Simon English
England Revisited

On gate post by river near farm. 3 1/2 miles north of Southam.

On the same gate post with the same five bar wooden fence that I sat on in 1971. There is even a rusty pin still there from the first flag. The wooden gate seems the same being of the same design and with the original iron work but on closer inspection it is slightly different so must have been transferred here from another gateway on the same farm so the gateway has not been enlarged. Bar the fact that the hawthorn hedge has grown slightly the scene is unchanged.

The gatepost is made from a reused railway sleeper. It is still in good condition which goes to show how well they were preserved. When the railways were dismantled in the 1960s the wooden sleepers were sold for reuse elsewhere and they are still standing sound in the gates and hedges of the country.

One indicator of change is that 40 years ago the field then had a crop of wheat that had just been harvested. The straw bales lay awaiting collection. Then the bales were small and capable of manual movement – now the field is under grass and I assume that like the neighbouring farms the hay or straw would be in big rolls or 1/3 ton bales both of which require lifting equipment to move.

The skyline of hedges and trees is much the same many of which are still identifiable from old photographs. The little river mentioned next to the gate is more a stream. The public footpath that crosses the field through a small wooden gate of the same design as the field gates crosses the steam over a new wooden bridge then passes through a new kissing gate. Here the modern concession is that it is not built of wood but is of modern galvanised metal.
Points 50 & 48