The cows return to graze on Minchinhampton Common

I drove home after the Shambles Market to unload my equipment, feed Indie our cat and make a cup of tea, before heading off with my camera. I knew it was the annual ‘Marking Day’ on Minchinhampton Common, when all the people who have Commoner's Rights to graze their animals can bring them back to the common to be ‘marked’. Actually that is now an unnecessary ritual as every animal has to be clearly numbered with a tag anyway.

Marking Day attracts a lot of people who love seeing the animals roaming widely on the extensive land at both Minchinhampton and Rodborough Commons which are interconnected. The commons are owned and maintained by the National Trust as traditional Cotswold limestone grassland and the use of grazing animals is an essential component in order to maintain the well-being of wild habitats for both flora and fauna.

I drove up Butterow Hill and on past the famous Winstone’s Ice Cream factory which has been attracting customers since opening in 1925. On a sunny afternoon like today it was packed as usual with people sitting on the grass meadows eating ice cream and looking across the Stroud valleys. I carried on past the Bear Hotel at the narrowest point of the ridge between the Stroud and Nailsworth valleys, which marks the border between the two commons. In about a mile I reached Tom Long’s Post, another ancient landmark where five former tracks that are now busy roads meet. It is a spot I can see in the distance from my desk where I’m writing this journal, and which I often refer to in my photos of the Golden Valley which I blip regularly.

As I passed the cross roads I spotted cows in the distance above the hamlet of Burleigh at the top of Brimscombe Hill. I managed to park on a track leading off the common and quickly walked about a hundred yards to find them. I found the small herd of Highland cattle which a local farmer in the Brimscombe valley keeps in a field in the Brimscombe until marking day. They are always very excited to get back onto the common as they've been grazing in small fields all winter and the common has rich new lush grass, herbs and buttercups to gorge on. Sometimes they seem to dance as they rush to find new patches to feed on.

Today they were quiet and I assume they had been released onto the common earlier this morning and had been eating all day. Many of them were lying in the grass, some of them even hiding from the sun in the shade of some small trees.

One cow was standing quietly beside the flag pole of one of the holes on the Minchinhampton Golf Course. A red rag to a bull in other circumstances might be a dangerous situation. These are cows however and very gentle with it.

I watched for a while to enjoy their pleasure and I’ve added a couple of ‘Extras’. The first is of another highland cattle walking past a big house bordering the common. It is properties such as these which have the traditional grazing rights associated with their deeds. I think this house is an amalgam of several smaller properties which have had various extensions which can be partly seen in the patterns of the stonework and the windows. The distant house to the top left of the picture are close to where we live on the eastern side of Stroud town.

The other ‘Extra’ is a view from the same spot looking west across the slope down to the Brimscombe valley showing a herd of ordinary cattle wandering across the hillside. You can see how they are attracted to the buttercups. They’ll be happily wandering around the hills and vales for the next five months, and quite often walking right through the village streets, to everyones amusement. Car drivers get very annoyed as cows have right of way.

'The National Trust'– Minchinhampton and Rodborough Commons –  Rolling hills and open spaces above the Stroud Valleys and Severn estuary'