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The Cottage Almanac
A weekly letter about the folklore, natural history, and quiet wonders of the British countryside.

The Letters

The Elderflower Blossom

The Elderflower Blossom

The Blue Moon Eve

The Blue Moon Eve

The Waxing Moon

The Waxing Moon

The Hawthorn Veil

The Hawthorn Veil

The Returning Swift

The Returning Swift

The May Eve

The May Eve

The Cuckoo's Arrival

The Cuckoo's Arrival

The First Swallow

The First Swallow

The Easter Cold

The Easter Cold

The Blackthorn Winter

The Blackthorn Winter

The Library

05
Jun
A chalk stream at dusk under a soft afterglow sky, rings spreading on the still water where trout have risen, and a faint swarm of mayfly high in the air beside a leaning willow.

Duffers' Fortnight: The Mayfly Rise on the Chalk Streams

For two weeks in early summer the mayfly comes off the chalk streams in such numbers the trout drop all caution. How to watch the rise at dusk.
3 min read
05
Jun
Elder branch (Sambucus nigra) in full June flower: creamy white flower heads and dark green pinnate leaves arching over a soft green watercolour hedgerow background.

The Elder: The Hedge Tree You Ask Before You Cut

The elder turns the hedges white in June. You asked its leave before cutting it. Hannah Glasse used the flowers to counterfeit a French wine.
3 min read
05
Jun
Self-heal in rough grass: short, dark maroon, bristly flower-heads studded with small violet two-lipped flowers, among paired oval leaves and tangled grass blades.

Self-Heal: The Wound Herb of the English Verge

Self-heal, the low purple plant of lawns and verges. Culpeper called it a herb of Venus; it carries genuine astringent compounds. With an oil.
3 min read
05
Jun
Fresh green rushes strewn across the bare earth floor of a plain old parish church, soft light falling from a leaded window, a stone pillar and a dark wooden bench beyond.

Rushbearing: The Year's Rushes Carried Into Church

English churches once had floors strewn with rushes, renewed each summer in a festival. Grasmere, Sowerby Bridge, and Warcop still keep it.
3 min read
05
Jun
A piebald cob stands alone in a shallow river, its wet coat shining and rings spreading from its legs, with painted bow-top caravans gathered on the far bank below green fells.

The Appleby Horse Fair: The Gathering That Runs on No Charter

For one week in early June, Appleby fills with horses washed in the River Eden. The fair has no charter and rests on prescriptive right alone.
3 min read
04
Jun
Elder bushes in full creamy-white flower stud a deep green hedgerow beside a pale chalk lane, a dry verge in front, fields rising beyond and swifts high in a hazy June sky.

The Elderflower Blossom

This week: a horse fair that runs on no charter, the year's rushes carried into churches that stopped needing them, self-heal hiding in the verge, and the mayfly rise at dusk. The hedges have turned, almost overnight, from green to white.
14 min read
28
May
The Blue Moon Eve

The Blue Moon Eve

This week: a Wiltshire village woken by pots and pans to claim a 12th-century woodland right, a blue micromoon too late to see on Sunday, cow parsley at full height, and the first elder in flower. Saturday night is the moment to look.
12 min read
23
May
A culverkey at the base of an old English hedgerow in late spring: a worn-through animal-made gap with flattened vegetation and faint paw-prints in the bare earth.

Culverkeys: The Sussex Word for an Animal-Made Gap in a Hedge

A culverkey is the worn gap at the base of a hedge made by regular animal use. Sussex dialect, recorded by Robert Macfarlane in Landmarks.
3 min read
23
May
A small round of fresh white sheep's cheese on a dark slate, broken open to show its soft interior, with a stack of oatcakes and a wooden honey-dipper alongside.

English Sheep Milk Cheese: The Upland Summer Farms and the Modern Survivors

Sheep were milked in the Welsh hafod and Scottish shielings into the twentieth century. English sheep-milk cheese survives as Slipcote and Berkswell.
4 min read
23
May
Cowslips (Primula veris) in flower on an ancient meadow in May, with a green-winged orchid (Anacamptis morio) among them, viewed from ground level through long grass.

Cowslip: The Lost Meadow Flower and the Wine That Drained It

Cowslip (Primula veris) once grew in every English meadow. Lost to ploughing, fertiliser and the demand for the flower-pip in cowslip wine.
3 min read