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Sheep brought in to maintain ancient Bristol Downs grazing rights

Sheep brought in to maintain ancient Bristol Downs grazing rights

BBC News20-05-2025

A flock of sheep has been enjoying one of Bristol's popular open spaces for the day to help keep an historic grazing law alive.Three ewes and three lambs joined primary school children and residents on Durdham Down so that local groups and householders could exercise their rights to graze their sheep on the land.According to the Downs Act of 1861, commoners must tether at least one sheep for one day every five years to keep the privileges alive.Anna Stevens, from Avon Gorge and Downs Wildlife Project, said: "There's always been a bit of mystery about exactly how often it has to be done - however we go with every five years because it's easy to remember."
Nearly 450 acres of open grassland was bought by the Society of Merchant Venturers (SMV) and the city council between 1700 and 1860, according to Robert Bournes from the SMV."The Merchant Venturers bought what was called the Manor of Clifton and the city council bought the Manor of Henbury and they're alongside each other here on the Downs," he said."In 1861 [they] decided to put their resources together under the Downs Act - to look after the Downs for the benefit of the people of Bristol."
Under the act, 13 groups or individuals who have property bordering the Downs have the right to let loose up to 1,885 sheep on the grassland.These include the University of Bristol Botanic Gardens, Badminton School, Trinity College, St Monica Trust as well as individual householders.Historically, hundreds of sheep were grazed on the Downs and up until 1925 a full-time shepherd was employed to look after them.But as the volume of motor traffic increased it started putting livestock at risk and the flocks were removed.
Shepherdess Melinda Baker, who travelled up to Bristol from Somerset with her small flock of sheep, said it was a "historical right of commoners"."The sheep look very fitting here," she said."Unfortunately in modern-day life, we can't have them here free ranging, but in a pen for today it's just perfect."
'Stepping in poo'
In a bid to keep the medieval rights of pasturage alive, the flock of of black Welsh mountain sheep were joined by more than 80 children from local schools.Seven-year-old Ted, said the school trip to the Downs had been "very cool"."We've been exploring the place and some people have been feeding the lambs and sheep," he said."[The sheep] are very clumsy and we keep stepping in their poo and everyone finds it very disgusting."

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You be the judge: my partner painted the walls, but left me to do the edges. Am I right to be angry?
You be the judge: my partner painted the walls, but left me to do the edges. Am I right to be angry?

The Guardian

time3 hours ago

  • The Guardian

You be the judge: my partner painted the walls, but left me to do the edges. Am I right to be angry?

