Cranham, Birdlip, Badgeworth 23rd February 2010

The main story of today's ride has to be the weather.  Leaving Hucclecote, clear and +3C.  Today I decided it was time to get some hills in, partly for the sake of the ride and partly because I wanted to see how much snow there still was on the hills.  The answer?  At the top of Birdlip, the temperature dropped to -3, blowing a gale and snowing.  Also, I feel the need to apologise for my photos today.  The batteries in my camera were flat and I am far too disorganised to carry spares.  Therefore these pictures are taken with my mobile phone.

 I don't know what you think about hills. Whether it is better to take the longer, shallower route or the short sharp climb. In the case of small hills, I prefer the short sharp climb, as the hill gets higher, and I am less fit, I tend towards the long shallower route. Today I left heading approximately south on Painswick Road. A long steady climb that passes my first stop of the day at Prinknash Abbey. The first picture a distant shot showing St Peters' Grange, a tudor manor house which served as the monastery until the newer building in the second picture took over as the monastery. A couple of years ago, all the monks moved back to St Peters' when the newer building was bought to be developed into a retirement village.
From the Abbey, there are also good views across Gloucester that this panorama doesn't do justice to.  Although if you click on it for the full size view, you should be able to see that it is now snowing.

Carrying on up away from the Abbey, I turned left onto Buckholt Road through Cranham Woods.  The woods have a long history and much of the area is a nature reserve.  However it is almost more infamous for its reputation as a place where Billy Bad Boy in his 1.1 Vauxhall Corsa with blacked out windows, enough spoilers to shame a Formula one car and a dustbin exhaust will fake a breakdown in an effort to be less than honourable with his girlfriend...  As you leave Cranham and enter into Birdlip, there is also a large Bronze Age round barrow well off the road in farmers field.  You can just make it out in this photograph.

Into Birdlip, I am now at just about the highest point of today's ride and a quick swig from the bidon confirms just how cold it has got.  There are ice crystals in my water.  Next stop is Barrow wake viewpoint.  On a clear day, you can see most of Gloucester and across the escarpment to Crickley Hill quite easily from this viewpoint.  Today, however, is far from clear.  It seems strange now to think back to when this rather rough narrow section of road was the A417 only about 20 years ago before the new carriageway was built.  The road now passes under the new road and leads nowhere except to the radio station so it is a case of turning round and heading back to the main road to head towards Cheltenham down Leckhampton Road.  A long fast stretch of downhill although with the disadvantage today that the snow has now turned to small falling shreds of ice that feel like they are slashing your skin.  However, there is still the challenge towards the bottom as you enter Cheltenham, on a bicycle, you can set off the flashing 30mph speed warning sign. 

Heading home, I cycled around Cheltenham and out through Hatherley and Cold Pool lane.  A quick stop at Badgeworth to admire Holy Trinity Church.  I'm guessing that this is a medieval church and must only serve a village population.   Extremely well kept, there are graves back to 18th century, an original little handwash thingy next to the main entrance and some intriguing medieval graffiti alongside the door.  I hope the pictures do justice.

Before leaving Badgeworth church, I was subjected to some considerable snowfall so I took refuge in the lychgate whilst it passed.  As I sat there for maybe 15 minutes my mind did wander and was quite awe inspired to simply think of how many people (without considering the original purpose of greeting the corpse) must have done the same thing, to shelter from the weather or simply to take a rest.  Still, the snow abated and I made way back to the car via Churchdown village.

Total distance - 37 KM

Average Speed - 22.5 KM/h

Weather - Between +3C and -3C, Rain, sleet and snow.  Easterley wind.

Hempstead, Elmore and Longney 14th February 2010

14th February is a significant date for many reasons.  First, and maybe most importantly, it is my daughter Victoria's birthday. She is 9 today.  Vic is, however, celebrating with her mum and having about a million friends to stay.  It is also St Valentine's day when we celebrate the life and martyrdom of any number of saints called Valentine that somehow turns into a commercial display of love.  Being the old romantic I obviously am, my wife, Tina, and I went out together for the day and a meal and stuff yesterday.  The other thing we remember is the 1929 St Valentine's day massacre in Chicago.  That is more how I feel now that Anthony is quite capable of leaving me in his wake.  That's the benefit of youth, an active lifestyle and not hauling 15 stone of blubber around.

Today's ride took us through a number of lanes around the villages of Hempstead, Elmore and Longney that I wasn't very familiar with before today but have been real eye openers.  These are, similar to my previous blog theme, villages within a stones throw of an ever increasing housing estate, this time the outrageous sprawl of Quedgeley.

We left our estate by crossing the Gloucester-Sharpness canal using Hempstead bridge, closed to motorised traffic a couple of years ago.  Up a bit of a hill to Hempstead village and turning left onto Rea lane which, according to Google maps, takes you onto Simms lane and drops you in Quedgeley.  Except it doesn't.  It is a dead end.  There is a public path across a field onto Simms lane.  Undaunted, we traipsed across and  continued as planned.  Turning back away from Quedgeley, Elmore Lane took us, unsurprisingly, to Elmore.

Elmore Court  This has been owned by the same family since the 13th century.  Around here there was also the added bonus of quite a plethora of wildlife.  From rabbits, pheasants (sorry, didn't have a gun) and a really quite impressive Kestrel(?) - I'm not much of a twitcher but there were a couple and I understand they aren't rare in this area.





Elmore Parish Church - St John the Baptist.  Strikes me as being a bit out of the way even for the village of Elmore although for the casual tourist this isn't such a bad thing.  The 13th century church stands very much in its own land with stones in the graveyard and tombs reasonably clearly dating back to 15th century.

This rather intriguing structure in the church yard and to the west is the remains of an 18th century mausoleum.

Heading out of Elmore, you quickly find yourself in the similar village of Longney.  The first sign of more civilisation again being the parish church of St Laurence from a very similar era and built in a very similar style.
This church, Elmore church that we visited above and St Nicholas, Hardwicke (not yet visited) are part of a three church union that despite nigh on 1000 years of history appear to have quite a vibrant community and a very modern web presence.















By now, it is fast approaching 5pm so we would be running out of daylight and we have no bike lights so time to head back home.  A bit disappointing as there are many more villages and areas of interest around here that deserve much more attention.   You could easily snake down the canal through Saul, Slimbridge and any number of other villages to the termination of the canal at Sharpness.  I reckon that could make for a whole day out in the summer.

Total distance - 25 KM

Average Speed - 25.5 KM/h

Weather - about 8C, Dry and calm