Bucklebury

Last week on Skywatch Friday I showed Bucklebury Ford  it was only a short distance away from this part of the village

 I had bee to visit this church which will be in the Church Explorer in a couple of weeks 

One person who used to live in the village and no doubt went to this church and seen around the village with her future husband  was the Duchess of Cambridge

Takeing part in Our World Tuesday

St Marks Englefield

This week the Church Explorer is in Berkshire at St Marks Englefield, a church with a bit of  a Royal Connection.

Sky at the ford

The other day I was in Bucklebury visiting a church, when I finished I decided to visit the ford just up the road. Now me and Bucklebury Ford have a history because back in the mid 1970's I was a young petrol head running a modified Mini. I into motor sport and was taking part in  night rally called a twelve car rally. My navigator and I were doing well running second on the road when we arrived at this ford. It was running deep at the time when we got to it. The guy in front of us had gone around the long way and went past on the opposite side. My navigator said go so I did keeping the revs up but as we got into the ford a wave came over the bonnet (hood) and the back end of the car started to float sideways. I said to the navigator to open the door so that is what we did and the car sank into the ford and stopped. We got out and I had a mate stood over on the walkway you see who said "It's Deep Bill", My reply is nothing I can print on here but we managed to push it out and restart the car. After that we drove to the halfway stop and retired. Neither of us wanted to drive in a wet clothes and seats. I did do a few more night rallies and have cleared a ford in the mini but this was the first time I had seen this ford since my altercation with in the 1970's. It was also a good place to get some Skywatch photos

My first view of Bucklbury ford since the 1970's

It's reading 2ft 6ins deep which is 18" deeper than when I tried going through.

The road to the ford is just to the left of the sign and is flooded for about a hundred yards. A van came down just after I took the photo and turned around realising he would not get across

Quite sure this is the way I attempted to try and cross the ford

A last look before going back to my car

I looked into the field near the ford and took this photo from the gate, the river is to the left of the tree.

I'll try and pop back again when the ford is lower just to see if it is easy enough to drive through.

Happy Skywatch

St Gregory Welford

This week the Church Explorer takes you a bit further along the road from East Shefford to Welford and St Gregory's church the only other church in Berkshire that has a round tower, the church dates back to the 13th century but was extensively restored by the Victorians

St Thomas East Shefford

This week the Church Explorer goes a mile down the road from Great Shefford to visit the Redundant church of St Thomas in East Shefford. The church dates back to the late 11th century 

St Mary Great Shefford

This week the Church Explorer takes you to West Berkshire for the first of  a series of churches that date to Saxon times. Today's  is unusual in that it has a round tower, one of two in Berkshire, the second I will show in a few weeks

St Barabus Peasemore

This weeks church fetured in my Church Exploer Blog is St Barabus Peasemore  situated in a pleasent Berkshire village not far from Newbury

St Nicholas Beedon

St Nicholas is part of the East Downland Benefice 

and can be found off the A34 on the Oxford Raod which was the A34 origonaly before the built the new one cutting the village off making it a quite place to live. The church dates back to  1220 and has one of the best scratch sundials (mass dial) I have seen. Please visit my blog and look around the church

Parsonage Farm

Lowbury Hill Sky

This was the culmination of my Ridgeway walk the place I had wanted to get a photo, it's called Deans Bottom and I needed a photo of it for my Exploration Blog for a one I am putting together (all will be revealed then) I still need to go to a footpath in the distance and get a shot uphill. If you followed  along this valley you will come to the Thames at Moulsford.

Right behind where I took the last photo is Lowbury Hill and this is the trig point on the top I think it marks 165 meters above sea level (584FT). You are looking right across the Berkshire Downs and the Ridgeway which is over to the left out of sight. Over to the right you can make out the Harwell Campus and Diamond Light Source. From this point you can see for miles all around. One of the interesting things here are the remains of a Roman Temple though all you can See is a series of humps and a few Tumulus

Below is a panoramic of Deans Bottom, I live over to the left about 5 miles in the distance

Another Panoramic of Lowbury Hill

This one is looking the other way towards my Village

Hope you enjoyed this weeks skywatch

A few photos of Reading

 Taken the end of Jan on my phone

The original Reading Station building which was built in 1860, this was where the tickets were bought for the trains and also were the waiting rooms were. In 1989 a new station building was built on the site of the old South Eastern Station and the building above became redundant and sold off to be made into a public house. Last year it was refurbished and has recently been reopend as you see it now. 

Bit of a panoramic this showing the work going on with the plazas by the Kennet at the Orical in Reading. They are improveing the area for  concerts and shows that go on here

Last a view of St Mary's Church in the Butts from John Lewis second floor window

Taking Part in Our World Tuesday

Ridgeway Skys

Some more skys views form my Ridgeway walk in January 

This is where I was about to turn off towards Lowbury Hill 

 Looking back towards where Thurl down was

Looking ahead to Lowbury Hill which I will show in the Next Blogs.

Happy Skywatch

Thurl Down

Last week I showed a coupleof photos of Streatley Warren which were taken just off the Ridgeway (Tesdays Post) Well on the other side of the track is Thurl Down. 

 Thurl Down is on the left it was taken at the start of my walk

 A little further along the walk 

More from Reading Museum

Just before Christmas I was in Reading to get some photos of a Church and took the opportunity of going in the Museum. It provided a little piece of research for another blog I hope to be doing about Reading Abbey some time .

Next door I noticed this office was empty

The first thing I noticed was this picture on a pillar by the Reading Abbey exhibition, it depicts the Last Abbot Hugh Faringdon at his execution which was not very pleasant in those days. He was lucky in fact he died of hear failure before it happened which is more that I can say for the two fellow priests that were with him. He was executed in front of his Abbey

 Couple more paintings, the one on the left is the King presiding over Reading Abbey I think the other Queen Elizabeth I

 Back to what I was looking at Reading Abbey, the model above shows what it would have looked like and the church over to the left St Laurence is still there today along with a nearby building above it.

 Archaeological  work has been done around the Abbey Remains and these are some of the finds

I should have read up on what this alabaster carving was off

This is thought to be one of the Cloister pillars from the Abbey. The reformation tore a lot of fine Abbeys down Reading being one of them and I cannot help but wonder what they would be like now had they been left.

I'll leave you with this picture I took on the was back , I think it represents a Christmas Tree.

Taking Part in Our World Tuesday

Wall of History

A couple of weeks ago I wrote on the reopening of Camp Hopson Department store an of the restaurant being refurbished. As you walked into the old restaurant you bassed a display cabinet with old newspaper clippings about the store going back to when it first opend and some of the recepts from that time. When the restaurant reopend the cabenet was gone but on one wall was a huge mural with enlaged clippings from the cabinet for you to read on a wall of history

Photos from different eras 

Closer view of the poster.

Taking Part in Monday Mural