Which way is home? Decision time at the Weyhouse

They probably don’t know it but they are standing on an ancient cross roads. Coming down the hillside is the old holloway from what is called The Heavens and leading down to what was once a ford but is now Bowbridge. The ‘wey’, the ancient name for an old road or trackway, crossed the river Frome about foiur hundred yards down the hill, and then ascended the far side to an Iron Age hillfort on Rodborough Common. Beyond the fort, down in the next valley, was a Roman Villa at Woodchester regarded as one of the finest examples in the south of England and with a mosaic to match.

The spot where these two people have stopped was where the ‘Weyhouse’ was situated until it was pulled down after the Second World War by the modern and absent farmers who purchased the land. The path across the 'Wey' leads from the waterfall back and on past our house and over the hilltops of what is now Stroud town.

I was standing at the bottom of our garden on the edge of the very steep slope down to the Lime Brook about seventy feet below me, which has created The Horns valley. this area of land is regarded as a park for the people on this side of town, but there are no signs. These two walkers had approached from the direction of the waterfall and when the stopped beside the former site of the Weyhouse, they had to work out where to next. I rather liked their mutual finger pointing which happened on the spur of the moment.