It’s been a busy couple of weeks and there is dissent amongst the Hidden Wiltshire staff about pay and conditions. I was unhappy with the current working practices that required me to spend two full days this week walking in warm sunshine across the Wiltshire countryside, taking photographs and testing the local hand pumped beers available in a Wiltshire pub after one particular walk. More of that in a future episode.
But in the meantime, somebody had to do it and the Hidden Wiltshire staff are considering joining a union unless conditions are improved.
This week’s podcast follows the coffin trail between West Ashton and Steeple Ashton, a walk that Glyn posted a blog about on the website on 9 July 2021. This was the route used to ferry coffins from the village of West Ashton, before its church was built in 1846, to the church at Steeple Ashton for burial. The route crosses a little brook over which a stone bridge was built around 200 years ago, connecting the path from West Ashton to what is known as Luffenham Field, a delightful mini nature reserve created and maintained by local villagers. The route passes what remains of Rood Ashton Hall, once the family seat of the Long Family.
The halfway point of this 4.5 mile walk is the village of Steeple Ashton where Glyn and I spent a delightful and informative 90 minutes with the hugely knowledgeable stonemason and author Andrew Ziminski. Andrew and his colleagues restored the old stone bridge at Luffenham in 2019/20 and they are now carrying out a series of works at St Mary’s Church in Steeple Ashton. This was the perfect opportunity to record a discussion with Andrew which we did on the roof of the church! An absolutely fascinating conversation during which Andrew brought the building to life, sharing its secrets and stories over hundreds of years.
Glyn has done this walk several times and it’s interesting to see and hear how it changes with the seasons. When I did the walk after the interview with Andrew Ziminski there were a number of route finding challenges as several of the rights of way were overgrown by the crops or had been ploughed up.
Click on the link below to the Hidden Wiltshire website for the full show notes and links mentioned in the show, and to hear the podcast. Alternatively the podcast can be found wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify and Apple.
I took this photograph of Andrew Ziminski and Glyn Coy as Andrew pointed out some of the incredible stonework on the roof of Steeple Ashton church, including this “grotesque”.
Grotesque on St Mary’s Church, Steeple Ashton which will be restored by Andrew Ziminski