Up the lazy river

You may have heard of Stourhead,  the source of the River Stour in Wiltshire.    This is it.

As the river flows over the county boundary, much of the beauty at its head passes to the benefit of Dorset where the Stour meanders through countryside that often has no equal.

Here it is at Eyebridge at its most rewarding; a place to paddle, to fish and to picnic.














Or here at Spettisbury where, many years ago, stonemasons and bricklayers built arches and patterns to make it more than just a crossing place;

a  bridge on which to stand and stare at a duck and a baby duck;





















or even to turn in the other direction and look up river to where you may feel the living looks good.







If you want real peace you can always cross the fields to Shapwick village where the Stour wanders past the church from whence forty three men including eight from the same family went to war and to where not all returned.

When tragedy seems to be ever present, villages such as this the length of the Stour remind us history was ever thus. On the first day of the Somme Offensive in 1916 we suffered nearly 60,000 casualties.

We may never know of the lives behind so many names, or even of individuals marked by gravestones such as this in Shapwick churchyard; only that they once shared the solace of the river.