Sarah Siddon's house at Lydbrook

This house in Lydbrook, Forest of Dean is reputed to be the childhood home of the 18th century actress Sarah Siddons

Hasfield - the disappearing road

This road in Hasfield, Gloucestershire is almost not there at all. It's shown on many maps as being an ordinary (if narrow) country lane. As you can see, "Unsuitable for motors" is a bit of an understatement although you might get a motorbike along it.

However, the picture below by Ian S in 2016 shows a much wider carriageway which you could get a smaller car down.

The reasons for this decay probably include:

• The road isn't a route between two large population centres
• Apart from a few farm buildings at the far end, no one "needs" to drive along it to access a building or gateway

It does have nice views to Corse Grove though so it's well worth the walk

Eldersfield - hills, ditches and bridges

Eldersfield is a sparsely populated parish in south-west Worcestershire. It's largely flat but does have some distinctive low hills

An unnamed 33m hill in Eldersfield

The most notable small hill is Gadbury Bank or Camp which is an ancient hill fort  - unfortunately, there's no public access.

On the opposite side of Coles Lane is an unnamed hill with quite a few footpaths. The landowner has erected a bench at the summit - although there's no public right of way to it.

View from a footpath over the church and mid left is "Berth Hill"

There's another interesting hill on the North side of Hoggs Pitch. In theory, it makes a nice circular hill-top walk but at the time of writing, the footpath is blocked at the south-east corner.

Wide path leading around the hilltop

These hills are very much the exception - most of the land is low-lying and flat and part of the village is called Eldersfield Marsh - a reference the state of much of the land before being drained in the 19th Century. That's why there are number of deep ditches in the village with some nice small bridges

Another interesting bridge is over an arm of a lake near Marsh Court. The lake isn't shown on older OS maps so it (and the bridge) is probably fairly modern in origin.

This phone box has been re-purposed

The Longdon & Eldersfield Marsh Conservation Trust is a good source of history and wildlife information

 

More pictures

Marsh Brook

View towards the Malverns

Willows at Eldersfield Marsh