Category: Gleanings

Monday 12th May 2026

Today, on one of the northern ramparts of Battlesbury, by the goat willow tree, these cows were curious and for a moment happy to pose for my camera. Reminding me that 47 years ago I had cows of mine own grazing on Battlesbury – good times, good memories, but like most of the past it was, or so it seems now, another life, another world. Farming was a big part of my early life. I will always be a farmer at heart.

Saturday 9th May 2026

There’s something magnificent about trees and this one, which I photographed today, north of Grovelands, Warminster, is no exception. I’ve photographed it a few times over the years. Once there were no houses to be seen in the background; not so now. As you can see the housebuilding at Gemini Drive, off Bath Road, is in view of the tree now.

A quick google reveals a single mature tree can be beneficial to thousands of species including invertebrates, birds, mammals, fungi and lichens. I’ve read online that a recent study says trillions of microscopic organisms can occupy the tissues of a tree. David Attenborough and others have told us how important trees are – they combat climate change, they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and produce our all-important oxygen for life on Earth. They have been described as the lungs of the planet. They mitigate extreme heat and are valuable flood defences.

I love trees. There are some in our locality that I have known since I was a child. They are like old friends. They should be venerated. Many are magnificent in maturity. It is truly sad when they fall or are cut down. Even in decay they can be beautiful and still lend themselves well for photography. I hope to add as much as I can about our local trees to my website: dannyhowell.net Do you have a favourite tree in or around Warminster? Have you any anecdotes or recollections about Warminster trees past or present? Let me know so I can add such things to the record. email: dannyhowellnet@gmail.com

Thursday 19th March 2026

Today, while out walking on the Southern Range Road (Battlesbury Spur) I met Huw Jessop with Simon. They have known each other since their schooldays in Cardiff. I took their photograph in the sunshine.

Simon (left) and Huw.

A few moments later, Huw’s wife Sarah and Simon’s wife came along, and I took their photograph as well.

Sarah (left) and Simon’s wife.

Thursday 19th March 2026

The third book in my Mortal Visible series of books featuring photographs of Warminster taken by myself is now available. The title is Exercise Care When Emerging. Published by Bedeguar Books. ISBN 978-1-872818-62-7. The book is hardback, measures 218mm x 218mm approx., and has 100 pages plus illustrated endpapers. It features 116 colour photographs of people, places and things in Warminster, taken between 2013 and 2025. Photographs have succinct captions and there is an index. Supplied brand new and shrink-wrapped.

The price is £20 per book. Free delivery locally (Warminster and surrounding villages). If you live further away I can post (postage and packing will be extra). The book will not be available in shops. Limited edition. Only available while stocks last – first come, first served. If you would like to purchase a copy or copies, please let me know – DM me on my Facebook page or email me dannyhowellnet@gmail.com Remember to include your home address or where you want your book(s) delivered to. Thank you.

Friday 13th March 2026

Hearts Of Fire is a film (musical drama) starring Bob Dylan, playing the part of a faded rock star called Billy Parker. The film also stars Rupert Everett.

IMDb describes the storyline as “A reclusive musician, once a huge rock star, takes a young female protegee. While on a tour she meets a younger, more popular rocker and switches her loyalties.”

Hearts Of Fire was announced in August 1986. The film was released in the UK on 9th October 1987 but only shown in cinemas for two weeks. It was later released on video cassette. The film was panned by the critics. Dylan never seemed too interested in it and later distanced himself from it.

Wikipedia states that the concert scenes in the film were shot at the Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario; Colston Hall in Bristol; and Camden, North London.

But people have told me some of the minor concert scenes were shot at the Athenaeum in Warminster, the Ath being privately booked for filming. And that students from Warminster School were among those invited to be the audience.

Can anyone confirm this? Were you working at the Ath at the time? Were you a student at Warminster School and in the audience? Is there any reference in the Athenaeum Archives?

