During July someone got carried away and completely redesigned the Seasonal Area page - nice of them, but something of a shock. We hope you like the results. A History of the British Railway is apparently next up and then either someone will finish Page 27 or the Egress will get a redesign.

For August we have a nice picture of a road. August seems to be settling down into a month for pictures of dereliction, since last year we had an abandoned railway junction and this year we have an abandoned road. Once a minor country lane of no repute through some attractive landscape on the west side of the Forest of Dean, this half-mile stretch of tar seems to have been taken out of use after a four-foot length was slightly undermined by the stream flowing below the trees to the left. The result was that the road was narrowed by about three inches. It was duly gated at both ends and, two years on, the undergrowth was getting firmly established when it was photographed at the end of August last year.

Prior to closure, it was possible to use this road to get from Redbrook, in the Wye Valley, to Staunton, on the road from Monmouth to Coleford. Since there are still several ways to do this route (such as going via Monmouth) the demise of this road is not a serious issue. It now makes a nice footpath/ cycleway and pictures can be obtained of the rather fine abandoned railway bridge (carrying a disused railway over a disused road) at the bottom of the hill without risk of being run over by anything except for a descending cyclist coasting down with an idea that nobody else will be in the area. Google and Bing still mark it as a road on their maps; Bing has made some attempt to update and inadvertently removed the active road from Staunton to Newland instead.

(The Railways Department are very pleased that they found this road and are planning to cite it as an example of how the closure of duplicating roads causes no serious issues and so should be encouraged. Other parts of the Order are having some difficulty persuading them that there are differences between the circumstances surrounding the closure of the Redbrook to Staunton road - which doesn't actually get to Staunton or Redbrook - and the Department's proposed closure of the M25.)