Horses riding up Chapel Lane, Minchinhampton

After the market this morning, I went to the south side of the small town to look at Chapel Lane. One of my colleagues who lives on Well Hill, the parallel road, had told me there were some interesting buildings and features such as doorways that might be worth photographing.

I parked at the end of the road and walked towards the edge of the village and liked what I found: an old iron farm gate, small garden wall decorations, interesting sections of traditional Cotswold stone walls and this tall and narrow building, the 'Old Malthouse'.

As I stood considering options a woman walking her elderly dog  approached and I realised it was Tamsin, someone I knew from the market. We chatted and then she told n[me she grew up as a child on this lane, probably in the 1960s and she described how the herds of cows came up the lane every day for milking, and that there were several small farms very close by on the lane. She said Rose still had a smallholding pointing to the wall behind me, and then we saw Rose in her garden and she joined us with more tales of the past. It is just what I love to meet people and hear their stories of the landscape which brings it alive for me. Now there are no farms here, with all the land sold to big regional farms for grazing sheep and cows just on odd occasions, or else used for horses, a big leisure activity nowadays. 

I then heard the familiar sound of horseshoes on tarmac and turned to see these two young women riding slowly towards me. As they passed I asked if I could take pictures of them and they were very happy for me to do so. The end of this road from the direction they came in is a deep valley close to Gatcombe Park, the estate owned by Princess Anne, where she holds big national equestrian events such as 'eventing' which shows the importance of horses to the local economies. 

I then went away from the village down Well Hill and came across  a smallholding with half a dozen traditional horned sheep and three lambs. In a field opposite there were a few Highland Cattle. I gather that some of these cattle are owned by 'Commoners' and the animals are being over wintered before they are released back onto Minchinhampton Common where they have the right to freely graze them for the spring and summer months.