A View From Doomsday Book Swells Hill 47364

A Memory of Brimscombe.

Swells Hill is mentioned in the doomsday book where very little else in this photo is.
the row of a few houses in the foreground are the top part of Swells Hill, perched on the "Knoll"
Looking east up the Golden Valley to the other knoll of Walls Quarry, perched half way up Brimscombe Hill. Much as it has been since 1901.
The prominence of Walls Quarry and the steep encourages the siting of large houses dominating the views.
The steep curving Brimscombe hill, levels up after its 1st first steep up from the valley floor. Running up below the high dressed cotswold stone walls, holding back the Richardo C of E school and the Trinity Church graveyard. You can see the church spire peeping between the trees and just back from the summit at Walls Quarry is the Richardo primary school on the downward slope.
Once on the level, there is the butt of the "STEEP" headland.
As bare today, as it always has been.
The ground is too steep to build on, but forms a wedge between the rising roads of Church Road leading to the Walls Quarries up past the church gates, (out of site), and the STEEP road climbing up to Burleigh, whilst the flat linear Brimscombe Hill road continues left to right across the photo, only to start its second and final pitch, winding up to Minchinhampton Common, (out of shot on the right).
The field structure running down from Walls Quarry remain the same as 1901, due to the steep gradients of the slopes and would have been littered with sheep 100 years and more before.
Hidden in the trees above the steep is Burliegh House (hotel) who's original carriage ride came off the top of Brimscombe Hill and runs back towards Walls Quarry and over the steep road with a spooky, robust, heavy cotswold stone bridge , locally known as "Devils Bridge"
There is little to see looking up the Golden valley, except for the smoke coming from Hacks stick mill near the Bourne, which is at the very bottom with the GWR railway one side and the Thames & Severn canal on the other. The valley continues to tightening and bend towards the east before rising back up to the start of the very long dip slope of this deeply penetrated escarpment known as the Cotswolds. From 1958 to 1974 this was our play ground where we lived the life of Laurie Lee's "Cider with Rosey"