WELLINGTON HEATH

Four seasons in less than six months is not a record, but a long Mediterranean summer sandwiched between Siberian blizzards and a cold wet autumnal period has kept us on our toes!

The Old Codger promises an Indian Summer into the early autumn. Let’s hope he is correct!

The Farmers Arms is still waiting for the new kitchen to be finished and so until that auspicious day the chefs continue to work in what was the old preparation room. They, at least, will be happy that the temperature is lower.

Our own Belfour Beatty man has been spotted putting white lines around new craters on the left of the road down to Beggars. Watch out until they get repaired. Also along that road a small touring caravan mushroomed up in the field named Oak Tree View. Interesting; like mushrooms will more follow?

From the archives; village roads were officially laid out around 1814. The area was surveyed and roads with specified widths were given a legal status.

Floyds Lane, with a width of 20 feet, went from the existing Ledbury Road junction running south along what is now Horse Road back to The Ledbury Road.

Horse Road started at the present junction with Floyds Lane and continued through the Farmers Arms’ car park along Pub Lane and up the track known as The Bank; all with a width of 20 feet.

Interestingly Jack’s Lane was classed as a continuation of The Ledbury road with a width of 30 feet and is now a Byway and much as it was in the early 19th Century.

No roads were metalled, some not until 1944 and in 1893 the Highways Board agreed to repair the road through Wellington Heath, where in winter horses could sink into mud up to 1 foot deep.

PETER CONSTANTINE