Heading home

On our way to the farm shop, I drove past the Wells at Bisley, to show Georgia and Neil the source of the local stream, which cuts steeply down from the village to form the Toadsmoor valley. The Wells are renowned, with the villagers still performing the well dressing ceremony on Ascension Day, to give thanks for the waters. The village Church is on the hill immediately above this spring line, which you can see here. Bisley was the ancient centre of this whole area, and gives its name to Bisley Hundred.

The site on which the church stands was used for pagan ceremonies in Roman times, and has been used as a Christian site since Saxon times. In 680, Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, created parishes based on the large Saxon estates of the period. The Hundreds were based on these, and the Bisley Hundred incorporates Stroud, Painswick, Miserden, Edgworth, Winstone, Sapperton, Frampton Mansell. Bisley Church was therefore more important than that of Stroud, the latter not becoming a distinct parish in its own right until 1360.

There are seven outlets of water altogether, with only two of them feeding this series of ponds, which I think were built to allow clothes washing. Sadly, I haven't managed to show any of the springs! The well dressing occurs on the other five springs, which are adjacent, and were formally constructed by Victorian stone-wallers and masons.

The three geese were put off by my arrival, and decided to head for home, up their path, to the shed of the cottage just above the them. I had only seconds to catch them before they disappeared and haven't managed a very sharp shot. But I so liked this scene that the better pictures of the Wells proper had to take second place today.

Can you see the third goose, who I think was giving way, to allow his dominant partner to take the lead?

ps Helena thinks they are ducks, because she heard them quack and their necks aren't very long. But they were geese to me!