Castle Combe is a quintessentially English village often named as the ‘prettiest village in England.’ The village sits in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in north west Wiltshire.

Castle Combe has featured regularly as a film location, most recently in The Wolf Man, Stardust and Stephen Spielberg’s War Horse. It was also used in the original Dr Doolittle film.
The village has a rich history and the houses are made up of the honey coloured Cotswold stone, typical for a village of this area.

Within Castle Combe you’ll find a Market Cross and St Andrew’s Church which dates from the 13th century. The church houses a faceless clock which is reputed to be one of the oldest working clocks in the country. You’ll also find a couple of pubs and a luxury hotel with a golf course within the village.

Stroll along the village to the bridge and you’ll not only enjoy the views but may be able to purchase homemade cakes, sweets or bunches of flowers from outside the locals’ houses. Stop at the bottom of the village by the bridge and enjoy a great photographic moment too!

Just inside the front door of the church stands a huge font which is thought to be part of a Roman column. The organ was originally built by Charles Brindley in 1849, but little now remains from that date.   The knave is furnished with box pews, the pulpit is Jacobean and the altar rails are dated 1637.*

*From The Churches Conservation Trust guide book.

Some of you may recall that I have had two failed attempts at taking photographs of St Andrew’s Church.  On my first attempt I was nearly run over by a driver who had not noticed I was walking along the country lane.

Afterwards I decided to make the short walk to St Andrew’s church in the nearby village.  It has an interesting history and it is a long time since I visited.  At one stage I was in danger of getting knocked over by an oncoming vehicle whose driver only slowed the vehicle down and came to a halt when the driver of another vehicle coming in the other direction slammed his brakes on and pulled to one side.  The first driver clearly hadn’t noticed me until then!  I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and retreated back to the ruins.  I will visit the church another day by car.

My second attempt turned out to be a rescue mission, two rooks had become trapped within the church and needed releasing. The few photographs that I took of the outside of the church whilst waiting for the rooks to leave the building were overexposed because I had inadvertently pressed a button on my camera.

The church was first mentioned in the Domesday Book (1086), though it must have existed for some time before that. The building was greatly extended in the late 12th century. The tower was built in stages and carvings incorporated into it are thought to come from the nearby Haughmond Abbey after its dissolution in 1539. Further alterations and additions were made to the structure, the latest being the present porch which dates to 1870.

The main entrance to the church is through a gateway that is formed by a pair of columns from the nearby Roman site of Wroxeter. Near to the gate is a stile that also doubles as a mounting block for horses.

*Information from the Churches Conservation Trust guide book.

I am back to work tomorrow and I wonder where the weekend has gone, it didn’t feel much like Easter…

A friend was celebrating a special birthday over the Easter weekend and (he and his partner) invited friends round for a celebratory buffet at around 6pm on Easter Sunday (the traditional time my family share Easter celebrations together).  The birthday isn’t their only celebration, they are getting married next weekend and I am sooo excited for them

Now getting back to my point – Easter didn’t feel much like Easter…  Easter Sunday was celebrated on Saturday and the Sunday birthday celebrations felt like a Saturday!!  Now Easter Monday is nearly over and it FEELS like Easter Sunday…

I will be in shock when I have to go into work tomorrow!!

Now getting back to my weekend…

One of the things I did was visit St Andrew’s Church near Wroxeter after my failed attempt last year:

Afterwards I decided to make the short walk to St Andrew’s church in the nearby village.  It has an interesting history and it is a long time since I visited.  At one stage I was in danger of getting knocked over by an oncoming vehicle whose driver only slowed the vehicle down and came to a halt when the driver of another vehicle coming in the other direction slammed his brakes on and pulled to one side.  The first driver clearly hadn’t noticed me until then!  I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and retreated back to the ruins.  I will visit the church another day by car.

This time I was accompanied by Mr C, we made it to the church (by car) without any problems… But on entering the Church, we found that two birds (Rooks) had got themselves trapped inside the Church…

This caused us both distress, and doors were opened to let the birds fly free.  One did quite quickly… The birds were calling to each other from different places and the second one didn’t know how to fly free from the church…  Until the last moment, that moment was quite beautiful

I still don’t have any decent photographs of the Church because whilst I was visiting Powis Castle last week I had inadvertently pressed a button on my camera that made all my subsequent photos (over exposed) less than ideal…

I need to make the journey to St Andrew’s again ;-/

After a weekend of  “Error establishing a database connection” my blog for now seems to be behaving itself and the engineers are looking into why the problem keeps recurring.  So what have I been doing whilst I have been away?  Taking advantage of the lovely sunny weather of course

On Saturday I had lunch, sitting in the shade watching the world go by at Attingham Park.  I then made the short journey to Wroxeter Roman City.  I particularly wanted to see the Roman Town House.  This was built for Chanel 4’s “Rome wasn’t built in a day”.  A team of 6 builders had the task of building the town house using traditional building methods.

The builders were aided in their quest by a manual on Roman building written by engineer Vitruvius 2000 years ago, and supervised by Professor Dai Morgan Evans, the project’s planner. The builders had just six months to master the skills and complete the town house.

The sun was so hot (85F) I took a bit of time out to sit in the shade with a cooling drink.  I was chilling out reading the guidebook only to be interupted by a couple joining me at the picnic table without so  much as a word of hello!  They immediately started bickering and I thought it was boyfriend and girlfriend until I looked up and realised it was mother and son…  Eventually they left and peace returned.

Afterwards I decided to make the short walk to St Andrew’s church in the nearby village.  It has an interesting history and it is a long time since I visited.  At one stage I was in danger of getting knocked over by an oncoming vehicle whose driver only slowed the vehicle down and came to a halt when the driver of another vehicle coming in the other direction slammed his brakes on and pulled to one side.  The first driver clearly hadn’t noticed me until then!  I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and retreated back to the ruins.  I will visit the church another day by car.

On Sunday the weather was still nice but not quite so hot, which was the perfect excuse for another little excursion.  This time to Stokesay Castle via Much Wenlock for lunch.  At Stokesay it was lovely to sit drinking tea outside enjoying the countryside and watching the birds picking up crumbs from underneath the tables.

The photos however will have to wait until I have finished showing my Malham excursion.