Gaydon Parish Magazine august 2026
index of magazines
Gaydon Gazette for August
Book Club Tues 4th at 7pm Malt Shovel
Coffee Morning Sat 8th at 11am Village Hall
Mobile Library Friday 14th Phone Box
Tai Chi Mons & Weds at 7pm Village Hall
Parish Council News .
Next meeting will be the Annual Parish Meeting on Tuesday 1st September at 7.30pm in the Village Hall.
August Church Services
2nd 9.30am Morning Service Gaydon
10.30am Holy Communion Burton Dassett
9th 9.30am Agape Service Gaydon
10.30am Morning Worship Northend
16th 9.00am Holy Communion Gaydon
10.30am Morning Worship Northend
23rd 9.30am Songs of Praise Gaydon
10.30am Morning Service & Baptism at Burton Dassett
30th 10.30am Benefice Communion Fenny Compton
Roman Catholic Mass
St Peter & St Paul 5.00pm Saturday Brailes
Our Lady & the Apostles 9.15am Sunday Shipston-on-Stour
St Francis of Assisi 11.00am Sunday Kineton
August Memorial Book
2003 3rd Sheila Carter Wolford
2002 6th Francis Whattham
2004 15th John Heath
1987 17th Annette Miles
1996 29th Stewart Kerr
If there is a special entry that you would like to see, let me know and I will try to make sure that the Book is open on that day. Julie Rickman
Shipston Home Nursing Dates for your Diaries
Tuesday 22nd & Weds 23rd September - Pop Up Shop, Ilmington
Sunday 18th October - Walton Hall 10k
Thursday 5th and Friday 6th November - Designer Sale, Darlingscott
Tues 17th and Weds 18th November - Christmas Gift Fair, Ettington
Saturday 19th December - Carol Concert, Ilmington
If you would like to get in touch, please email the fundraising team at fundraising@shipstonhomenursing.co.uk
Coffee Morning
Saturday 8th at 11am in the Village Hall. We apologise for the cancellation at short notice of last month's Coffee Morning because of the heat wave; we are now acclimatised and ready for anything the Met Office can throw at us!
Please join us for coffee, tea or COOL drinks on the 8th of August.
In spite of the weather, our prices and attractions remain the same: Coffee and Biscuits 50p; Books and Jigsaws £1; Raffle 50p per ticket; White Elephant, variable prices; and Chat (free). Proceeds go to Church funds.
Gaydon Book Club
Tuesday 4th August at 7pm at the Malt Shovel. New members always welcome!
Tai Chi
We meet in Gaydon Village Hall at 7pm Mondays and Wednesdays. Please text 07514 011406 so that we can look out for you. After a month, please donate a coin for the hire of the hall.
Mobile Library
This month the Mobile Library will call at the Telephone Box at 2.25pm for half an hour on Friday 14th.
Flag Days
17 July - Birthday of HM The Queen. The flag has been raised in July to support the England team's efforts in the football World Cup. St George's Flag has been flying since the flagpole mechanism was mended and we are now waiting for a new Union Flag to replace the tattered remains of the old one. We are grateful to Siobhan for looking after the flag on behalf of the village.
If you have something to celebrate or commemorate, give Siobhan a ring on 07780 689582 and she will raise the flag for you, in return for a £5 contribution to Church funds.
What's On in August at the British Motor Museum?
Saturday 1st Fiats & Friends
Sunday 2nd Young Driver Experiences
Monday 3rd Mellow Mondays
Sunday 9th Ultimate German Car Meet
Tuesday 11th Gaydon Gathering
Thursday 13th Summer Access Day
Monday 17th Mini Motorists
Sunday 23rd The People's Air-Cooled Show
Information and tickets at www.britishmotormuseum.co.uk
Carers4Carers
Carers4Carers are your local support group for family carers. We usually meet on the fourth Friday of the month (except December when it's the second Friday) from 10:30am to 12 noon at Kineton Village Hall. Loved ones are welcome too; they can join our Companionship Group during the meeting.
Friday 28th August. We do something different in August - contact us for details about our relaxed morning coffee at a local hotel. Loved ones are welcome.
For further details about our group or help with transport arrangements to/from our meetings, please contact Gillian on 07947 893504, send an email to kcarers4carers@gmail.com, or explore our website
www.carers4carersonthefosse.org.uk (new website under construction).
Nature Notes for July
The village basks in exceptional warm sunny weather for the past three weeks. Flawless blue skies are often filled with small groups of our local Swifts as well as the odd Raven, Buzzard and Red kite.
It is not just the Humming bird hawk moths and Painted lady butterflies that have arrived here from the continent but local species like Gate-keepers, Holly Blues,and Red admirals. The nearby fields have Meadow Browns, Ringlets, Marbled Whites and Small Skippers (all grassland species).
The Holly Blue has had a very good season; an early spring brood has been succeeded by the present generation which swiftly flit around our gardens. The larger Common Blue can be found on the grassland patch in the extended graveyard. Even Grasshoppers and the large green bush crickets will probably be found in gardens this year.
