WELCOME TO ANSLEY

Ansley is on a plateau to the north of the ancient Forest of Arden. The plateau is incised by many small streams, which makes for an undulating landscape and good walking country.

If you leave Ansley Village in any direction, you go downhill. Going to the west, towards Church End, you go down to the stream valley next to the church of St Laurence, and then back up again to the plateau as you climb the other side of the valley. It’s the same if you go down Ansley Lane towards Old Arley. The road descends steeply down into the valley towards the stream, and then steeply back up the other side. The streams are now mainly along field boundaries, bordered by alder, hazel and willow trees or hawthorn hedges. They drain towards the Bourne Brook, which leads to Shustoke Reservoir near Coleshill. There, the water is treated and comes back to us through the tap.

Wild garlic alongside a stream

As well as the trees and flowers, there is plenty of wildlife to see and hear. You might hear the rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker hammering on a treetrunk, or hear the mewing of a buzzard overhead. And if you are very lucky you might see a muntjac deer.

Image courtesy Heather Demeda

Or you might just see the slots made by their hooves. They use the public footpaths too.

The parish has a long history of habitation. Walking through the cultivated fields, you will find fragments of brick and pipe: all that is left of the buildings that used to be nearby. A couple of hundred years ago the public footpaths were like main roads. People walked to work or to school along them, and sometimes dropped things along the way.

This fragment of a clay pipe was found on Walk 1, not far from the railway cutting. Probably someone threw it away when it broke as they were on their way to work.

As you walk through the cultivated fields you will see a lot of round pebbles on the soil surface. They are leftovers from a time long before there were any trees here. They were ground down by ice and left behind when the ice melted. There was a time when an ice sheet covered the north of the British Isles. The weight of the ice pulverised the soil and rounded off the stones underneath, then smeared it over the land. Geologists call it boulder clay. In some places, such as at Astley Castle, there is no boulder clay. The original sandstone bedrock shows through. The castle is built with it and it gives the soil there its red colour.

Ansley is in the country of the leys. The neighbouring villages are Arley, Astley, Fillongley, Birchley Heath, Galley Common, Hurley, Baxterley… you get the picture. A ‘ley’ is a clearing in the forest of Arden, which was here when the Romans came. They built roads around it, but not through it. However, this area has seen a scattered human presence for a very long time indeed. Prehistoric hand tools have been found in surrounding parishes, some of them dating from before the ice came.

Recommended footwear: it can get very muddy in wet weather, so waterproof boots are recommended. In prolonged dry periods, particularly in summer, sandals are fine. Please keep to the designated paths, especially on cultivated fields. The farmers usually mark the paths for us.

Happy walking!