Swans and Doors in Sherborne

The swans which inhabit the Sherborne Brook appear to have made a nest. They have been observed mating in the last month or so, a number of times. Hamlet, the male has been around for years and the female, Blanche, is new or perhaps even a relation.

The nest is in an interesting place - upstream from the last nest but in exactly the same spot as a successful nest a few years ago. I hope that the increased silt hasn’t made a causeway by which foxes or badgers will be able to raid. Fingers crossed. Here’s a pic of the Broadwater from the village road, and below a zoom in and I have highlighted the female sat on the nest so you can see where it is

And next, another landscape design observation from the investigation into the gates and doors around Sherborne. In the photo below, on the right you can see a rotting derelict door in the wall that most of us pass every day. I’ve lined this up on the map, carefully, and it is exactly in line with the main alignment and front door of Sherborne House. For those of you who remember my recent post on the parallel alignments of the gates around Sherborne park, this line too is exactly parallel. Some careful design has been going on. This gate, the front door of Sherborne and the original main gates in front of that are aligned exactly at 285 degrees. How about that? If one extends the line further eastwards it hits Sherborne farm, exactly in the middle, which is worth a think.

I have found an expert in Geographical Information Systems who is currently transferring all my crude graphics of alignments onto a “proper” digital mapping system. I’m excited because I hope it will help either refute or confirm my conjectures about the careful geometric lay out of Lodge Park, Sherborne Park and Greenwich Park. The archaeologists at the Royal Parks in London are now engaged and looking at this too which is exciting.

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