Five to one in Folkingham

After dropping Alex at Stanground Newt Ponds, where he was to spend the day clearing and burning scrub, Pete and I headed north to Folkingham, to continue with our South Lincolnshire plant recording. This is a picture-postcard Lincolnshire village, but much of it was rather too tidy to support many interesting plants. Although progress was a bit slow, we eventually clocked up a respectable 107 species, including another record for musk storksbill, again on a south-facing grassy slope.

My image is a small portion of the village, showing a typical Lincolnshire limestone cottage, the parish church and part of The Greyhound, which dates back to 1650. The Grade II* listed building came to prominence during the 18th century when Folkingham was a key staging post on the Lincoln to London stagecoach route. Sir Gilbert Heathcote restructured the village during the 18th century, investing a large amount of money in rebuilding the Greyhound and creating its present red brick frontage. It became one of the main stopping posts for coachmen travelling between Lincoln and London. Up to 2003 it was known as the Greyhound Inn, and was then, for a short time, an antiques showroom. After 2003 it was put up for sale and auctioned unsuccessfully several times, until it was eventually bought by property developers who turned it into the luxury flats you see here.

The clock on the tower of the parish church of St. Andrew shows that this was taken at five to one, a time which is repeated with great accuracy on the sundial of The Greyhound.