Pootler

  Section One is about the website and how to use it.  Section Two   is bike routes, maps and notes. Section One  The dictionary defines 'pootle' as 'to move somewhere slowly and with no real purpose'. This isn't a diary or (usually) a diatribe. Rather, it is a home for: * My collection of  bike routes in the countryside outside N & W London.  * A  gallimaufry of notes on the on history and landscapes on the routes and other things and  offbeat places that interest me.  The website  is configured primarily for reading on a phone so  brevity is my lodestar. One result is inconsistent formatting between platforms, and typos are almost my trademark, but at least they prove that I am not using AI! It is all and  always 'work in progress'. Older stuff will might be updated and, because I do this for  enjoyment. I grant myself a dispensation to  digress, widely, frequently and pointlessly.  This all gives me an excuse to leave London to explore the surroundin

Some Revisions. July 2024.  For years I used the excellent 'Viewranger' app for maps and planning trips but this disappeared into the vortex of global capitalism and re-emerged, much changed, as part of Outdooractive, a German company with international aspirations.  I applied four main criteria in searching for a replacement app. Ideally it should: Give you good quality maps, preferably usable offline,  Allow me to upload my routes and for you to access them.  Import my detailed notes on interesting or entertaining places on the routes. Have a clear and intuitively usable interface. This wasn’t straightforward mostly because my needs will probably be different from yours as a user and my experience is muddied but because I am a paying user of some of the apps and not others.  None satisfied those criteria.   Three major issues for me were: They run on a mix of open source mapping crude algorithms and unfiltered user-generated content. Fine grained local intelligence is minim

The previous posts unearth the roots of the scenery we see in the the region today. Now I want to look at how we got from then to now.  Better transport hastened change. The medieval transport network was threadbare. The waterways were well used but the roads  were usually very poor and with  responsibility for their maintenance rested with parishes. Things started to improve during the 1600s at the same time as the enclosures and farming innovations were gathering pace. Many fords were replaced by bridges and turnpike roads were introduced, run by trusts established by Parliament. Look out for roads that have milestones and the wide verges which characterise both the turnpikes and the roads often required by Parliamentary Enclosures. The dictatorial highway planning that we experience today, has a long history!   Newbury / Reading Milestone The population of England was steadily rising, from around 10m in 1800 to perhaps 30m in 1900. More people to feed and house!  The canals appeared

I have already made the point that, away from the lowlands,   things didn't change so much. Among the hills, smaller valleys and woods, the creation of large fields was frequently  impractical. I n many places only  a maniac could have 'planned' what emerged from the tumble-dryer of history.  It all makes the ancient countryside a richer hunting ground for pootlers.  By way of illustration, contrast the two pics  of the land around Chinnor in Bucks sho wn  below. The first is the 'planned' lowland and appeared later and the second is the upper dip slope of the Chilterns.  T he villages in the populated land below the Chiltern Scarp often combined their use of the open fields with rights to land on the scarp for grazing and timber and which was often in the same parish.                      Planned fields north of Chinnor Higher ground south of Chinnor A similar pattern can be seen elsewhere. In the Cotswolds the freeholders on the higher land at Dun’s Tew and Wotton

  At the end of the last post, I described the reasons from the slow demise of Champion landscapes and the failing agriculture and dramatic fall in population in the 1300s. Recovery took a long time but it wasn't all bad news.  Over time it all led to two major and more positive changes in rural society. Firstly, the reduced workforce was in a position to demand better wages. There is a visible impact of that. If you look at those lovely timber framed houses, the oldest usually date back to the 1400s -1500s. There are very few ordinary houses earlier than that. (See my post on Cottages. Link:  The Olde Country Cottage ). Secondly, many landlords found that they could no longer profit from using the peasantry to farm their land for them. Instead, they found it less troublesome and more profitable to rent out the land to others (often their former serfs)  who were thus incentivised to improve their own lot. In fact the word 'farmer' is derived from the medieval Latin 'fir