It would be
possible to walk from Coleshill (SU2393) to Kelmscott (SU2598), crossing the Thames via Buscot House, and this would probably be an
interesting journey. Being short of
time, however, and being in the region, we visited each separately, travelling
between the two by car.
Coleshill is a
picturesque village with a tall-towered church at the centre. A raised path to the church from the main
road goes along the top of a Cotswold-stone wall, which is planted with various
flowers, which mix with various native plants in an interesting tapestry.
Flower wall by path to
church, Coleshill
We saw along here
red valerian Valeriana dioica,
aubretia Aubretia deltoidea, rosemary
Rosmarinus officinalis, wallflower Erysimum cheiri, snow-in-summer Cerastium tomentosum, wild strawberry Fragaria vesca, primrose Primula vulgaris, columbine Aquilegia vulgaris, common cornsalad Valerianella locusta, hybrid bluebell Hyacinthoides x massartiana, groundsel Senecio vulgaris, common whitlow-grass Erophila verna, white dead-nettle Lamium album, ivy-leaved toadflax Cymbalaria muralis, bugle Ajuga reptans, wood forgetmenot Myosotis sylvatica, annual mercury Mercurialis annua, marjoram Origanum vulgare, garden grape-hyacinth Muscari armeniacum and green helleborine
Helleborus viridis. There was a particularly dense patch of the
cornsalad at the edge of the churchyard.
Common cornsalad above
Coleshill churchyard wall
In the churchyard
itself, although mostly mown grass, longer grass patches had been left in a few
places, two of the patches accommodating wild tulips Tulipa sylvestris, now at the end of their flowering period. As noted in our last post
(Childrey-Sparsholt, Berkshire ), we discovered
our first wild tulips two weeks earlier after decades of searching. Now, like London
Apart from the
tulips some tall Allium leaves had
been left; although not yet in flower, we thought they were what we call crow
garlic (now officially termed "wild onion") Allium vineale, not a species we have seen in a churchyard before
now.
At Kelmscott we
went to the Manor, which is open 11am-5pm on Wednesdays and Saturdays,
admission to the grounds only £2-50.
This manor, standing within a working farm and orchard, surrounded by
rookeries and bordering the Thames , is kept up
by a voluntary trust because it was the home of William Morris, the famous
Victorian designer.
Rookery, Kelmscott Manor
His well-known
"Strawberry Thief" design of thrushes and strawberries was inspired
by the sight of flocks of thrushes partaking of these fruits in the garden
here, and one of the paved courtyard gardens here still had extensive patches
of wild strawberry allowed to proliferate among primroses and grape-hyacinth Muscari neglectum (although we did not
see any thrushes).
Wild strawberry
The gardens have,
in fact, been reconstructed to be as close as possible to how they would have
been in Morris's day, and they are not over-tidy, allowing wild and garden
species to intermix. There is an old
17th-century black mulberry Morus nigra
here, supported by many props, underneath which was a patch of winter aconites Eranthus hyamalis in seed and wild
tulips.
Old black mulberry,
Kelmscott Manor
Nearby was a
wildflower meadow with cowslip Primula
veris, fritillary Fritillaria
meleagris, and wood anemone Anemone
nemorum.
Cowslips and fritllaries
From the shade of
a shrubbery that included a narrow-petalled variety of greater periwinkle Vinca major var oxyloba peeped the white flowers of star-of-Bethlehem Ornithogalum angustifolium.
Greater periwinkle var. oxyloba
Star-of-Bethlehem
Elsewhere were
plenty of leopardsbane Doronicum
pardalianches, cypress spurge Euphorbia
cyparissias, sweet cicely Myrrhis
odorata, dusky cranesbill Geranium
phaeum and green alkanet Pentaglottis
sempervivum.
Greater celandine,
Kelmscott
In particularly
fresh flower among the garden plants at the moment were various colour forms of
Iris magnifica and white corydalis Pseudofumaria alba (sold commercially as
Corydalis ochroleuca).
Iris
magnifica
White corydalis