The Ramblings of a Mad Pensioner - Then and Now No. 3

Lets go back to my "Then and Now" series which combines my geocaching hobby with photography and history. As previously mention, my local paper "The Stroud News & Journal" ran these articles for over a year and today people still asking me if am I going to produce some more. Another example of how it appeared in the paper is seen below, just click on it to read this article about the small Cotswold village called Minchinhampton.

This village is one of the most picaresque around this area, with all the buildings being uniquely built in Cotswold stone with matching slate roofs. I don't think that any are younger than 100 years old and most are very much older. The original photo was dated from 1902, when children could play in the streets without fear of being knocked down by traffic, in fact there wasn't any traffic. Your note from the new picture that the centre of the village was demolished and replaced with a WW1 monument, dedicated to all the villages killed in the conflict, this has been added to as more wars have occurred over time. As for geocaches, there are 4 or 5 very good ones in the area.

Origin of Symmetry. (GC2RYRZ).  I live in an area known as The Five Valleys, and I can tell you it's impossible to go anywhere without climbing hills, in fact I'm sure that living here for 50 years has caused me  to grow hoofed feet like a mountain goat - Baaaa!!


This urban cache was half way up a switchback road, and hidden inside a natural spring that used to supply water to the locals, today it's blocked off for health and safety reasons. Being one of the first cachers to find it, I had to inform the young owner that his container was already waterlogged and not suitable at all, he did improve it straight away.

This old photo was taken about 1910 with the photographer standing right next to the spring, which at one time was probably served all the house owners. Dorrington Terrace was built by a local mill owner to house it's workers, but by the 1911 census there were various individuals living there, and yes I had to investigate who they were in the archives.


In No.1 was a Mr. Samual William Smart (born 1856) and his wife Mary Ann (Born 1854). The most interesting was living in No. 2, Charles Ernest Young (born 1868) who was a Colporteur Evangelist born in nearby Rodborough. Well that made me scratch my head, what on earth did he do? Thankfully a quick search reviled he was a seller of bibles door to door. These people are more than likely in this old photo when a camera was a novelty.


The only change your notice is the white house at the end has been built and some of the original railings have gone, taken in the war time to be melted down for ammunitions, plus there are some alteration to windows and doors.


Five-mile Fanfare. (GC1T9CQ). - A nice little multi-cache owned by my good caching friend Sly2 that takes you around the streets and hills in the town of Nailsworth. It wasn't 5 miles long but celebrated the fact that she had completed all caches within a 5 mile radius. It started at a library and included the Town Hall, a meeting room and a Baptist Church before finishing off out in the countryside.

This is a bit of old Nailsworth and the lane in the centre is called "Butcher's Hill Lane", I just love some of the street names and I'm told that it's a great place for sledging in winter. On the right was "The Red Lion" public house, now a private home. In 1903 a report stated that it was a place of much drunkenness with the landlord, Thomas Blake, unable to control the conduct. On one occasion a policeman was called to a disturbance and was brutally assaulted with the landlord doing nothing about it. He lost his drinks licence quite often. 


On the left I was wondering if the lady shop owner was looking outside and wondering who has pinched the postbox or just perhaps in the new picture it's a very clever geocache. If you look closely at the middle cottage your notice that the building has had an extra floor added, but you will have to look closely.


Time goes by so quickly for all of us, we grow up and change, just like everything around us, in fact where did that fir tree come from in the new picture. Geocaching gives us all the chance to get out and about to see these changes whilst enjoy the environment we all live in. Enjoy it, I do.