I'd broken my wrist – if you offer to decorate for someone who is injured, you should do it all I've always been the designated DIY person in our home. I care about interiors and like things to look nice. Freddie, my boyfriend of six years, is the chef. We like hosting friends, so it works well. As it's coming up to summer, I wanted to refresh our home and get our living room and hallway painted before we have friends round for barbecues and dinner parties. However, I recently broke my wrist, so I asked Freddie if he could take up the mantle (or paintbrush). I then went away to see my sister and her new baby for the weekend, leaving him with strict instructions and all the paint. Imagine my shock when I came back and saw he had done half a job. The walls were mostly painted, but he had skipped the skirting boards and all the edges. He had just rolled over the main bits of wall with a roller. He said he wasn't able to do the smaller areas as he doesn't have a 'delicate hand'. I said: 'Well I've only got one hand.' The bits he did were fine, but the point is it's not complete. I'm also glad I wasn't around to watch Freddie pootle along because it would have frustrated me. When we decided to repaint, I was touched when Freddie gallantly announced: 'I'll do it – you just rest.' But when I came back and expressed disappointment, he just handed me the brush and said: 'You're better at the fiddly bits.' I ended up painting the edges myself with my one working hand. Freddie insists he has done the main part, which is what counts. But he did everything except the bits that take time and patience. It's a cop-out. If you ask someone to do a job, they can't do half of it and call it finished. If you offer to paint a wall for someone who's injured, you should do it all, including the bits that require you to crouch or switch to a smaller brush. This isn't really about walls. It's lucky that Freddie is a good partner, because this is weaponised incompetence. He now says he will be telling our friends that he did the painting, but I'm not having that. I'm the one who took it over the finish line. She knows I'm not a details guy – I don't want to mess up the part I know she can do perfectly I am taking credit for painting most of the walls as that's what I did. And they look good, as Helen said. We're not talking slapdash bits of paint all over the sockets. I really took my time: I moved the furniture, I put down sheets and I did the main event: two coats, all the way through the living room and in the hallway. I think Helen is fake-outraged over the fact I left the edges – we both know she is better at that anyway. And I actually did 80% of the job, which is better than nothing. She went away and left me with instructions, and I delivered. But she knows I'm not a details guy; I'm the roller, not the artist. Edges, fiddly bits, skirting boards are all precision work. That's where I lose confidence. I don't want to mess up the part I know she can do perfectly, and it's not really my forte. I would get in trouble for doing it wrong if I tried. It felt more respectful to do what I could and let Helen finesse the finish. She is the design expert, after all. When she came back and I handed her a paintbrush for the edges, I could tell by her expression she wasn't impressed. She said: 'What? It's not done.' I had to talk her into my way of thinking. I know my strengths, and neat edges aren't one of them. This isn't weaponised incompetence, it's self-awareness. I wasn't trying to get out of it; I just didn't want to be shouted at for getting it wrong. Cutting in the edges is a huge job and it requires a steady hand. Helen's one hand is better than both of mine put together. As for me claiming the paint job, I will absolutely be telling our friends we painted it together. I was joking when I said I'll tell everyone I did it all. Helen wants to out me in front of everyone and tell them I did half a job, but really I did the majority. However, I am in favour of telling everyone it was a team effort. I did the big strokes, Helen brought the magic. It's like cooking and plating: if I make the curry and Helen adds the coriander, she can't take credit for the whole thing. It's a collaboration. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Should Freddie have finished the job himself? Freddie himself says the detailing is a 'huge job' – and then he goes and leaves it all for Helen, who has a broken wrist. Come on, Freddie – there's lazy, and then there's out of 28 'Weaponised incompetence' is a tad strong Helen! Freddie stepped up in my view. He could have said 'no, it's not my forte', but he took the plunge and had a go instead. He's not quite a have-a-go hero but he's certainly not 34 I can just picture Freddie, bigging himself up as a 'can do' man', but it's all a facade. If I were Helen, I'd be so irate I'd be tempted to throw the rest of the paint over 49 I can understand Helen's disappointment at Freddie for not finishing the job after he'd offered to paint the walls. But if he really is that incompetent, she probably should have given him some training before letting him loose. At least he did 43 Even if Helen had broken the wrist of her non-writing hand, cutting-in requires ladders and that's risky single-handed. Plus, how do you carry paint with one hand? Either Helen's broken wrist had healed, so Freddie disregarded it, or he's lazy and unfeeling. A bizarre situation: on balance, it's Freddie's bad, or very 29 In our online poll, tell us: should Freddie have tackled the corners? The poll closes on Wednesday 18 June at 10am BST We asked whether Jim should put food on his wife's plate with a little more finesse, rather than just dollop it on.64% of you said yes – Jim is guilty 36% of you said no – Jim is not guilty

Tourist hordes are destroying my beloved Notting Hill
Tourist hordes are destroying my beloved Notting Hill

