Baulking

To visit Baulking is like stepping back in time! All that is missing are the geese that should be on the green and the horses that should be working the fields. Here there are no modern houses, no modern restaurants posing as the village pub, no unsightly cars and vans, just a lovely old church, a quiet goose green, a few unpretentious cottages that at first sight appear entirely unmodernised, and several farms.

So where is this magical place? The tiny village of Baulking is about a mile north-east of Uffington and a couple of miles south-west of Stanford in the Vale, very close to the London to Bristol main railway line. Apparently it was once a bustling market town, but this seems so hard to believe.

Although there are a few houses on the Uffington side of the railway, the main village is on the other side of the bridge where at first there is a small green on both sides of the road. However by the church there is a cattle grid and beyond that the green opens out and the rural charm of the village unfolds.

The church is the Church of St. Nicholas and dates from the 13th century since which time it has hardly changed. Some interesting wall paintings were uncovered and restored in the late 1980s.