Lower Slaughter

Lower Slaughter is one of the prettiest villages in the country and one of the most misunderstood, since the name has nothing to do with killing. It comes from an old word for a wet, muddy place, a slough, which is fair enough for a village built along the slow little River Eye. Stone footbridges cross the water between honey-coloured cottages, most of them sixteenth and seventeenth century, and at the western end stands the old mill, brick and stone with an undershot wheel, working now as a small museum and café.

The Eye is barely more than a stream here, clear over gravel, with ducks and the occasional heron. The village has been lived in for more than a thousand years and looks, on a quiet morning, as though very little has happened in any of them.

That quiet is the draw, and in season the quiet has company. The lane fills, the bridges are photographed from every angle, and by evening the lane empties again.

The walk up the Eye to Upper Slaughter takes a mile and loses the crowd inside the first hundred yards. The country closes in. The houses set back from the water keep their gates shut, and the valley keeps its counsel.