Telegraph

time3 hours ago

  • Telegraph

Tourist hordes are destroying my beloved Notting Hill

We have to repaint our house in Notting Hill. (Bear with me. This will not be paint drying, I promise.) When we bought it in 1992, it was a splotchy pink, like drying plaster, as was the one next door. These houses have always matched, the only two on the quiet street. When I was at secondary school in Hammersmith, I'd cycle past them every day, having dragged my bike from the festering bin cupboard in the basement of my mother's flat on the corner of Ladbroke Grove. I'd hurtle down Elgin Crescent and would always look up at these two houses on the rise, surrounded by communal gardens on all sides. Their setting was operatic, romantic, and unattainable. 'I will live there one day,' a voice in my head would tell me, aged 16. Fast forward 10 years, and I am pregnant with my first child, and living in a bijou blue-painted cottage in Hillgate Village behind Notting Hill Gate tube station with my soon-to-be husband, and house-hunting. He drives me to Clapham, and Camberwell, and explains how much bang we will get for our buck if we leave Notting Hill. He drives me to a fine townhouse on the common with a 'wealth of period features'. My only knowledge of Clapham, Balham, Stockwell or Kennington was going to friends' house parties there, an experience always tinged with that anxiety that no cabbie would go south of the river after midnight, and panic that I couldn't afford a black cab anyway (I should say now that my son rents in Clapham and loves it and most of my day is spent sending him links to starter properties in Ladbroke Grove which he refuses to acknowledge). We drove back north in silence. I was being entitled and obstinate. I am entitled and obstinate. In fact, I think it was during that drive that I made my position clear: I'm sure there were wonderful houses all over London, I said, but he should know that there were only three streets I was prepared to live in: Elgin Crescent, Lansdowne Road and Clarendon Road, all in W11. It all sounds beyond spoilt written down. But I wanted to remain as close as possible to my mother, who had Parkinson's disease. I knew this decision – where to buy the family house – would be life-defining. It was like Eminem's Lose Yourself. I knew I had one shot to seize everything I had ever wanted in one moment of house purchase. My husband has never forgotten this little speech, as I had no money and wasn't buying the house and he was (my sole contribution was the baby, and then the Aga, if not in that order). 'All was quiet on the western front until that film' And then this house came up – from where I write this now. One of the pink pair. There was a printing press in the basement. It was falling down, and uninsurable until it was underpinned. It was beyond our budget. But we (by that I mean 'he') pushed the boat out and bought it. It was not so much manifestation, I think, or my magical thinking – it was determination. That was 1992. We camped in my mother-in-law's flat (in Lansdowne Road, so that was OK) while it was being done up and had the baby there and moved in some time the year after. We moved out for the underpinning and had two more babies and all was quiet on the western front until that film. In 1999, Notting Hill the movie came out, and life has never been the same since. It didn't help that Hugh Grant jumped over the garden gate saying 'whoops-a-daisy' yards from my actual front door (when tourists come knocking, my husband, Ivo, always tells them, pointing far, far away from our house, 'Ah no, no, ha ha! It's not THIS GARDEN; it's over there!'). It didn't help that at the time, there really was an excellent travel bookshop in Blenheim Crescent, and a blue doorway where Rhys Ifans twirled for the paps in his Y-fronts. The film turned the W11 postcode (the sort that estate agents called 'desirable' – that is, it was the sort of hood where media moguls rubbed shoulders with Notting Hill Tories such as David Cameron and George Osborne – and 'vibrant' – that is, everyone had a dope dealer) into a destination. After that film, it was a bit bankers-goes-the-neighbourhood. It felt like that nice Richard Curtis had turned our home, our neighbourhood, into a theme park... for everyone else. I didn't help, either. I wrote a semi-autobiographical novel called Notting Hell (Penguin, 2006), whose main character, Mimi, i.e. me, was married to a man called Ralph, a moth-eaten Old Etonian, i.e. Ivo, who was more trout stream than fast lane. My sequel, Shire Hell, had Mimi and Ralph downsizing for Dorset, and then, finally, there was Fresh Hell, when Mimi and family return to London, but can't afford Notting Hill and relocate to Queen's Park. I had to provide a detailed glossary for all the US editions, so 'the Slut and Legless' was the Slug and Lettuce, a pub favoured by antipodean drinkers; Ribena, Babington House and so on are all in there. 'Hugh Grant woke me up at 6am every morning' Interesting residential detail: Hugh Grant moved to Elgin Crescent for a few years. He was filming Paddington 2. He'd park his red Ferrari outside my house. Every morning at 6am, he'd rev the backfiring engine and wake me up as he roared off to the studios. Despite my man-sized crush on him I'd complain every time I saw him. He applied successfully to join the tennis club up the road ('the single most humiliating experience of my adult life,' he reported afterwards – and that was not just because he was paired to 'play in' with the editor of Private Eye, an organ that has had its fun with our most clever, funny and handsome actor over the years). Then the Grants left, which was a shame, as I don't think he even played once at the club. 'I missed the superficiality of Fulham,' he explained. The bookshop and the blue doorway have long gone, too, and my mother died in 2021 (having lived cheek by jowl with me, I'm glad to say, for the rest of her life), but still the hordes of tourists and, now increasingly, these mysterious, pointless influencers, come, to pose against the blossom and the ice-cream-coloured houses, even though the film was made almost 30 years ago. The locals are understandably fed up. The Japanese girls come with suitcases of clothes and lighting and set up camp on their doorsteps for the TikToks, to the extent that some locals are now painting their houses black to put them off. When Notting Hillers have to repaint (as we do), we are being encouraged to deter over-tourism and the scourge of the influencers by painting our houses black. 'It's clear that the bright and contrasting house colours are a major draw for photographs for social media accounts,' a letter seen by the London Standard has reported. Will I paint it black? As things stand, the house is a yellowy off-white, a bit like English teeth. I'd love to go for an ice cream colour, but I don't think my minimalist neighbours would ever agree to one, so it's going to be the stone tones of Farrow & Ball's Clunch or String, I expect. Second interesting property detail: Richard Curtis, who cast Hugh Grant, of course, in That Film, lived up the road, with his now wife, Emma Freud, for decades. Now the man who put Notting Hill on the tourist map has moved to Hampstead, but I'm staying put. It's feet first for me.

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