Oxfordshire: Coleshill and Kelmscott

23 April 2014                                                      OS Tourist Map 8 Cotswolds

 

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 buses, sites came along in a rush, because we were to see them again today at Kelmscott!

 

 

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