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| | | From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique.
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|  | By Brook Valley
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Helen Mark visits Slaughterford, a traditionally picturesque, historic hamlet in the middle of the By Brook Valley. It has a population of 35, one church, three farms and one old paper mill. Part of the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, several sections of the surrounding countryside are designated as SSSIs.
 | Slaughterford
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The village sits on the site of an old Roman settlement. King Alfred scored his final decisive victory over the Danes near the village around 880. It is said that the river ran red with their blood, hence the reason for the village's name, but the name actually comes from Old English meaning the ford by the blackthorns or ford by the water meadow (known as a sleight in old English).
 | Babe, the footballing piglet
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Helen's first port of call is Manor Farm, where Janet Jones and her family try and be as self-sufficient as they can. Manor Farm is a mixed farm with a large dairy herd and some wonderful buildings, the most dramatic of which is the giant tythe barn. The farm has been in the Jones family for over 100 years. Occasionally, when there's an abundance of milk, Janet will make butter and cheese by traditional methods using an old, hand-turned butter churn, and her daughter produces free-range bacon. Helen meets Babe, the house-pig who plays football with the fallen apples in the orchard, but who will end up on the table eventually like his brothers.
Manor Farm
Helen meets Simon Ayres, Wiltshire Wildlife Trust's Cotswold and By Brook Project Officer, shows Helen how to catch a white-clawed crayfish at the By Brook, which is one of the most unadulterated rivers in Wiltshire. It meanders across Oolite limestone and the calciferous water is ideal for the habitat of this rare crustacean. Sewage and silt, both often caused by livestock farming, can ruin habitats, but the biggest threat to this species are the bigger, more aggressive American crayfish. These beasts have been introduced to the higher reaches of the By Brook and are moving down stream at a rate of 100m a year. Wiltshire Wildlife Trust is looking into moving white-claw crayfish to safe rivers. Also in the river are miller's thumbs and lamprey, a prehistoric fish, that buries into silt when young and behaves like a worm. Otters are re-colonising the By Brook, having migrated from the Avon at Bathford. There are also important colonies of bats.
Wiltshire Wildlife Trust
The Bat Conservation Trust
At the centre of Slaughterford is a disused paper mill, part of which is currently being used by Carpenter Oak & Woodland, a company which makes green oak timber framing using traditional carpentry skills. The owner, Charlie Brentnall, went to art college after leaving school and turned to timber framing after finishing his course. His company is now one of the largest green oak timber framing companies in the country. He tells Helen about the jobs he's done, from the roof of Windsor Castle to a giant cross bow produced for a BBC historical re-enactment programme. However, houses and extensions make up their bread-and-butter work. The principles of green oak timber framing are simple. A building frame is produced in sections from unseasoned timber, moved to site and erected whilst the oak is still easy to work. Over a number of years the wood dries out to form a strong and robust structure. No mechanical fixings should be used in a timber frame, so all joints need to be accurate and tight. Traditional skills continue to be used in this business, which remains labour intensive. A few timber framers believe that each timber should be hewn, by hand, from a single branch. In this way there is little wastage and branches of all thickness can be used
Carpenter Oak & Woodland
The old paper mill is tied up with the hamlet's history and its future. Helen meets Alison Butler who explains that the mill started as a farm and corn mill, or grist mill, around 1340, but due to the growth of the wool industry in the valley was later transformed into a fulling mill and the two practices ran side by side for a while. According to some histories paper was made there as early as 1600 and certainly from 1790-1818. This latter paper maker fell foul of the law and had his goods confiscated by the local sheriff. Consequently the mill went back to grinding corn until 1827, when paper making began again, if sporadically at first, and continued until the early 1990s. Developers want to build houses on the mill site and the villagers are fighting these plans. Alison takes Helen round the hamlet, pointing out the picturesque cottages leading to the village church, which stands alone in field. Opposite the church is the Perkin's house, the former Little & Son's brewery. Helen discovers the tiny lanes which opponents to the new development say are too narrow to cope with construction traffic.
By the By Brook Helen meets Edward Nash, the architect designing the new project that Countryside Properties want to build. He explains how developers and architects solve problems of sensitive developments such as this. They can utilise and clean up a heavily contaminated brown field site, add much needed housing stock and complement the existing environment. He is fascinated by the history of the site and points out that the whole area shows much historical evidence of man-made alterations. The new proposals are just another stage in its life. The course of the river itself has been moved more than once to provide the power for the many mills there have been along its length.
Edward Nash
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