Views from Selsley common across the Severn Vale

I left my current workplace early today to return home for an easy afternoon. As I dropped down from Whiteshill towards Stroud, I spotted two paragliders flying just above the edge of Selsley Beacon on the far side of the valley. Stroud is sited at the point where five rivers and streams amalgamated in times gone by and their combined force in earlier climatic conditions had enough force to break a massive 'hole' through the Cotswold limestone escarpment. So Whiteshill is on the north side of the gap and Selsley lies on the south side.

The weather was very dull with a low cloud cover but I thought I might be able to get a blip of the paragliders floating along the ridge. So I drove across the valley bottom and climbed up the hillside to Selsley and then along the ancient track which runs halfway up the slope and leads to Leonard Stanley and Kings Stanley, two villages lying below the escarpment.

I parked by the church in Selsley and clambered through a gate and onto the Cotswold Way, which follows all the old footpath for the length of the limestone hills stretching from Bath north towards Stratford on Avon. I didn't have to go far before spotting the paragliders which had now taken off again from the top of the hillside, leaping off into the prevailing westerly breeze. Unfortunately I couldn't get an angle where their bright colours were illuminated against the grey sky. I tried and tried but I will have to return on a sunnier day and from a better position.

When I turned round to go back to the car, I potted this view across the Severn Vale towards the River Severn in the distance and the Forest of Dean's hills and woods beyond. This house is built on a very steep slope just on the other side of the road along the hillside. To the right is a small barn and a little further on a farm perched on the slopes. Above the road is National Trust common land where there are old barrows and ditches built by ancient neolithic cultures on the top of the hill. It is a fine spot, and I rather liked this view westwards which the residents will have on all three floors of their abode. The house I blipped on Sunday was in a village in the distance just a few hundred yards this side of the river Severn.