Catkins, and a dogkin walkin

One thing about shoulder and arm pain is that when you're out walking, you can forget about it because it doesn't hurt. It's just the drive to somewhere interesting, when you (and the dog) need a change of scene, that hurts like a bastard. But then I remembered my visit to Winterbourne mediaeval barn last Heritage Open Day, where I learnt about a nearby nature reserve, and as it's only a few minutes from where I live, I decided I could manage a mini-jaunt there. 

Our walk started next to Tesco on the high street, down a narrow walled lane that reminded me of those in Stapleton ...  

... before the first of a series of stone stiles took us into a couple of fields, followed by a lane enclosed with hedges, all with lots of running about opportunities for a happy little collie.

You do have to be careful on this walk to go the right way ...

... but as long as you remember to stick to the stone stiles and kissing gates, you'll be OK.

Then came a long wander down open lanes with catkins. It's a decidedly good year for catkins. 

Eventually we reached St Michael's Church, which had been visible on the skyline for much of our route. I didn't stop to look inside or around the churchyard, or to pop along to the barn, but if I'd had more time, I'd have been tempted.

Beyond the church, the lane leads to Monks' Pool, which is actually a series of four interconnecting ponds. You'd think, with ponds called Monks Pool and a mediaeval barn, that there was once a monastery in the vicinity, but there's no evidence of one and it's not known how the name originated. The ponds themselves would have been used to breed fish as a sustainable food source.

Many years of neglect have made them a 'haven for wildlife'. Not that we saw much - accompanying dog, still winter - but I heard my first drumming woodpecker of the year, and, amongst all the other birdsong, a particularly persistent wren. Oh, and a couple of ducks ...  

... plus an array of fungi.

My fungus identification skills leave a lot to be desired. The red brackets are beefsteak fungi; the yellowy/brown fungi turkeytail ... I think.

I'll inspect this fungrrus so you don't have to stand at the edge

Bradley Brook is believed to be the bourne that gives Winterbourne its name, though both it and the church and barn are at some distance from the present-day village. It's an old friend, being the main watercourse in the just-the-other-side-of-the-M4 Three Brooks Nature Reserve. Here, a couple of miles further east and south as the water flows, it runs alongside the ponds towards its confluence with the River Frome at Hambrook. 

By rejoining the lane and continuing along it a short way, you can re-encounter the brook a little further upstream and walk alongside it through the northernmost part of the reserve. It was a bit slippy in parts because of the mud, which made walking laborious, but a pair of ravens flew overhead, following the brook in the opposite direction and grumbling comfortably to each other, which more than made up for the trying conditions underfoot.

The rest of our route was more or less a matter of retracing our steps, which allowed for a closer appreciation, second time around, of spring's small signposts. Out with the old and in with the new. 

Leaflace; an opening celandine; the lustreware of last year's brambles; dandy lion; field maple buds? (not sure); daffodils, but of the Tête-à-Tête  persuasion rather than natives; a burst of lichen

the secret messages of beetles under bark

a newly-laid hedge

There were lots of other footpaths in the area, down which Cwtch was keen to go exploring, but they'll have to wait till spring proper. This is definitely a walk for all seasons.
 

Mill Tut and Badock's Wood in late winter

 

I had trips planned to the Midlands and Glastonbury this half term, but my friends' medical issues - and my own compromised shoulder, which makes driving challenging right now - meant a postponement was in order, and instead, I managed to drive the few miles from my house to Badock's Wood for a change of scene. 

Cwtch on the neolithic round barrow, Mill Tut

I have to remind myself that February isn't as bad as I think it is. It's brighter than January and green things are beginning to burgeon. Meanwhile, last autumn's leaves become skeletal and fascinating. 

Can I help curate your collection of delicate things? 

Down in the wood it was sad to see that the River Trym is currently polluted, all the more so since this grey wagtail was picking its way over stones just a short way downstream. 

Elsewhere in the wood there were the usual signs of early spring ... 

snowdrops

celandines

catkins!

and a bumble bee

Cwtch's desire to play with the crows was tempered by her un-collie-like reluctance to get her paws wet ... 

...although she did briefly overcome it.

At the edge of the playing field above the Trym's little gorge, the first signs of cherry plum blossom. It's been a cold, dark winter. Hopefully the worst is behind us.  

The remains of Charlton

It occurred to me a couple of months ago that it might be an idea to photograph the last surviving buildings of the razed village of Charlton in their edgelands environment before the development of Brabazon engulfs them. So I have. 

Though the surroundings of the still existing lodge of Pen Park Manor are already built up and probably won't change that much, apart from more traffic going along nearby Charlton Road.

Strictly speaking, Pen Park Manor was on the edge of Charlton rather than part of the village. An imposing Georgian building, it was demolished in 1969, and apart from the lodge, a much-altered gamekeeper's cottage at the junction of Southmead Road and Pen Park Road, and a sequoia tree, nothing remains. 

Pen Park Lodge 

The Lodge now, surrounded by suburbia. The railings seem to have survived unaltered; not so the house. 

And the sequoia, viewed from the field of the hollowing oak, at the extreme left of this photo. 

Not so altered, which is as well as I can't find an clear old photo of it, is the house known as Pentre when Charlton was razed, but which now goes by the name of Cedar House. You can see the cedar in the above photo too, at the far right.

Cedar House is off the lane called Charlton Common, which I love because it still has a rural feel about it even though it's firmly in the edgelands. It was lovely to walk here during lockdown and pretend we were in the country.

The consultation document for its on-going restoration is online, and it seems  the new owners are keen to preserve their Grade II-listed house's history. In the autumn they had a table outside offering excess fruit to passers-by, of which, currently, there are few.  This seems both admirable and poignant in view of the huge changes coming. 

Although, of course, the really huge change occurred with the compulsory purchase of the land and its buildings to extend the runway at Filton Airfield so it could be used by the Bristol Type 167 Brabazon, which, incidentally, never went into commercial production in the end. 

Charlton village

Extending the runway

It's up on Fishpool Hill, where the lane ends in railings, that this 75-year-old abruption is most stark. 

There are three houses here that were also part of the village. The first two are Fir Tree Cottage, that used to be known as Fir Tree Farm, and its converted barn. I haven't found a photo of the cottage when it was a farm, but I understand it's been extended considerably at some point during the last seventy years, and again very recently, to the point where it would be better named Fir Tree Mansion. 

November 2021

February 2023

Situation of cottage and barn with the runway behind them and the Mall at Cribbs Causeway in the background

Elm Farm on the other side of the lane still pretty much looks the part, though the land's been sold, of course.

The last few houses remaining weren't really part of Charlton, but rather the hamlet of Catbrain just up the road. (The name Catbrain has nothing to do with cats or brains, by the way; it’s a reference to the area's rough stony clay that was known to the Middle English as 'cattes brazen'.)

Here's what they looked like in the 50s. Now there are more houses right up the hill, with a Topps Tiles warehouse serving as corner shop. 

Most of the pairs of cottages have either been extended or knocked together to form a larger house. 

Another pair were recently demolished to make this road leading to a new development of houses.

A skinny little new-build squeezed into a tiny plot and then four more cottages.