Racing sunshine on Cotswold walls

A HORSE’S tail flicks above the wall of Minchinhampton Common as the car crawls by in the evening sun, the speed restriction of 30mph leaving the evening grazing uninterrupted. My windows are down and, at this quiet pace, the sounds of the sheep and chickens hidden behind the walls of the common escape over the top, as if to emphasise their agricultural necessity.

Driving the Cotswolds is one of the greatest pleasures of the English countryside because, sitting silently in among the hills and towns, the villages and views, a constant source of outstanding beauty is keeping me company—4,000 miles of dry-stone walls. They may date back to the Stone Age, but it was the farmers of the 18th and 19th centuries who used the area’s abundance of