White Horse Pilgrim

Valley of rocks

Long ago the chalk hills were covered by a layer of sandstone. Erosion and the ice age removed most of that layer, leaving a scattering of fragments. Over the course of several thousand years of human habitation most of these relics have been cleared from the fields. Now they are found in the walls of cottages and barns, and occasionally in drystone field walls too. However the stones, which are called grey wethers in these parts, still scatter a few remote valleys. Today S and I rode across just such a place. 

I felt such a sense of antiquity out there. In that valley I could gaze across a view little changed since prehistoric times. It was an austere place where a handful of grazing sheep emphasised how difficult it would have been to wrest a living from the land. Today bleakness carries a peculiar beauty through its irrepressible counterpoint to our busy mechanical civilisation. 

But in prehistoric times this was a relatively populous country. The stone circles, hill forts and barrows testify to that. Perhaps the chalk uplands were safer and easier than wet wooded lowlands? 

The ancients left relics strongly suggesting that they were spiritual people. Quite what they believed we don't know, though we might infer that horses were important - shades of Epona perhaps? Still, I'm going to assume that this great broad sparse landscape meant something to those people, akin to how it does to me. It feels like a splendid and extensive canvas against which life plays out. More than that, the space seems to draw out curiosity and imagination. It's all the more precious for that. Maybe the stone circles and dykes were an attempt at explanation of something? Or astronomical measurement, so useful for the crops? Or maybe even decoration, like massive and meaningful jewelry upon the land? 

The wind buffeted and the rain lashed for an time until the sun tentatively emerged, uniting us with ancestors. We had no shelter but needed to move on, rugged and resolute in pale imitation of them. We imagined a cozy inn, of course, much as they might have done. And we supposed that, should we find one, it might detain us - for we, like those who preceded us, are only human and appreciate warmth and victuals. 

Riders in the countryside

I love this photo capturing two riders from the barn away down in the valley bottom, tiny but significant within a splendid breadth of green. Two figures bringing proportion to nature. Two travellers demonstrating possibility against a backdrop of hills and woods that positively invite exploration. How the picture invites dreams. 

Layers

One thing rests upon another. Work upon my shoulders. Me upon a horse upon the land. