Seale Stoke Farm

On the Tuesday of our recent visit to Holne, I decided that I needed a break from sitting in cars, and we settled on a local walk. Out of the cottage, right and over the cattle grid and over the moor to Hexworthy, but instead of anything serious like that, turning off right again down to Seale Stoke. A stroll which was still within our compass. All very quiet and pretty, something of a throwback to years ago, with small fields and big hedges. Lots of blackberries, lots of twittering - but no tweets - although a flight of something military did roar overhead, heading west, invisible in the low cloud.

Low cloud which produced the odd scattering of rain drops, which resulted in BH's jacket coming on and off several times. When off, in the shopping basket that came with the rollator.

Shortly after the second right turn. A fine example of field facilitation in a place where the writ of the building regulators and the planners does not run. As previously noticed at reference 2.

The entrance to Middle Stoke, complete with holiday accommodation.

The start of a footpath which the map says should take us back south to Fore Stoke. But it did not appear to be much used and we decided that it would be too much both for us and the rollator.

The start of the Seale Stoke complex.

The middle. Somebody had clearly been spending a great deal of money, but to what end was not clear. All a bit spread out for single family accommodation. All a bit isolated, even for a get-away-from-it-all second home. There was enough land to play farm with, nowhere near enough to make a living out of it.

Lifted from reference 3. I did pass a cheerful Surrey type in the lane the following day, dressed up in farming togs, quite possibly the owner but of middle years and neither footballer nor popular musician, as one might think from the contents of the house (as illustrated at reference 3), but I did not think to ask. A missed opportunity.

It helped to make ends meet, second homes are dear after all, that the property was eligible for the Basic Payment Scheme, which appears to have been some kind of a per-acre subsidy for farming folk. Not that they are on benefit you understand, rather providers of a public service. A scheme which has just closed, but I dare say there is some replacement lurking in the regulations. And I dare say that the agent, Stags of reference 5, knows all about this sort of thing.

Mixed sheep and a spot of giant rhubarb in the foreground. All very bucolic.

Another impressive blackberry runner, top right to bottom left.

A nest of heat pumps?

An old fashioned Devon hedge, complete with a spot of agricultural iron.

Nearly home, evidence that Totnes flavoured people are getting into Holne. Totnes being well known as a hang-out for long hairs, organic foodie types and so on.

Gmaps is not giving anything away, although one does occasionally see large brown cows on the track leading up to it. Maybe a walk up there is indicated.

And so on to the white pudding with beans already noticed at reference 2. Followed by my taking a late stroll up to within sight of the reservoir. A good distance for a second, late walk, taking around 40 minutes there and back.

PS 1: while yesterday I tried to make some sense of Inland Drainage Boards, the subject of a recent Monbiot piece about all the bad things being done in the depths of the country in order to drain valuable farm land, without much regard for any other interests that there might be. This includes operating very large pumps and, more mundanely, keeping drainage channels (appropriately) clear of vegetation. Some of them have substantial budgets and some of them clock up some rather odd expenses. From the map above, I find that they are concentrated in places where flooding and drainage are important, places like the Cambridgeshire fens. I don't know where Monbiot got his information from - a snitch? - but I failed to find anything very digestible either at reference 4 or at the DEFRA site. I dare say these boards are run on rather old fashioned lines, with lots of Spanish practises (as they used to say in the Treasury), but life is too short. I will have to rely on our new Labour administration getting to grips with them. That is, after all, what they are for.

PS 2: I think it a pity that ministry web sites all seem to have been corralled under a rather dull & staid Cabinet Office umbrella. I used to like it when they had a bit of individuality.

[The Three Mile Island restart of Unit 1 will provide power to Microsoft under a 20-year deal. The plant is set to come online in 2028  © AP]

PS 3: then today's FT includes a piece at reference 6 about the renaissance of part of the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island. Perhaps to produce the power needed to keep Microsoft's Copilot up and running. Unit 1 was restarted after the accident, but has been idle since 2019. All of which tells me that the running costs of these places must be considerable, long-life nuclear fuel notwithstanding. An accident which took place over forty years ago and did huge and lasting damage to the nuclear power industry. See reference 7.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/05/avian-affairs.html. There is a relevant map here, from a previous visit.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/09/beans.html.

Reference 3: https://media.onthemarket.com/properties/3681396/476066264/document-0.pdf.

Reference 4: https://www.ada.org.uk/member_type/idbs/.

Reference 5: https://www.stags.co.uk/.

Reference 6: Microsoft in deal for Three Mile Island nuclear power to meet AI demand: Energy source enjoying renaissance as world looks to slash emissions and feed rapidly growing need - Myles McCormick and Jamie Smyth, Financial Time - 2024.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident.