Wooling's Mill on the river Frome at Chalford

I took a quick blip break after dropping Helena off at her afternoon job. I drove another mile up the valley Chalford, the next village up the Golden Valley from Brimscombe. I parked beside the main road, called surprisingly, London Road, just before it climbs Chalcombe Hill to leave the valley and head onto the open farmland of the Cotswold tops.

I walked beside the church and looked over garden stone walls at odd houses, some rather fine and others less so. The hillsides are very steep so any land is at a premium and many of the larger houses were built by the owners of cloth traders back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Two old roads, Old Neighbourhood, and Dark Lane, drop down the north hillsides to cross over the river and then head up the other side to Hyde and Minchinhampton.

I then walked along the London Road for a short way where the old canal lies just below the bank holding up the road. The road was only constructed as a turnpike road in the 1840s and is one of the newest parts of this area. Below the canal the previous road winds below it past Wooling's Mill, which also has Seville's mill adjoining it. I hadn't got a view looking south-eastwards so took this picture.

The river flows under the bridge and into the rather infilled mill-pond just above the mill, before flowing under and round it. The building is very much in use and it is good to see it looked after. Not all the old mills have been so lucky. As the hillside start=s to rise on the far side of the valley the main railway line to Swindon and London passes only a few yards behind the buildings. While I was there a large and unusual diesel engine ran down towards Stroud without any carriages or wagons. you can see the willow tree's branches swirling in the wind, just before another shower of rain.

Here are some views from the opposite direction taken in other years.

13th March 2012

12th April 2013

30th December 2013