CHERINGTON VILLAGE | GLOUCESTERSHIRE | ENGLAND

LAKE SURROUNDS, SPRING 2011.

Path around 'the back' of the lake.

Fauna reflecting of the stream exiting the lake.

Cherington Book Celebrates It's 10th Anniversiary.

Cherington - a Century of Change in a Cotswold Village, by Elizabeth Workman and Beryl Milsom, was launched at the annual Flower and Vegetable Show in 2000; so this year's show (on July 25th 2010, at 2pm) marks the 10th anniversiary of this marvelous book.

Drawn from the memories of many inhabitants past and present, Elizabeth Workman has given the reader a close-up picture of life in a small, and in the first part of the century, a fairly isolated agricultural community. Cherington was well-known at one time for the lake where the industrial workers from nearby Stroud and Nailsworth enjoyed themselves on hot summer Sundays.

It is however in the description of the characters of Cherington and the changing way of life both of the owners of the manor and the farm labourers which the book excels.

Over 60 photographs, contributed by many people, provide a record of buildings, landscape and inhabitants throughout the period.

A well written and often amusing book which, whilst regretting the loss of various aspects of life in the past, looks to the future with a pride in the village and a healthy mixed community which pulls together.

Copies of the book are available (£6.00) from Elizabeth Workman, Barn Lodge, Cherington, Tetbury, GL8 8SN, or email liz@theworkmans.co.uk

Rosie Mack, Artist, Cheringtonian.

Cherington resident Rosie Mack is a graduate of Canterbury College of Art, where she studied fine art and gained a BA Hons and subsequently an MA. She received a traditional grounding in techniques when she studied for a year with Robert Greenham RA, a colourful character and professional artist known for his portraits, landscapes and his writing on painting technique and artists.

(More of Rosie's paintings can be found on her website - http://www.rosiemack.co.uk - with more information about her exhibitions and galleries.)

Rosie lived in Surrey until 1979, and since then has lived in the Cotswolds. She walks for many miles observing and recording the landscape and weather in its many moods and colours, then works on her paintings in her studio overlooking the Avening Valley. Her paintings are an invitation to the viewer to immerse his senses in the moods and atmosphere of the countryside; the milky stillness of an autumn evening; the bright spring light darting through the fresh greens of moving foliage; stretches of furrows and skeleton trees of a winters day; the mellow yellows and long creeping shadows of late summer.

Rosie is an expressive painter working mainly in tempera and oils, using the qualities of her mediums to great effect. She paints both on a small, intimate scale on gesso panel and on large canvases full of movement and light. She invites the viewer to share her delight in the qualities of light and the contrasts of deep shadow. To achieve the quality of light in her work she builds up successive glazes of tempera, then contrasts this luminosity with the rich solidity of oil, applied in an unusual and very hands-on method without using a brush to obtain the effect of movement, the dance of light across the landscape and through the leaves and shadows.

Pass The Strawberries.

Cheringtonians take time out recently for a Sunday evening picnic in a field on the edge of the village (adjacent to this web-masters first ever school). Photos courtesy of John Bate-Williams: thanks John!

Click to enlarge.... 

   

Litter Pick 2010

Members of the community join forces March 13th 2010 to clean up the hedgerows.

 

Swan Family Arrives At Cherington Lake.

Photo courtesy of Liz Workman.

 

Liz also snapped this photo of a recent sunset; the building silhouetted is.....(post your best guess in the comments section below).

 

Animal Service Photo Album

Many thanks to Sarah Priday for forwarding via Liz Workman photographs of the Cherington 'Animal Service' held at St Nicholas on Sunday 25th October 2009. Just click on the photo album in the left hand side column to see them.

 

 

Harvest Festival Photo, by Liz Workman

Barn Fire In Cherington

Firefighters are treating the cause of a blaze at a Cherington barn in 'suspicious'.
Read the press coverage here.

Hunt Meets At Cherington.

 

Photo by Richard Lippiatt

Come Ye Thankful People Come!

Harvest Festival photos, courtesy of Liz Workman.     

 

 

 

New Cherington Photo Album Shot By French Photographer And Cotswolds Resident Jean-Noël Chatelain.

Jean-Noël Chatelain was born in France, moved to England in the late Seventies, and now lives in Avening. He has enjoyed taking photos for a long time, and got particularly engaged when he was a student and travelling in the American desert. On his return he worked on a farm doing the grape harvest in order to buy his first SLR.

After other trips to the USA, many countries in Europe taking thousands of slides he finally bought a digital camera (Nikon D50) in 2006 allowing him to take photos all the time in all kind of weather and light, all over the world from Vietnam to...Cherington! Yes, our dear little village is a favoured corner of the globe for Jean-Noel, who often comes for a walk around the lanes and in particular around the village lake.

His photographs of Cherington can now be seen in a new album on "Jean-Noël Chatelain Shoots Cherington". The larger body of Jean-Noël's work can be seen here: http://www.ephotozine.com/u55553

BBC Points West Reports Five Forty-Foot Trees Brought Down By Thunderstorms In Cherington.

"Thunderstorms which swept across the region last night toppled trees and left thousands of homes without power in Gloucestershire," reports BBC Points West, " five forty-foot trees were brought down yesterday evening near the village of Cherington."

To view the TV news click here, and 'fast forward' to 16 minutes into the TV news broadcast. (It may take a minute or so to load.)

If you have photographs of the damage, please email them to CHERINGTONGL8@GMAIL.COM.

Cherington From The Air

A fabulous collection of photos of Cherington from the air have been added to the "Around The Lanes" photo album.

Best Kept Village in Glos: The Bledisloe Cup Wall Of Fame.

This photograph explains entirely why a Sunday Times article, Bespoke Weekends: Full Speed To The Countryside With Our Classic Cycling Adventures, which involved a bike ride through the village, observed that Cherington "boasts Britain’s biggest collection of best-kept village plaques". You can see this photo of the display in the "The Village" photo album, where it'll be much bigger. Also, well worth a second read is what it's like to be a judge of the best kept village awards - you read one judge's story, published after one competition ('98) in The Independent.

Listen To The Cherington Dawn Chorus Online At The Beeb.

Learn more about the dawn chorus and listen to it in Cherington with (or without) commentary from ornithologist and broadcaster Brian Bailey; an interesting article with audio files posted on BBC Gloucetsershire's webite. Includes bird song recorded around our very own Cherington Lake and surrounding woodland, and a photo-album.

The Barn At Cherington: 1935 painting in The Tate's Heart Of England exhibition.

Did you know that there's a painting from Cherington at The Tate gallery in London?

The Heart Of England exhibition focuses on a body of work produced by various artists seeking to portray the gorgeous scenes in the heart of england contrasting against the scenes of increasing industrialization in the area that were beginning to define its visual landscape in peoples' minds at that time. (Think the slag heaps and chimneys of the midlands.) Their work centered on 'old England' as seen in the Cotswolds; a slower world of traditional arts and crafts in a landscape of gentle hills and charming stone-built houses.

Sir William Rothenstein (1872-1945) was a painter, draftsman and writer on art. In 1935 he painted "The Barn At Cherington", which you can see as part of the Tate's Heart Of England exhibition or, if you want to save yourself the trip, you can view it online here.

My grandmother, Marie Cuss, tells me that this is a barn at Lowesmore. She should know - she worked there during WWII.

Rambling Through Cherington

The South Cotswold Ramblers organization take a walk from Minchenhampton to Cherington, and take their cameras with them. See the pics here.