Planting bright wild flowers, Zinnias and snapdragons will help the bumblebees that are now in established colonies. They prefer cooler conditions and you may have observed that they are more active in the
cooler mornings and evenings. In contrast, my large Campsis is a tropical climber which has profuse large flowers this year, and along with Lantana, thrives in such high temperatures.
Water is VERY important. At present shallow dishes of water will help birds and hedgehogs if regularly filled.
Look out for Dragon flies which will be hunting the numerous small insects around at the moment; they often return to the same spot, patrolling a limited area. I have a Song Thrush nesting in my garden, sitting on three growing young, feeding them on honeysuckle berries. A strongly constructed nest at shoulder level, so safe from marauding Magpies and Squirrels, at least.
I was also able to check the sand martins' nesting area at Balscote and visit Oversley wood earlier in the month. I saw Purple Emperors, Silver-washed Fritilleries and White Admirals, all weeks earlier than average. At present the hot spell goes on ! Bernard Price
P.S. No hosepipe ban as yet. Keep drinkers topped up, not too deep though.
Compton Verney
Exhibitions include:
The Pattern of Life: Enid Marx and Modern British Design.
Troublemakers and Prophets: Elizabeth Allen and visionary artists.
Folk Exchange: The project continues with new displays, made in collaboration with local community groups to expand understanding of what folk art means and looks like today.
More information on 01926 645 500 and at www.comptonverney.org.uk
Gaydon Village Hall News
Village Hall Committee Opportunity: We are looking for someone to join the village hall committee and help support the running and upkeep of this valued community space. All are welcome to express an interest, and no previous committee experience is required. Practical skills would be especially useful, whether that means helping with small repairs, maintenance, events, organisation, or simply being willing to lend a hand when needed. If you would like to get involved, please contact the committee for an informal chat. It is a friendly role and a good opportunity to make a real difference locally.
Something to Think about
Make Space for Wonder
At the end of the summer term, many of us will no doubt be taking some time to holiday, be that at home or in places far-flung from the familiar. For those travelling, after the first day filled with all the doings of the journey, unpacking, getting one’s bearings, there comes that moment of peaceful exhale - relief.
The busyness and pace of the day-to-day might be put on hold for a time; breakfast-time comes later, takes longer than necessary, and conversations lack the urgency they did just hours before. Perhaps we might notice something with the capacity to generate in us feelings of awe, delight and exultation - a beautiful sunset, some natural wonder, a deepening love or friendship, or simply feeling more alive owing to a little more required rest.
Holidays offer us a time to wonder: an opportunity to embrace our natural capacity to look upon the world and people around us amid the stillness that holiday affords, without the immediacy that many of our days demand; and (re)discover a new sense of meaning. Wonder allows us the time of not only self-discovery, but to wonder upon things beyond ourselves, those things that generate awe, amazement, that cause us to simply marvel.
After Whitsun (Pentecost), the church year moves into so-called Ordinary Time, not in the sense of it being seemingly mundane as the name might suggest, but instead that it is a time outside of the major feasts and celebrations - time to reflect upon living life in all its fullness. One theme of Ordinary Time is the Holy Trinity - the Christian reading and understanding of the bible that God is One yet three Persons, Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit. It describes the mind-bending mystery that within God’s very being, there has been - from eternity - this relationship: a giving and receiving of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is the understanding that God is, by His very nature, Love and Relationship.
Maybe it is no surprise that perhaps the most important things to us all are love and relationships. If we are indeed created in the image of God, the one who is Love and Relationship, we might expect this to be so. Psalm 19 begins:
‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands’. It is perhaps then also of no surprise that we experience that deep sense of awe and wonder when we witness something in the natural created world that reflects such beauty, wisdom and goodness beyond ourselves.
Waiting, as we make space to wonder, are our relationships, meaning, our faith and spirituality. When time stretches because the pace is reduced and the number of commitments is on hold, we can notice things differently. Perhaps our challenge is how to both make the most of this time to wonder, and also how we might do so in between our holidays too.
I wish you a most splendid summer, a time to renew, to wonder, to live life in its fullness. Rev Matthew Arnold
Gaydon Development Update Results
As in football - so in real life. Some results you can live with. Others, you wonder whether the officials have witnessed the same match or situation as yourself. Bias about a decision you want to go your way is inevitable, but often - albeit begrudgingly - we accept the reasoning supporting an unfavourable outcome. However, the approval of the CEG development, on appeal (Gov.UK Planning Inspectorate appeal 6002929), is as baffling as the recent, observable, and unpunished behaviour of the Argentina football team.
For 98 paragraphs the appeal documents are meant to be a closely examined appraisal of the multiple aspects and issues arising. I’m not going to summarise the inspector’s report (it’s freely available online), but there are a few things I want to mention. One of my main criticisms is the sense that the development is taking place in a bubble or vacuum and does not take account of the ‘elephant in the room’: climate change and its current and future effects.