If you have information about Hearts Of Fire and an Athenaeum connection, please email: dannyhowellnet@gmail.com

www.imdb.com/title/tt0093163/

Thursday 12th March 2026

While out on an afternoon stroll with a friend the other day, we stumbled across an iron object hidden among the ivy beneath our feet in Primrose Wood (see photo above). It is about 15 inches across and resembles a lid. Whatever it was meant for or part of, someone went to the trouble of adding a decoration of leaves and berries to the ironwork. Has anyone ever seen one of these before? Does anyone know what it was used for? If you know, please email: dannyhowellnet@gmail.com

Tuesday 24th February 2026

I paid £3 for a book that is at least 125 years old, at the British Red Cross charity shop, Three Horseshoes Walk, Warminster, this morning.

Titled Our Own Country, Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial, it is one of a six-volume set of books published by Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., during the 1880s and 1890s. The writers of the illustrated articles in these books are not credited.

The volume I have acquired begins with an article about Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge. The first sentence of this article reads: “It is not unfitting that a book in which it is proposed to describe the most interesting and important sites of Great Britain should, in its opening pages, deal with Salisbury Plain.”

Here is an extract from the article, referring to the landscape of Salisbury Plain:

A century ago there was little touch of cultivation about Salisbury Plain. Sheep in the summer, and flock of bustards in the winter, were, in Drayton’s words, the “burgesses of the heath;” and a journey across it, even in fine weather, was not undertaken without some risk of losing the way.*

This condition of things has entirely changed. Good and broadly-marked roads traverse the plain in all directions, whilst corn-fields and tilled land have greatly encroached on it, stealing upwards from the surrounding valleys. But the general outline of Salisbury Plain is still sufficiently marked. It is the southern division of the two great divisions of the chalk in Wiltshire.

The northern division forms what is known as the Marlborough Downs, and its escarpments are far bolder than those of Salisbury Plain, from which it is divided by the Vale of Pewsey, which extends across the centre of the county, and is scooped out of the upper-greensand.

The southern chalk district extends from Salisbury in a line bearing north-east, by Amesbury and Sidbury to Easton Hill, where there is a wide view of the Pewsey valley, with the opposite heights of Marlborough, scarred by the Wansdyke. Thence the chalk ranges westward, with a little inclination to the south, as far as Westbury and Warminster; and so returns, in a line bearing south-east, by Heytesbury to Salisbury. All along this border the bolder heights are marked by intrenchments – Battlesbury, Scratchbury, Chisenbury – which overlook the richer country, and served as watch-towers for the ancient people of the plain.

In shape, this plain is an irregular triangle, whilst the length of each side may be roughly estimated at about twenty miles. Of its general character we shall better judge in passing over it toward Stonehenge. The chalk mass of the plain is pierced by the Bourne brook, by the Wily [Wylye], the Nadder, and the southern Avon, all of which meet in the neighbourhood of Salisbury. These river-valleys, in their quiet beauty, their hamlets nestled among trees, their venerable mansions, their broad meadows, through which the stream flows onward between tufts of purple loose-strife and great masses of sword-flag, contrast pleasantly with the open heights of the downs.

It is held, however, that the influence of the chalk is felt throughout Southern Wiltshire, and that the sharp division of the county is between the chalk district generally and that north of the Marlborough Downs, where the land for the most part lies on Oxford clay. Wiltshire is thus divided between “chalk” and “cheese” – for the northern district is a great dairy ground.

*Thus Mr. Pepys and his party, journeying from Salisbury toward Somersetshire, lost their way on the plain, and were obliged to spend the night in a strange town [Chitterne].

Saturday 10th January 2026

I chatted with a lady, in her eighties, at the bus shelter on the northern side of the Market Place, Warminster, this morning. She told me she lives on her own. I asked how she kept herself busy. She said she didn’t watch much television, especially in the evenings, as it was “a load of tripe.” She said she kept her mind active by doing crosswords, cryptic ones, although she said she doesn’t always complete them. She said she also writes philosophical things but not for anyone else to read. She said she writes them as a release and then later she burns them.