The Shieling
A personal website for Beckford Village
A personal website for Beckford Village
The Shieling Blog
Our blog might be of interest to those of you who know Beckford. We try to keep you up-to-date with the goings-on in Beckford Close - and any new or interesting sightings from our wild life and security cameras.
Having not seen much activity in the field during the hot weather - and the grass grown up, yesterday morning around 3 o'clock our friendly badger returned....
Making the most of Valentines day in the field!
These mice caught on our field camera - looks like they are playing games on Boxing Day
The latest 'over the wall' activity!
Our newly positioned camera (in the field behind the wall at the end of our garden) has captured some more wildlife - a little too close. Fortunately badgers can’t jump over the wall!
We think this may be the last of the fish in our pond!
Our neighbour mentioned that he thought he saw a stoat in his garden. Last night we captured a stoat having a drink at our pond - yet another first.
For the past few months there has been little activity around our pond, mainly due to the poor weather, but this morning we had our first Barn Owl coming for a drink at about 3am this morning.
This winter has seen a drastic reduction in the number of birds visiting the pond, probably due to the weird weather. However, our new wildlife camera recently trapped a new visitor to our garden, on several occasions in the past few weeks.
On our final day in the Yorkshire Dales we went to the Hawes Market. Another language altogether....
Some of you may have noticed on the bridge over the river Carrant in Crashmore Lane a new gadget has appeared attached to the bridge. This is a river level monitoring station installed by the Environment Agency. The station went 'live' around 15th November last year and transmits its data every 15 minutes. I have now added an extra menu item to the weather menu on this website called river level. This shows a live graph of the river levels at the bridge and compares this with the rainfall in the Vale and on Bredon Hill.
When Crashmore Lane flooded back on 18th February this year the level showed 2 metres; therefore any level around 2 metres indicates that Crashmore Lane (and possibly Back Lane in Beckford) is liable to flood. As you can see by looking at the historical data the river level is not directly related to rainfall levels as there are many other factors to consider.
A short ride up the hill today. Had to stop and take a photo and video of the poppies up near Lalu Farm.
We went to ring the bells this morning and found this huge tree blocking the road in the High Street...
This is something we don't see often at our pond, especially as we do not have any fish!
This is our latest addition to our conservatory.
On a recent visit by our 12 year old grand daughter from Scotland, who is learning the bagpipes, we decided to treat the residents of Beckford to a bagpipe rendition from the Church Tower.
Recently we have had a pair of Magpies in our garden that seem to be very happy mixing with the other wildlife
A fantastic morning for walk on Bredon Hill. The views were stunning, despite the mist still lingering on the Cotswolds.
Today we witnessed the darker sides of nature in our back garden. A local Sparrow Hawk was instrumental in reducing the Blackbird population.
Because of the current Lockdown, Beckford Open Village will not be taking place this year. As compensation, here is a short video of our garden, just to show what you may be missing!
Although we regularly see kestrels around our garden, they rarely come into the garden. Presumably because of the dry weather we have been having, more birds are thirsty.
Mallard ducks are not really welcome on our pond as they stir up the water, which is normally crystal clear. These visitors stayed for about an hour altogether - this clip is a summary and lasts about 8 minutes.
Same birds, new activities...
This is a typical selection of visitors to our pond over the past weeks.
This is something we have never seen before - a Little Owl bathing in our pond!
Our Nature Camera recently captured some of the more unusual visitor to our pond. Along with the more usual Blackbirds, Thrushes, Goldfinches, Partridges, Pheasants, Pigeons, Jackdaws and Chaffinches we encountered a Little Owl at 5am and also a pair of Grey Wagtails.
If you need any assistance during the Coronavirus outbreak, help is at hand. A Beckford Help group has been set up. If you have ANY problems with self isolation, or are in the vulnerable group, please call one of the following people who will be able to put you in touch with someone who can help - shopping, emergency in the home or just need a chat...
If you use Facebook, then click here to go to the Beckford Help Facebook page.
Lucy Griffiths from Forge Cottage in Back Lane is one of the volunteer helpers for this group. She can be contacted on 01386 882339 or 07506190385.
Recently the owners of the old railway embankment opposite our house (Historical Railways Estates) have cleared a section of the bank which contained many diseased and dead trees and shrubs. They have also removed some of the very large ash trees to prevent potential damage to the overhead cables and the underground water pipes and communications cables that run under to bank to service our small group of 6 houses.
Things look a little bare at the moment, so when the weather calms down again we will finish clearing up the loose debris left by the clearance operation and start thinking about what we would like to see in the bank.
We have had a few suggestions from people passing by, some reasonable and some rather ridiculous. We certainly want to avoid any large trees again and would prefer some small shrubs together with suitable ground covering plants and bulbs.
As a new Speaker of the House of Commons has just been appointed, we have done some research into the role of Speaker. It transpires that in the 14th Century a Sir John Cheyne (or Cheney) from Beckford was briefly the Speaker of the House of Commons in 1399.
Extracts from the Geni website gives us some idea of his brief role...
'Sir John Cheyne or Cheney, was a Member of Parliament and briefly the initial Speaker of the House of Commons of England in the Parliament of October 1399, summoned by the newly-acclaimed Henry IV.'
' He took part in a number of diplomatic missions and became MP for Gloucestershire in 1390, 1393, 1394 and 1399. On the last occasion he was elected Speaker, but stood down on the ostensible grounds of ill-health, but may have been persuaded to do so by the influence of Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, who was appalled by his election and warned the clergy that Cheyne was an inveterate 'enemy' of the contemporary church. The revolution of 1399 made for strange bedfellows. Although Cheyne is never called a 'Lollard' (heretic) by contemporaries, he was a core member of a connection of knights held (with good cause) to be promoters of, or at least sympathetic to, that emerging sect. His testament (in modern parlance, his will) did reflect some of that sect's attitudes but embedded in a good deal of orthodoxy. In that generation after John Wyclif, many sympathisers with the moral and social ideas of that scholar indeed hoped this would not prove incompatible with continuing devotion to orthodox piety and acceptance within the Catholic Church.'