Black pigs in the Toadsmoor valley

After a deskbound morning, I made a snack lunch just as Helena got home from her job. I had beeen looking out of the back door at the birds feeding and tried to take a few pictures of them in flight, because I wanted to catch their aerobatics in the strong winds as they manoeuvred to try to land on the feeders and on the tree branches nearby.

Then I went to drop off a parcel for Helena at Brimscombe post office, before heading off to do some vegetable shopping at the farm shop in Bisley. To get there I had to drive up the Toadsmoor valley, which joins the Golden Valley in which Stroud lies. The Toadsmoor stream starts as a couple of springs coming out of the ground below Bisley church where I have blipped the Wells several times before now. As I drove up the valley bottom and reached the point where the road ascends the steep hillside into Bussage, I saw two white geese swimming on the small lake above an old mill.

I turned the car around and found a small lane to park in and walked back to the lake, but the geese had gone to the far end and seemed too busy fighting with a group of ducks for territory to come back into my view. It also started to rain so I returned to the car and then spotted this group of black pigs in the same field as a few sheep, separated by an electric fence. The sheep were grazing happily on some reasonably long grass, whilst the pigs were snuffling through the grass and digging for victory. They had obviously just been moved onto a new patch, as the other part of the small field was by now reduced to bare earth and stones. I love pigs.

When I reached the farm shop the rain was tipping down, and by chance, Ashley, the farmer arrived on his tractor to have a tea break. So we chatted at length and he told me of how his father had recently found another neolithic flint tool in the field just a few yards away. He also said some local farming students from Cirencester college were doing some archaeological research on their land and had found hundreds of fragments of Roman pottery, which is not unusual in the Bisley and Stroud area. After doing some geo-phys surveying they believe they have found stone walls at a depth of about three feet, which are likely to be from a substantial building. Ashley said he will keep me informed as he knows I am very interested. I have been to one of his local talks on the varied archaeological discoveries he has made over the years whilst farming.