John and Theo at Callowell Farm

I went to visit John and Liz who live on the side of the Painswick valley, about two miles away from us. They've both featured in many of my blips over the years. Today John led me on a walk along the west side of their valley through several fields, across stiles and along old lanes.

We reached Callowell, a collection of just a few houses all set around this old farm on a major track that leads between Ruscombe, Whiteshill and Stroud. I hadn't been there before so John took me to see the farm buildings. He thought the farmhouse was a fine and relatively original classic Cotswold stone building of its type. Each valley has its own quarries and depending on which strata they are mining the colours vary notably.

Whilst we contemplated the buildings' details, and particularly the barn's stone roof, and the varied mullion windows, a man engaged us in conversation. He lived in one of the terraced cottages, just yards away, which were built for workers at the local brewery at the bottom of the lane on the left. We had a good chat about the ownership of the various buildings over the last century and a half.

He kindly offered us some coffee which we accepted and we sat outside his back door looking out over the valley to Stroud in the distance. The far ridge is on the south side of the Golden Valley, down which the River Frome flows.

Ian then showed us some aerial photos he had obtained copies of taken by the RAF in 1933, from biplanes. On it we could also see John's house several fields away to the left of this scene.