No Name Brook and Sam Treasure's Quarry

Does a brook called No Name Brook have a name? Possibly not. 

Actually, this might not be No Name Brook. It might be a tributary of No Name Brook but I can't check on a map because it isn't named. 

We were in Stoke St Michael visiting local poet, Louise Green, who took us down the lane that runs past her house to Stoke Lane Quarry, known locally as Sam Treasure's Quarry, which is all kinds of pleasing.

I was consumed with envy. What a place to walk your dog, or sit and write poems. 

We then headed on through the wood ... 

... to where either No Name Brook - or the tributary of No Name Brook - disappears into a swallet, which is, I suppose, a cross between a swallow and a gullet, etymologically speaking.  

The black holey thing is the entrance to a cave, of which there are many under the Mendip Hills. A sign on the rock reminds cavers to tell people where they are going in case they don't come back at the expected time. 

Back in the village we popped into St Michael's Church, which is mostly a Victorian rebuild and somewhat lacking in quirk, to be honest. 

Even St Michael's dragon failed to cut much of a dash. 

The real treasure on show is the appliqued hanging depicting the village as it was in 1918, which Lou had a hand in stitching and which was made to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. 

It's hard to get a good general photo of it because of the non non-reflective glass, but the real joy is in the detail anyway. 

Seventeen men and boys from the village died during that conflict. 

They are represented by tiny silver figures, each with its own red poppy of remembrance. 

There is one outside what is now Lou's house but then was his. It seems fitting that he should be commemorated by a member of the family who lives there now.