Bulls Cross
Looking down on the beautiful town of Painswick (SO 8610) is Longridge; and at Bulls Cross (878087 - #1), where all the roads in that part of Gloucestershire seem to meet, is (among many others) the old Stroud to Cheltenham road. It’s a busy road today and it always has been busy.
The stories we heard were many, but the most tragic one concerned the hangman of Bulls Cross who was called out to deal with a sheep-stealer one stormy night. As the culprit swung from the gibbet in his death throes, the clouds were blown away from the moon – to reveal the hangman’s son. The hangman went down to his cottage at Deadcombe – now Detcombe – and hanged himself from a hook in the wall. The cottage was never lived in again; it fell to pieces brick by brick.
(I have my doubts about this horrible tale, despite its appearance in the world-renowned "Cider with Rosie". Perhaps the father who knew all too well who he was hanging, but it was his job; he then returned to his cottage to hang himself in shame.
I find it hard to believe that a criminal would be hanged in the middle of the night when there were so few people to witness the event... or that the culprit's name had not been given to the hangman.
Who knows?)
On a more cheerful note, the first house on the right down the Sheepscombe road (#2) is called Drovers Corner. Modern house, 18th century connection. #3 shows the various must-sees around Bulls X, the most intriguing being The Old Shop (centre, far right). Who were the customers and what were they buying in a shop in a wood in the middle of nowhere? (Of course the answer can only be...drovers!)
Why were we there anyway? Because of a poem Chris found in a Newspaper from 1929 entitled “The Welsh Way”. First two verses go:
What the sounds I hear a-stirring on the wolds this summer night?
Clank of metal, creak of harness, sounds of ponies stepping light
O’er the short-turfed downland trackway, sounds of men who tramp and sing
Songs to cheer them, folk-songs lilting, as across the wolds they swing.
Down the hill through sleeping Painswick, up and over Longridge high,
Men with ponies Welsh wares bearing, eastward faring, passing by
Ancient Calfway, Bisley barrows, making for the frowning Trench
Where in Holybrook’s cool waters man and beast their thirst may quench.
We had thought The Welsh Way just covered the stretch from Perrots Brook (or Duntisbourne) to Lechlade, but there were obviously many variations. So many, in fact, that there were probably dozens of them...
So our first job was obviously Painswick, a lovely little town... At this point, dare I say: Read on?
(As a pudding, I have included a smashing photo I was sent by Michael Bullock of sheep being driven through Cirencester Park (#4). He also sent one of leggers in action on the canal but my conscience forbade me to in clude that too. Instead, #5 shows the weirdly-shaped Bulls X milestone at the entrance to the Trillgate Farm drive. That splendid group The Milestone Society has told me it has been moved and lost its plate. The NLS 6" map from the 1880's seems to show it a few yards further north-east and on the same side of the road, but I could be wrong.
(Michael B. was the man who first told us the dreadful story about the hangman... Thanks, Michael, for everything. And thanks, Nick, for pointing out the source of the story.)
