On a recent day of sunny and warmish weather I ventured out to explore the South Oxfordshire countryside and the possibility of sketching something.

This post is about my sketch of the village of Cholsey, which is about 10 miles south of Oxford.

The area around Cholsey lies on slightly raised ground between the Thames and downs to the south. There are several small hills in the area including one – Cholsey Hill- just to the west of the village. From here there are fine views of the surrounding countryside, including the downs to the south, Wittenham Clumps to the north and also to Cholsey itself.

It can be quite windy on the hill but I hunkered down to do a fairly rapid landscape sketch of Cholsey. The result is below along with a view of the sketch in-situ.

Although it is difficult to see from these photos, the tower of Cholsey church sands out (about 2/3rds the way across the page) and I guess it is this that drew me to this this particular view!

The Church and an adjacent Great Barn once belonged to Reading Abbey and there is a fair bit of history associated with the area. After finishing my sketch I went down to visit the church (below). The stile in the photo at the start of this post is on the other side of the churchyard. Here the land opens out onto the surrounding farmland again.