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Kelmscott, famous as the home of the writer and designer William Morris, is a small, secluded hamlet on the north bank of the river Thames, and is at the end of a no-through road that peters out at the Thames towpath. It has remained a small and predominantly agricultural community, built around two working farms, and even today it consists of less than 200 residents.

The hamlet's riverside landscape, though broken up by hedgerows and trees, is mainly flat and featureless, the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a friend of Morris who spent time at Kelmscott in the 1870s, called it 'the most uninspiring I ever stayed in', and noted it was 'the doziest dump of old grey beehives'! Though to Morris, with more idealized views of rural life, Kelmscott was a 'beautiful grey little hamlet' unspoiled by industrialisation.

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The village of Filkins is actually two villages, as sat right next to it is Broughton Poggs, officially the small Broadwell brook marks the boundary separating the two villages, but in reality, you can walk from one to the other and not know it. Broughton Poggs doesn't actually have any roads that lead into the village, so you could only walk to it.

Filkins and Broughton Poggs straddle what has always been an important north-south route from the high Cotswolds to the Thames, and beyond to the South Coast. No doubt the easy availability of good water from the many local springs led to early settlemen there. ‘Filkins’ roughly translates as the meadow of Filica, a Saxon nobleman perhaps from the Hwicce tribe, from which is derived ‘Wychwood’, the ancient forest around Burford. The Filkins ‘s’ is possibly an allusion to the traditional division of the village into Upper and Nether Filkin.

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Continuing our tour of the Cotswolds, and in recognition of the fact that Downton Abbey is returning to the screens very shortly, we visit the lively town of Bampton. It may seem oddly familiar to Downton Abbey fans, as it doubles as the fictional Yorkshire village of Downton, supposedly somewhere between Ripon and Thirsk!

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I have been out and about in the Cotswold countryside a few evenings in the last week, to try and get some hay bale sunset action. Not as easy a task as you might think, given the changeable weather conditions we've had recently, and that the hay bales seem to be whisked off almost as soon as they appear on the landscape.

Not deterred, I searched high and low to find some shots, sometimes the sun appeared at the right time, and sometimes it didn't appear at all, sometimes the bales were still there, and more often than not they had been squirrelled away, but my efforts paid off in the end, and I managed to snaffle a few images from this years round of hay bailing.

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I was up early again in the hope that sunrise would be more amenable than the previous day. I took the little lane that heads upwards onto the moors, before arriving at at the coast road and then onwards to Porlock. I stopped on the silent moor and hunted around for some heather, which was a bit of a task, as there wasn't much about. I found a small patch that would have serve as my foreground colour and parked up, watching the sky to see if my time was about to be wasted again.

Setting up in the still morning, all I could hear were the eccentric bleatings of distant sheep, as they rummaged around in the undergrowth for some breakfast, but beyond that, it was as if the landscape itself was still sleeping as there was complete stillness.

After waiting a little while a small glimmer appeared on the horizon, there was a great deal of cloud about, but thankfully a nice gap had appeared, which allowed the rising orb to fling a little colour about the surrounding brumey blanket.

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I was down in Exmoor for a couple of days, which is always a good thing, as it's such a beautiful spot. I was somewhat limited in what I could get up to though as I had recently broken a toe, so my mobility was somewhat impaired, no walks through the Barle Valley on this visit. If I could drive to it, then I would go to it, otherwise it was out of bounds.
I was up for sunrise first thing that morning, at the slightly impudent hour of 5.30, and I took a drive through Simonsbath and out onto the moorland in the hope that there would be some spectacular colour in the sky. There wasn't.

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Swinbrook is a small village on the River Windrush, about two miles east of Burford. Apparently untouched for generations, it is the quintessential English village with its stone walls, pretty church, cricket pitch with wooden pavilion (above), and an old stone pub next to the historic bridge across the River Windrush, the architecture is typically Cotswolds with cottages of warm-toned stone.

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I was out the other day in the changeable weather we've been having, and managed to get a few shots of tumultuous skies above the Cotswold landscape.

I had to dodge a few rain showers, and it was a case of grabbing the shots when I could, but with such volatile conditions it was worth the effort, as they can produce some interesting results.

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Burford is a small town on the River Windrush in the Cotswold hills. The name derives from the Old English words burh meaning fortified town or hilltown and ford, the crossing of a river.

With its medieval bridge, old stone houses and attractive Tudor and Georgian frontages, Burford is justifiably called one of the most picturesque towns in England. Often referred to as the ‘Gateway to the Cotswolds’, the town was originally a fortified Anglo-Saxon ford, which continued in use until just after the Norman conquest of England, when the town of Burford was built on its current site.

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For a small village, Asthall is rich in history: a former Roman settlement on Akeman Street, which linked Cirencester with St Albans; the village church, dating back to the 12th century, possibly earlier; and the Elizabethan manor house, home to the Mitford sisters - it was here that Nancy Mitford penned much of ‘Love in a Cold Climate’. She is buried in the churchyard at nearby Swinbrook.

