In the middle of 2022’s dry, bright, and occasionally alarmingly hot spring and summer, I chose a week of glum skies and drizzle for my field trip to visit Gloucestershire’s astonishing commons. My visit to the celebrated Minchinhampton and Rodborough Commons was on the glummest day of all – and yet the place crackled withContinue reading “Heritage as radical space – Minchinhampton and Rodborough Commons.”
Tag Archives: gloucestershire
Cheese-rolling, Orwell and Orchids – beechwood and grassland commons in the southern Cotswolds
The Cotswold Commons and Beechwoods National Nature Reserve (NNR) is, as one might expect, a network of beechwoods and commons which extends over 1644 acres of ridges and scarps around the Painswick Valley, Gloucestershire. West of Gloucester and south of Cheltenham, it’s an important asset for a substantial urban population and is today managed byContinue reading “Cheese-rolling, Orwell and Orchids – beechwood and grassland commons in the southern Cotswolds”
River transport as right of common along the Avon and Severn.
At the end of the dead-end Gabb Lane near Apperley, Gloucestershire, between The Coalhouse Inn and the Severnside Caravan Site and Boat Park, is a patch of cropped grass with room for six or seven cars. The Severn Way walking route runs past it, though you have to peer through a thicket of willow toContinue reading “River transport as right of common along the Avon and Severn.”
Cleeve Common: bryophytes amongst the golf tees
Cleeve Common is both the highest point on the Cotswolds and its largest expanse of both open and common land. It’s a SSSI due to its rare grasslands and for the quarrying which has revealed the greatest stretch of the Cotswold limestones’ geological record. Quarries are surprisingly often, it turns out, SSSIs for exactly thisContinue reading “Cleeve Common: bryophytes amongst the golf tees”
Tewkesbury’s commons: two meadows, four rivers and a weir.
In the present day, Tewkesbury is famous for just one thing. In July 2007, two months of rain fell on Gloucestershire in just 14 hours, causing widespread catastrophic flooding. Tewkesbury, where the Avon meets the Severn, was particularly badly hit, effectively becoming an island and resulting in the loss of three lives. This was perhapsContinue reading “Tewkesbury’s commons: two meadows, four rivers and a weir.”
Corse Lawn Common: dead deer and potholes on the Gloucestershire/ Worcestershire border
To see the thick, gently-waving grass of the long, long and narrow Corse Lawn Common, Worcestershire, you’d assume a gently pastoral connection with its name. You’d be wrong about the pastoral, just as you would with the gentle. Corse, in this case, is possibly of Welsh origin and means marsh or bog, while Lawn meansContinue reading “Corse Lawn Common: dead deer and potholes on the Gloucestershire/ Worcestershire border”
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