A little stone circle at the head of Slad valley

Just before lunchtime I rushed up to the farm shop near Bisley as I wanted to get a few vegetables and check on their stock of cards. I arrived just before closing time and was pleased to find the two brothers and their sister who own the farm were all there. After a bit of the usual banter while they closed up the shop and the farm gate I drove away along a nearby lane leading to Steanbridge. It is a lane that only drops down to the valley bottom close to the head of Slad valley.

I often go there as it gives fine long distance views in several directions and offers occasional sight of various wildlife such as hares, partridge, pheasants, buzzards, red kites, deer, yellowhammers and skylarks. I never know what to expect. I park where the ancient footpath separates from the lane and drops steeply down the hillside into the Slad valley.

The sun shone but as I stood there on the edge of a field a mass of black cloud began to appear and approach from the west. I looked north with my camera and where sunlight was still illuminating some of the fields and woods. The rather modern looking farm on the far side of the valley near to Bulls Cross is called Down Barn Farm. I assume it was built on land of another farm using the original barn as a site to get planning permission as a farm building development.

I’ve often noticed that in their field, where the cows were sitting on the ground  today, there is a group of small erect standing stones in a circle. These stones are of course ancient, but their placement is very modern, but I am rather amused at the notion of creating one's own circle. When I was about six years old my father was in the army stationed at a base called Larkhill, near Amesbuiry. We lived ina. rented house on the road between the two places. The back garden bordered on old fields where we played and not long after archaeologists discovered that this was the site of Woodhenge, a wooden circular structure probably built or erected before Stonehenge was made, just two miles away across the fields, I’ve always liked circles, even when I didn’t know they were there.