The course of Akeman Street Roman Road that linked Watling Street with Fosse Way passes through the parish just south of the village and through the middle of Windrush Farm. The road crossed the Windrush about half a mile east of the village. Traces of a Roman settlement have been found on both sides of the course of the road on low-lying land between Windrush Farm and the site of the Roman river crossing. It was occupied from the middle of the first century AD to the latter part of the fourth century.

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The smallest of the three Wychwood villages, the other two being Milton and Shipton, Ascott is the most isolated, and is set in a lovely location beside the quiet River Evenlode.

The name 'Ascott' comes from the Saxon for 'East Homestead', a reference to the fact that Ascott began as a child settlement of Shipton, a few miles to the west. Wychwood was the ancient royal forest of Wychwood, and its name originated from the 'wood of a tribe called Hwicce'. Little remains today of the forest.

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Shipton-under-Wychwood is a village in the Evenlode valley, its name refers to the fact that it used to be under the boughs of the ancient Royal Forest of Wychwood and was originally a royal manor, mentioned in the Domesday Book. Langley Lodge, on the east side of Shipton was the site of a Royal hunting Lodge that was built for Henry VII. Most of the Tudor monarchs stayed there when hunting in Wychwood Forest. Some remnants of the forest remain, but for the most part this is now open farmland.

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Nestled in the Cotswolds and overlooking the Worton Valley from its limestone ridge location, Great Tew has been described as one of England's most beautiful villages.

Historic remains have unearthed a barrow just south of the village and a Roman mosaic floor and hypocaust heating system from a 4th century Roman villa. By 1086 it was recorded in the Domesday Book as a sizeable settlement and it played an important role in the Civil War and in The Industrial Revolution.

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Situated in the Evenlode valley, Kingham, which was anciently known as Konigsham, is a beautiful unspoiled Cotswold village with some beautiful cottages mostly dating from the 17th and 18th centuries.

The main road through the village, Church Street, has an attractive mix of houses and cottages, a village shop and a couple of pubs. At the north end of the village is a large green surrounded by stone & thatched cottages and at the other end is the village church, St. Andrew's.

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Charlbury is a small town in the Evenlode valley, it looks across the valley to the fine 600 acre Cornbury Park estate almost surrounded by the great woodlands of Wychwood Forest. Evidence suggests that the town started life as a small Anglo-Saxon settlement in a clearing in Wychwood Forest. The town made prosperous during the 18th century thanks to it's glove making industry.

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As I'm in the middle of quite an extensive commission for the Oxfordshire Cotswolds, a local government run website and annual tourist guide, documenting the local towns and villages found in this part of the country, I've decided to start a regular series of blog posts with some of the images I've captured on my travels, and first up is the bustling town of Chipping Norton.

Chipping Norton is the highest town in Oxfordshire, The town's name means 'market north town', with "Chipping" (from Old English cēping) meaning 'market'. Chipping Norton began as a small settlement at the foot of a hill on which stood the motte-and-bailey Chipping Norton Castle. Only the earthworks of the castle remain.

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Short and sweet, here's a few pictures of wildflowers taken a couple of weeks ago.

A wildflower (or wild flower) is a flower that grows in the wild, meaning it was not intentionally seeded or planted.

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A few weeks ago I visited the flower fields in Wick, Worcestershire to get a few shots of the beautiful fields in full bloom. It was the last weekend of the year that the 26 acre field was open to the public, in fact it was the first time it had been properly opened to the public for ten years, so while the weather wasn't great, a bit of sun would have been nice, I was keen get over there anyway.

The fields are owned by The Real Flower Petal Confetti Company, and as the name suggests, they use the various colours of English Delphiniums they grow to make confetti, among other things. The flowers are hand picked, and there were already people out loading baskets with the colourful blooms while I was there,

I spent a few hours among the vibrant colours, enjoying the odd sensation of being surrounded by so much colour and endeavoring to get some pictures that captured the feel of the place.

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Yesterday evening I took a drive over to a local poppy field I'd had my eye on, to see if I could get a few photos at sunrise. I had originally intended to visit a different field, which was full of the things, and curved very nicely across the landscape, but the next time I visited it, it had been completely mown into oblivion. Thanks farmer!

So I took my second choice, and arrived about 8.30 to give me enough time to set up for what I hoped would be the evening performance. The field didn't have as many poppies in it as I'd hoped it would have, nothing like the year before, but I did what a I could, and got a series of images as the sun disappeared for the evening.

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My alarm was set for 4 am but thanks to my lack of sleep I just couldn't face getting up for sunrise, and I turned it off almost involuntarily, before quickly disappearing back into unconsciousness. Woke up again at 8 feeling slightly guilty for not making the most of day, but not too guilty, and made a quick escape back to Waterfall Country to do the Four Falls Walk I didn't have the time to do previously.

There were already a handful of people about when I arrived at the Cwm Porth car park, it was a Saturday, so I wanted to get started before the crowds arrived. Shortly after setting off, I took a short detour down to where those who have a penchant for potholing can access one of the entrances to the River Mellte as it thunders through an underground passageway, to get a few pictures of a rather fetching woodland scene.

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