A steel tubular bridge carries the path over a major junction and the River Chelt, under St George’s Road before following the route of the former GWR Cheltenham railway line. A Jay screeches in a tree. I cross the road and down onto a path on the old railway. The line once terminated here at St James’s Square Station. A large supermarket and tall new glass blocks stand on the site. Seats are made of blocks of wood and railway rails. The River Chelt flows past and into a tunnel. It emerges and runs along 
the foot of the gardens of large Georgian houses. It passes under the road and then behind Victorian houses which have bridges from their gardens to the pathway. It then goes underground again. Into Royal Well Place which comes to Royal Well Road which passes Royal Crescent. A Unitarian chapel is now an auction house. Another chapel opposite has disappeared and the small block is now a car park. Beyond is the Ladies College.
Down the hill towards the centre. Colpitts Terrace dates from 1856. A wonderful viaduct takes the East Coast Mainline towards the station. It was built between 1854 and 1857 for the North Eastern Railway (NER) to the design of Thomas Elliot Harrison, the NER’s chief engineer and built by Richard Cail, a local contractor. On down the hill and into North Road where the former Miners’ Hall, dated 1875, looks rather forlorn. On to 
the River Wear and across by Framwellgate Bridge, an early 16th century replacement for early 12th century bridge. It was widened in the early 19th century.
Durham and having ejected the secular canons (and their wives and children) who had been in charge of the church and shrine of St Cuthbert there, replaced them with monks from the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow. The Galilee chapel was added to the west end of the cathedral in the 1170s, and the western towers built in approximately 1200. The east end, the chapel of Nine Altars and a rose window, currently closed off, was expanded in the Early English Gothic style in the 1230, and the Perpendicular Gothic central tower was built in two stages in the 16th century. A replica of a 
a large number of earth covered bunkers. The priory was founded in 1196 on the site of the hermitage of 
Puiset, son of Bishop le Puiset, in return for the closing of his Augustinian Canons’ foundation, (a daughter house of Guisborough) called New Place on the River Browney. He then granted Finchale to the Durham house, and at the same time granted to the Prior and Convent of Durham the right to elect the Prior of Finchale. The monastic complex was built in the latter half of the 13th century, with alterations and additions continuing for the following three hundred years. There are many excellent examples of heavily decorated capitals on the original arcade columns, tracery in the filled-in nave arches of the church, and on the south wall is a double piscina and two carved seats of the sedilia. The buildings are quite extensive given the damage over the years since Dissolution in 1537 and some destruction caused by those wanting to make it more “Picturesque”.
drift slowly eastwards. Weather warnings were issued for heavy rain but we had just a few heavy showers. A Robin sings behind the houses on the street. Down to the river to the sound of more Robin song, a Chiffchaff wheeping and Rooks cawing. The water level in the River Lugg continues to slowly rise. I have decided not to visit the market this morning partly because the weather will have put most traders off and secondly my back is not good at the moment so I am not keen to walk too far. A Carrion Crow barks from one of the Black Poplars.