Kelston Roundhill and Roundhill Barn

It was a joy to welcome a party of 20 teachers from Bristol Grammar School (BGS) for lunch and the afternoon of Weds 22 Feb. Led by the irrepressible outdoor activities teacher Mrs Kelly Murphy they came for a half term picnic lunch and an afternoon of work volunteering at the Old Barn.

Some of the BGS teachers cleared ground and planted manuka shrubs under the wall to the west of the barn

BGS is one of four schools with new partnership agreements in place for multiple visits to Kelston Roundhill. The teachers who came covered subjects including art, sport, RE & philosophy, design tech, physics and biology.

They came equipped for hard labour. We’d ordered apple trees for them to plant but they failed to show up. So with the farmer Graham Padfield’s help we got them planting a handful of manuka bushes (for possible enhanced honey quality) .They tackled a large pile of unsorted stones and did a litter pick up at the clump.

Meanwhile our other farming neighbour Gerald Robinson cleared scrub and brambles by the barn, uncovering a wrought iron gate as he did so (see below). So the area around the Old Barn is sarting to look much tidied up.

Others got stuck into tackling a pile of stones, stacking resuable Bath stone and filling in a ditch with the smaller rubble.

Now the BGS teachers know their way around the Old Barn they can start to arrange day trips and longer outings pupils to learn, do art and discoer the outdoors.

The other schools with Kelston Roundhill partnership agreements in place are Springfield Academy in Calne, Kingswood Prep in Bath and our closest neighbour Weston Academy.

Jon and Harry Holder in the Kelston Forge.

Answer: you don’t. Kelston’s one industry is the Kelston Forge, where father and son Jon and Harry Holder work as blacksmiths.

We discovered an old gate behind some brambles, but we won’t have to go far to get it repaired. If we’d needed a pint of milk of course that would be a different matter: several miles away.

Kelston Forge will have this wrought iron gate fixed in no time, including putting the traditional oak rail along the top.

Tim Graham, who set up the Kelston Roundhill Flickr group, sent in this shot taken from Saltford on a Sunday morning in January.

Do keep your Flickr photos backed up people. Under Yahoo there’s a risk Flickr will not be as reliable as photographers would like it to be.

Answers in the comments please.

On a chilly January evening we had the pleasure of a visit from our near neighbours at Fairfield House, former home of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Heile Selassie. Today two charities operate there: Fairfield House (responsible for the substantial historic building on lease from B&NES), and the Bath Ethnic Minority Senior Citizens Association (Bemsca).

H.I.M, who is the Messiah for Rastafari, lived in exile for six years at 2 Kelston Road when his native Ethiopia was under Italian invasion 1936-1941. After his return home he bequeathed Fairfield House to the Corporation of Bath for the care of the elderly. Bemsca provides day care services there today in a splendid 1850s building set in a well-tended garden.

It is highly likely that H.I.M walked across Kelston Roundhill on his way to North Stoke church.

We look forward to opportunities for collaboration with Fairfield House in areas such as education, interfaith and community work and culture.

H.I.M wrote of his house at 2 Keslton Road “The view through its front windows always reminded us of the hills in Harer”

Walkers have been deprived of their distant views for a few days. But there is a different haunting beauty to the clump in the mist.

Bath Preservation Trust was set up to in the 1930s to save historic Bath from being cut in half by a new road. Now the Trust safeguards the historic character and amenities of the town with planning advice and education. It also owns and runs four local museums: 1 Royal Crescent, Herschel Museum, the Museum of Bath Architecture and our neighbour across the valley Beckford’s Tower.

It’s a small, independent charity with a huge workload, so we were delighted when they chose to kick off 2017 with a day off and a team visit to Kelston Roundhill including lunch in the Old Barn.

 

They help many owners and managers around Bath, us included. They supported the protection of the Clump with a grant towards fencing, and are integral to much that goes on in the local built environment and landscape, including the successful Bathscape bid.

On a crystal clear day the team had a bracing and spectacular walk from Beckford’s Tower, coffee and a fireside chat at the Old Barn, followed by lunch before heading back to the Tower across the valley via Prospect Style.

The team heads up the hill back to work protecting Bath’s heritage in 2017 and beyond.

• You can become a member of the Bath Preservation Trust here.
• If your small business or charity needs a location for inspiring workshop or team awayday see details here or contact kelstonroundhill@gmail.com.

Here’s the AWT’s magnificent meadows guide to what to look out for when the flowers are back.

Avon Wildlife Trust offers a meadowflowers identification guide as part of its “Magnificent Meadows” project.

The plan is to use these AWT and other specialist NGO resources to inform the new schools partnerships work which starts January 2017. This involves working with selected schools to use the Roundhill for specific learning (including plants and wildlife) artistic and personal development.

We also plan a second AWT “Magnificent Meadows’ day in July 2017.

by Jon Hamp

Fainting colour on faintest stalk
Hidden from winter’s fist
Lonesome foxes stalk the stores
Panic on the list

Light heads west just after noon
Having never lit the scene
Blue, then black, like a rising tide
steals where the grey has been.

What is it now
That holds us still?
Pinned like flies on this darkening hill.

by Jon Hamp

Christmas Princes,
Broken Kings,
Fall in love with needless things.

Tired princess,
Christmas queens,
spend their day on might have beens.

Towers fall and dust must settle;
light as frost,
And dark as metal.

Just Like Princes,
just Like Kings.
we fall in love with needless things.