Photos from walk on Thursday 18th May from Fawley Monument to South Fawley and Whatcombe

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Where we started, at the junction of the South Fawley road and the A338, there is a wooded and waterlogged area where used to stand three famous elms known as Adam and Eve and the Serpent. When one succumbed to Dutch elm disease a decade or more ago they said it must be the serpent. Now Adam and Eve have fallen too.

 

On Dogkennel Lane, South Fawley

 

Coffee in a field of grass

 

Overlooking Whatcombe Stables, home of Paul Cole Racing, and site of a medieval village

 

Whatcombe is a farmstead in Berkshire, amongst the Berkshire Downs at SU393788, where once stood a village. It is a mile or so south east from Fawley Manor.

 

Today Whatcombe is famed for the racing stable here, but history lies beneath the surface. In the 1930s a grave was dug for Blandford, probably the most famous stallion of his day, and in the grave Anglo-Saxon remains were found.

 

The present house incorporates parts of the old Norman church which, like the original manor house, has long since fallen into ruin.

 

It is said that stones from this church were taken to build the chantry chapel at Lambourn. Another well known tradition has it that the bells were stolen from Whatcombe’s church and were surreptitiously melted down, so that they could not be traced, and were then recast to provide bells for East Garston church. Another local legend has it that Whatcombe once had a monastery from which a secret passageway ran to the Manor at South Fawley; none has been found.

 

After the village had disappeared and the church had crumbled and been carted away, the manor house remained and in time developed into stables.

 

[Source: Wikishire]

We walked accross the site of the village.

Eventually to a straight path though “miles” of field, with grasses and wildflowers being mown.

 

 

 

 

Verge in South Fawley

 

And now three insects, one pretty, one fragile, and one you probably don’t care about

 

Ladybird on a buttercup

 

Tipula paludosa, a cranefly. It is also known as the European crane fly or the marsh crane fly

 

Fly

 

More about the Fawley Monument in our walk 10 March 2022

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