A Circular Cycle From WSM, Part VI, 'Max Mill Lane & Christon Road' by Sheila, May 6th 2020
Channel: semw52
Date: 13/05/2020

A lovely Spring afternoon --a light warm breeze and at times cooling-----I look back and say 'bye' to Winscombe and head along  little lanes heading for Max Mill Lane where once stood a Corn Mill as stated on the blue plaque on the old mill wall. I come across a natural looking farm pond where the water gathers and is then funnelled at speed through a gap in a wall and then downwards gushing and swishing and disappearing via a stream---The sound is quite fierce and full of energy----all the properties needed to serve a Mill in the past-----I can feel the history  here, in the farm buildings and  in the walls and bricks---My imagination takes me back in time, having been a child born in the early 50s I remember  well old rural farms--the smells of the dung, the apples and the cider--the old barns and haystacks and what appeared to be a very slow pace....great ...Yes the memories flood back of those childhood times --of collecting dung from the farmer in an old tin bath on wheels to take back to the family garden---Everything so embedded--the trees, the grasses and wild flowers all initiate deep subconscious responses...….
.Further on during the cycle ride I come across the workmen and engineers from Hinckley Point who are laying underground power cables  and removing the  huge Pylons that have stood here like Aliens since the 1960s---all part of the 'Green Energy' initiatives they told me---I thought at first it was the 'Banwell by-pass' which has been given the go-ahead recently------I talk with the old, old Oak trees who have witnessed so much over the centuries and reassure them they will be safe xx One last thing--an old derelict mansion  has always intrigued me over a few years here off Max Mill Lane---the building and the gardens have been tidied up considerably since I last passed by here---For years it was almost hidden by mountainous  mounds of weeds, ivy and brambles--impenetrable but luring-----I would like to learn of its history here