IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Newington, TETBURY, GL8 8UE

The hamlet of Newington Bagpath sits beside the Little Avon River, a water supply being one of the reasons for its siting and possibly some shelter from winter winds and snow. The view here will be quite changed from that in mediaeval times as far as the buildings are concerned, when the inhabitants of the castle looked down from their height above the valley and the long-disused parish church was regularly open for services. The hamlet once supported a colony of weavers and the monks of Kingswood Abbey had a number of cloth mills along the course of the Little Avon. The Little Avon is an example of a misfit stream, seeming too small for the valley in which it flows. Time photo taken 4.21 pm BST (British Summer Time).

These are the farm buildings of Newington Farm, to the south-east of the former Bagpath Court, now the farmhouse in Newington Bagpath. A colony of weavers was once located in this hamlet and, strange as it may seem, there were a number of cloth mills situated along the Little Avon River, which is now probably a shadow of its former self. Time photo taken 3.50 pm BST (British Summer Time).

A feature of this part of the Cotswolds is the combe, or coombe, a shallow valley. In these the Cotswold stone and other buildings can take shelter from the climate, aided by some trees either naturally growing or planted. It can be bitterly cold in the more isolated parts here - in one year there was lying snow near Sevenhampton when it had disappeared from Cheltenham some weeks before. Time taken photo 3.46 pm BST (British Summer Time).

Stone buildings in the Cotswolds make use of the limestone on which they stand and seem to have arisen from the very earth itself. Careful siting too, to avoid those lazy Cotswold winds, the ones that go through you instead of around you. Time photo taken 3.45 pm BST (British Summer Time).

Unfenced today and at some time in the past unsurfaced as well. What travel might have been like in those far-off days can hardly be imagined, but no fuel duty or MOT then. Perhaps people did not feel the need to travel as much as they seem to do now. Some villages will have been or very nearly have been self-sufficient. Time photo taken 3.44 pm BST (British Summer Time).

Newington Bagpath clings to the side of the valley above the Little Avon River, facing across to its long redundant church and nearby castle mound. The hamlet once supported a colony of weavers and at one time there were cloth mills along the river dating originally from the time of the monks of Kingswood Abbey. Time photo taken not available. Image

This is the former mansion of Bagpath Court, which is now a farmhouse. This hamlet, by the Little Avon River, once supported a colony of weavers, which failed on the introduction of mechanisation to the cloth industry. Hard to believe today but the river once supported a number of cloth mills, in the ownership of the monks of Kingswood Abbey. Time photo taken 3.46 pm BST (British Summer Time).

Newington Bagpath clings to the side of the valley above the Little Avon River, facing across to its long redundant church and nearby castle mound. The hamlet once supported a colony of weavers and at one time there were cloth mills along the river dating originally from the time of the monks of Kingswood Abbey. This photo shows how some Cotswold buildings seem to nestle into folds of the hills, for shelter from the weather. Time photo taken 3.42 pm BST (British Summer Time).

A view upstream, in the direction of the source of the Little Avon River. It might seem incredible today but there were once a number of cloth mills on the Little Avon, owned by the monks of Kingswood Abbey. Newington Bagpath was at one time the home of a colony of weavers. Time photo taken 4.52 pm BST (British Summer Time).