There's an Old Mill by the Stream........

For the last week I have been staying near Kington which is on the Welsh/English border not far from Hereford. I arrived from an old mill situated on the Offa's Dyke footpath in North Shropshire to an old mill situated on the Offa's Dyke footpath in Herefordshire - how weird is that?

Unlike the previous mill, this mill still has a lot of the original internal workings in place, but the old wheel has long gone and the mill leat that brought the water to it has all been filled in apart from a small bit near the river. The owners bought the mill and house at auction a few years ago and have spent a lot of time and effort stabilising the mill structure below ground level and making it watertight. They are now starting on the long and arduous task of repointing the entire building as well as trying to do work on the house and earn a living!

On a couple of days I helped 'peck out' the old pointing on one face of the mill: this involved wielding a lump hammer and chisel whilst several feet off the ground on some scaffolding. After a couple of hours of doing this Alison and I were worn out and covered from head to toe in fine dust! Luckily, they had a very efficient shower so I was soon clean again and ready for a bit of light fruit-picking. The raspberries were fruiting well when I got there but it wasn't many days before the blackbirds descended en masse and cleared the canes of all but the greenest berries. We also picked blackcurrants and I made a blackcurrant and apple crumble for dinner one evening, as my minor contribution to the culinary delights.

Another day, we went down to the footbridge over the dried-up (at the moment) overspill stream and cleared the stream bed of masses of vegetation that had encroached from both sides. We managed to disturb a wasp nest while we were doing this but once we'd removed the vegetation that we had inadvertently thrown over their entrance hole, they very quickly calmed down and allowed us to continue.

On my afternoon off I walked into Kington and had a good look round the town and their little museum. It's a pretty little town but with a very quirky mix of shops. They have a very good fishmongers/greengrocers and a delicatessen that sells a wide range of specialist cheeses plus several charity shops, at least three card shops, a collectables shop, a tattoo parlour and an antiquarian bookshop, to name but a few! As with most towns there were several shops for sale and a couple of closed pubs - mind you as there were about 15 pubs in the town within living memory, that probably wasn't such a disaster.

I finished up at the top end of the town on Castle Hill, which is where the town was originally situated around the old market square, and decided to visit an important open garden, Hergest Croft Gardens that was nearby. I do seem to be drawn to these open gardens a lot more since I started this journey, particularly if they have a kitchen garden. Hergest Croft has an Azalea Garden, a Park, an Ornamental Garden and a Kitchen Garden, so I was in my element and spent an hour or so wandering round taking photos before I made my way back to the mill and an overdue cup of tea.

On my last morning in Kington I went into town with Alison as I wanted to revisit a shop called Grandad's Shed where I had seen a second hand stainless steel hand fork that I'd decided to buy, as it is my preferred weeding tool and so few places that I have been to have a decent small fork. Unfortunately the shop didn't open on Tuesdays and so I was resigned to disappointment, until we realised that there was someone at the back of the shop. He saw us outside and opened up specially so that I could buy my fork - you wouldn't have that happen in many places!

I am now back at Cheltenham with my Mum for a couple of weeks and then a brief trip to Oxfordshire for the Fairport Convention Music Festival followed by a couple of weeks near Banbury. I shall have to start contacting other potential hosts soon as I am only sorted until the middle of October - I think I shall head down into the South West for winter!