When a new primary school was planned for a large rural area of this upland district west of the river Manifold 40 years ago, a site was chosen at the top of Warslow village. Unfortunately, it meant the loss of a handful of pastures tenanted by an elderly woman who walked her small herd of dairy cattle up the hill each day in the grazing season. She was naturally angered at the thought of selling her precious cows when she had no thought of retiring, despite her advancing years and all the hard, physical toil involved. One day a group of guests from the Harpur Crewe estate who were to shoot on the heather moors beyond Warslow ventured on to the land earmarked for the new school and were confronted by the irate woman who had just driven her herd on to the land. She incorrectly thought they were part of the organisation causing the demise of her little dairy empire and drove the men back to the road as her stick flailed the air. They didn't loiter to protest in the face of such an onslaught!
It reminds me that almost every village saw the passage of a herd of cows in summer, being walked to and from their grazing ground. There were few cars, the animals took their time, and it was a picturesque part of village life. Few such settlements retain this facet of quiet and calm. Increasingly the vast herds are hidden away in giant sheds. Gone, too, are those pretty ponds, adjuncts to livestock farming, where beasts would loiter for long drinks on summer days. Most of even the remoter villages here, as everywhere, have lost a good bit of their former bustle and magic. At most they are disturbed by speeding cars; the wooden seat below the shady oak sees few local residents watching the world go by.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/15/country-diary-stafforshire-moorlands
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