A Wheel on the Wolds
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I start off from Hucclecote, front wheel axle). These are still a A Wheel on which is just a few cottages either rare sight in places like rural side of the Brockworth road and Gloucestershire, and the sight of The Wolds along the green, otherwise mostly my machine has stirred up the farms. About 100 men in the mob who have started chasing me. by Tony Martin village are employed, according to Luckily the lane dips down and I e were on a club run near the census, and a lot of these are am just able to outpace them. WCherington when I pulled farm labourers. Apart from the Riding the bone-shaker is not at all alongside Pat and Pete and scarcity of dwellings and absence easy, apart from the terrible announced my intention of making of motor vehicles, the thing that vibration, trying to pedal and turn a week’s tour of the Cotswolds in strikes me immediately is how the front wheel at the same time is the coming summer, going Bed small the fields are. It’s quite a job quite tricky. Also it’s quite unlike and Breakfast. It wasn’t until after I to get by the cattle on the green. As riding a bicycle, as your legs are admitted that bread/breakfast was I get into Upton St Leonards there stretched out in front of you and to be actually based at my place seems to be something going on. are not able to exert the same that Pat said she had almost fallen Ah-of course- it’s early July 1871 amount of force. off in surprise. and for three successive Sundays I follow a narrow winding lane they hold their cherry fairs here. through Haresfield, it’s just a cart I am not going to tell you what It’s supposed to be in the field track with a leafy canopy of trees actually happened, instead I shall opposite the inn, but there are meeting overhead, but the verges tell you about such a trip that people sprawling about all over the are awash in wild flowers. Apart might have been made some place – and there is a great deal of from the ringing of church bells hundred years or more ago. I shall fighting. It seems these cherry fairs and birdsong the silence is make nothing up, merely are an opportunity for villagers to overwhelming. I swing left out into telescoping events and scenes into settle old scores. I’d best be on my the open road that leads to a week’s cycling – though of course way, because here come a gang of Stonehouse. Here great fields stretch away on either side as I pass the tall spire of Standish Church. The only other traffic is a pony and trap – which becomes difficult to control as the pony takes fright. The roads are of crushed stone, with ruts and potholes caused by the metal rims of farm carts and this makes the ride on the bone-shaker live up to its name. At intervals along the road, piles of stone have been left for the road-mender to carry out his never-ending task. I turn up the track past Horsemarling farm but I don’t get very far. Although the velocipede has a relatively low gear (it’s about my own participation has to be men from Brookthorpe and 40inches –the diameter of the front fiction. According to the particular Whaddon, determined to have a wheel!) the thing is made of iron events, I shall, of course, be riding good time fighting and disrupting and I shall be unable to tackle the the appropriate (imaginary) the whole thing. I’m riding a escarpment - it would be a real machine. I shall be an observer Coventry Machinists’ velocipede (a challenge even to push the heavy going back in time. bone-shaker that has pedals on the bone-shaker up to Randwick. 2 And so I turn back, not willing Gloucestershire to return via Upton St Leonards countryside, whilst the cherry fair is in progress difficult to get to I shall have to go via Standish lane through steep and and the Bristol road to Gloucester. I narrow lanes with turn on to the Bristol road at poor surfaces. Only Putlow Green, and before long on the farmers move my right is a forge. If there was a about much, most problem with the bone-shaker, it is of the villagers so crude that any country keep to the village, blacksmith could repair it – except either without the of course that today is Sunday – means or the need and nobody works on Sundays. to travel elsewhere. At this time the Next day on the Monday, I only way to reach experience a miraculous recovery the village is on from the injuries sustained riding foot or by horse twenty miles on a bone-shaker - it Hill. It is so steep that we both and cart. The village people here, must be that jar of Ellimans have to walk it, but even this is as elsewhere in the countryside, Universal Embrocation I used. The difficult as there is so much mud live in an old-fashioned world of time warp has now dropped me in on the road. The roads are still of oil lamps, wells, home baking and 1887 and I have arranged to crushed stone, white in summer poaching. The bottom part of accompany a local squire on his with all movement creating clouds Workman’s Wood is boggy and the tricycle trip through the of dust. In the winter the surfaces Rover becomes hard to push but I Cotswolds. I have to make my way become sticky with mud that cakes manage and rising ground takes over to Bowden Hall in Upton St anyone and anything on them. me to the stony surface of Far End. Leonards, where I am to meet up It is thought that the route through with Dearman Birchall J.P. He is Dearman Birchall was a Damsells Cross to Far End and the local squire and exerts businessman in the cotton industry through Workman’s Wood was authority over the village and the from the North where he made a once a drove road as there was a church – the riotous cherry fairs lot of money; he came to cattle pound near Foston’s Ash. Far are no more. I shall be riding an Gloucestershire and bought End was probably the original early (1885) version of the Rover Bowden Hall in 1868. Later he medieval centre of the village. Safety bicycle. It has no freewheel, bought Cranham Woods. He was and to get going you push off and an influential man, being on many I take the lane past Jack’s Green get on by means of a foot-step on committees, so I am overawed in and pass two Edwardian ladies the rear of the frame. Compared to his presence (at least nobody about to start a cycle ride (I must the bone-shaker it is a tremendous throws stones at us whilst I’m in have ridden through that time advance: the front wheel is slightly his company) but I am relieved warp again, because they have larger than the rear, handlebar and when we part in Birdlip village. He ladies mixte frame cycles with saddle positions can be altered, is going to Cirencester to stay the balloon (pneumatic) tyres. From and chainwheel and rear sprocket night, before pressing on to their long dresses and large hats I may be set up beforehand for a Swindon, via Cricklade the next guess I must be now in the late suitable single gear. Next year day. I am off to Bisley, but just 1890s and my once revolutionary Dunlop will patent the pneumatic before the Fostons Ash public Rover has suddenly become a bit tyre, so both Dearman Birchall and house, on my right is a downhill dated. This style for ladies dress myself are still on solid rubber track through Workman’s Wood carried on for some time in spite of tyres. that I can push the Rover through being so impractical for cycling and which will take me to along dusty or muddy lanes.) We come back through Sheepscombe. Hucclecote, then to Brockworth I reach the Slad road at Bulls and take the steep road up Birdlip Sheepscombe at this time is Cross and follow the road down hidden away in the depths of the 3 until I turn off left along Catswood consult my 1905 Lane. I have to push up hill before “Contour” Road I can remount and take the road to Book of England – Bisley at Stancombe Farm. There Western Division, has been a lot of trouble in Bisley which fits neatly into over the years. It had started about the pocket of my 1863 when the local landowner Norfolk jacket. Route John Dorington had started the 827 Bath to procedures for enclosure of Cheltenham common land between Bisley, describes Birdlip Hill Chalford and Oakridge. By 1866 as a dangerous hill the rights held by commoners were with a gradient of 1 suspended and the footpaths in 10. The diagram closed. Discontent continued for shows it dropping years with threats made against 500 ft in just over two Dorington and the vicar of Bisley, miles. I walk down Thomas Keble. Later there is going the hill, for although immunity from punctures on these to be a nine year feud between a it’s still 1910, I cannot erase my awful roads up in the Wold.