View of The Heavens valley

We walked to the waterfall this morning and it blew the cobwebs away, as Woodpeckers said.  We are lucky that we can walk out of our house and take the adjacent footpath leading down to the Lime Brook and then up the ridge separating our valley from this one, The Heavens valley.

We walked through the woods on the left, just above the old settlement called Weyhouse, which was demolished in the 1950s, and passed the ruins of the three small cottages that still remain under the shadow of the beech trees.  The name came from the ancient 'hollow way' that runs down the slope on the left from the top of these Cotswold hills, to cross the river Frome at Bowbridge, before the way ascended up to Rodborough common, where an Iron Age camp was sited.  The old name for a 'way' was 'weg' which is probably why this is called Weyhouse.

Just below these cottage ruins is this wonderful old tree from which rope swings have been hanging for as long as any one can remember.  Helena calls the meadows 'happy valley', as it is always the destination for walkers and families with children who use these fields and woods as public parkland although it is actually private farmland.

We dropped down to the swing ourselves and Helena couldn't resist having a go.  I nearly blipped her doing so, but the sunshine had disappeared at that time and light drizzle was about to fall.  We then walked the few yards to the stream running down through the meadows  and followed its course back up towards The Heavens, which is the area on the top of the hills where you can see a few houses built beside the old track down to Weyhouse.

At The Heavens a 'spout', or spring, shoots out of the ground and forms the beginnings of the stream which then tumbles straight down the hillside forming a wonderful waterfall in the woods above  these meadows. Where the stream reaches the meadows there are indications of a Roman building, probably a small dwelling, which show how important this beautiful spot has always been to local inhabitants of Stroud.

We eventually walked back to the Lime Brook and followed its course down the valley to its junction with the Heavens stream, where a ford allowed the old road to cross the stream at a relatively easy spot, away from the heavy clay that preponderates down there.  We then walked back up this hill using the route of the old road into Stroud which followed a line along the side of the valley above the springs.

It was from there, only two hundred yards from our house, that I took this picture looking eastwards towards The Heavens.  You can see a group of people approaching the swings on the old tree, where a man is hanging upside down on one swing and a child is on the second one.