Nailsworth farmer's market

I dropped Woodpeckers in Nailsworth this morning as she was going to run a stall at the Natural Health Centre, where she practices her aromatherapy. Today there was a special Nailsworth Health Fair in the town, and the clinic was an essential part of the partnership running it. It meant being active rather earlier than I really wanted to be, but I took my camera and after dropping Helena off, I set off for a walk around the small town in the rather grey light and distinctly autumnal air. I headed up the Bath Road to the top of the oldest part of the town before descending down the old narrow Butcher's Hill Lane into Market Street. I then went along Brewery Road to where I knew were some interesting old mill and warehouse buildings tucked away from the main roads in that steeply sided valley.

It has been a while since I'd walked about Nailsworth and I hadn't fully registered how right Helena has been about its recent gentrification, it being described as a country version of Notting Hill in one national newspaper. The old shops are closing and being replaced by boutiques and antique shops, kitchen design shops for the rather rich and highly priced purveyors of fine food and drink. Old houses have been done up and sold on at much higher prices. Industrial buildings which were rather run down are now bijou. Newly replaced Cotswold stone walls are common and noticeable by their freshly yellow and unweathered colouring.

I suppose that there has always been regeneration of many types over the centuries and Nailsworth is an old centre, sited on the stream which forms one of the Five Valleys of the Stroud area. But the industry on which it was based has receded and now it is a more of a dormitory town for workers in other places, which again is now commonplace and probably essential. I just hope the old ways don't change too much. When I ventured down to the Farmer's Market, which is much smaller and less busy than Stroud's, I did hear the old accent of Gloucestershire among the more senior citizens, contrasted with the more Home Counties sounding voices of the younger couples with families. A generalisation, I know, but I think it is true. I should know as I was an incomer.

As I stood eating a bacon bap fried at his stall by a local farmer from a Stroud valley, I looked along the little river that flows down from Horsley and which has powered the industries of old. In fact the car park to the left of the river was built over an old millpond and this flat straight section of the river was probably a leat, the channelled waterway that lead to the mill race and its water wheel. This foot bridge is new and leads across to the small pocket park where the rest of the market stalls were arranged.

From a distance I had heard the Town Crier a little earlier announcing something at the top of his voice, so when I saw his red uniform approaching in the corner of my eye, I quickly picked up my camera and snapped him, even though he was rather absorbed by his paperwork. He did then stop just in front of me and answered a request of some tourists to have a picture taken with them, and he was very jovial and kind to them. I don't think his forebears were part of the old history of Nailsworth, but they do help with the tourism.