Now into our second heatwave of the summer, it’s accepted by most humans (except the US president and WCC) that something very dramatic is happening to the planet’s weather. Increased heat means greater evaporation over the oceans which in turn creates storm-level turbulence and consequent excessive rainfall. This represents a future increased flooding threat (Met Office: our area moves into the 2nd highest flood risk category by 2040) for Gaydon even before the concrete carpet is rolled out. There is no acknowledgement of this increased threat in the Inspection report, apart from some bland sympathy for those of us who were flooded and do not have the ability to raise our houses on stilts.
Furthermore, the extreme weather will create a damaging oscillation between extreme drought - producing impervious, hard panning of soil - and then heavy rain which, disastrously, will run off producing surface flooding. Gaydon’s extra-vulnerability should be obvious to anyone assessing potential developments: the village’s lower slope position in relation to the elevated site puts it in a high-risk category. The loss of our green fields for growing food is also puzzling. The government inspector’s report is supposed to take in the ‘national interest’ when making decisions. In 2025, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC :MI5 and MI6) in a report warned that the UK’s dependence on food imports (60%) at a time of climate change and international political instability, compromised food provision and the UK’s overall security.
Consequently, the UK’s agricultural land and the amount of it becomes important because of the lower productivity of farmland through damaging climate change. We should hold on to our food-producing land and instead direct speculative developments towards brownfield sites such as the vast, empty warehouses littering Junction 11 at Banbury and the massive, now empty, JDE Foods site in Banbury, 4 minutes from the motorway.
Were the Government Inspectors aware of the (Government’s) JIC report? Joined-up thinking? Probably not.
It’s worth reminding ourselves, according to HMG Companies’ House, that CEG Land Promotions Ltd is registered in London (as an overseas company) and its original and current registration: Birkirkara, Malta. If the development does go ahead, it’s feasible that the beneficiaries will be able to benefit from Malta's full imputation tax system, which effectively reduces the corporate tax rate to roughly 5%. If this were to be the case, it would sweeten the bitter pill for many UK taxpayers (approx. 28% income tax including N.I.) if CEG helped to fund the bill, in perpetuity, for the continuing improvements required to our local infrastructure as a result of the development and its ongoing effects. We’re sure that those who benefit from such speculation in the UK will rally to the cause and ‘do their bit’ and support the country supplying their wealth and relieve some of the pressures on UK taxpayers?
Talking of flooding, no sooner than we have genuine concerns about a real excess of the wet stuff, along comes a metaphorical ‘flood’ rolling towards Gaydon in the form of further massive developments. Perhaps it’s the human equivalent of a ‘feeding frenzy’ in the animal world. Having taken a bite out of the village with the CEG development the predators are circling round to take an opportunist mouthful while we’re still reeling? I’m referring to (I kid you not) on the latest South Warwickshire plan, there is a proposed settlement on the green field opposite the CEG site – a field which many of us believed would act as a green buffer zone, in perpetuity, as a planted area between us and the main road/M.40.
This proposal is for a yard for travelling show-people with 8 plots for accommodation alongside their circus and fairground equipment and vehicles. Just in case people misinterpret any opposition to this as an indirect swipe at travelling people, I would not be a party to discriminatory behaviour - some of my maternal ancestors, alongside Mary Shakespeare, were Roma. No, the reason villagers are naturally furious, it’s because Gaydon is being imposed upon - with its creaking infrastructure, landscape destruction and all - without any sense of equitable fairness and natural justice operating and, once again, having to experience an unequal share of disruption and development compared with the rest of Warwickshire. I forgot to mention that while this proposal is the ‘main dish’ for our digestion there are ‘side orders’ comprising 80 planned houses on the lane by the village green/Kineton Road; 21 houses for the Banbury Road and further development alongside and opposite Ellis’s Machinery. That is one indigestible meal…
I’ve no doubt that Gaydon residents and the Parish Council will express their opposition as massively as they did against CEG. However, SDC councillors and planners and our local M.P. Jeremy Wright, if they truly represent us and respect the taxes we pay them, have a ‘duty of care’ and they have to stop these inequitable developments. They have to show that they can resist the whims and financial desires of local and national speculators and stand by those of us who have the best interests of the village at heart - because we live here! Unlike many of the speculators… And, for the umpteen time, Gaydon villagers are not NIMBYs - we recognise the need for tailored developments of a scale that is appropriate for a sustainable, local environment and infrastructure. When is ‘enough’, ‘enough’?
This will be the last of the regular monthly CEG-related ‘Updates’. If and when specific information becomes available, it will be reported. It’s been nearly 3 years now and whatever does or does not happen, thank you for reading.
Who knows? I might see you on the (Inspection Para. 71): “Kineton-Chadshunt-Gaydon - Path/cycle track through open space.” Next stop, the Elysian Fields! Ha bloody Ha! Tony Hughes
Thanks
The Parish Magazine is grateful to the Parish Council, and hence the parish as a whole, for their generous contribution to the production of this village amenity. Please make use of it. You can email us and express your news and views - don't perhaps make your articles so long as Tony's, though. On which note, I'd like to thank everyone who fought so hard on behalf of us all to protect our village environment. Ed.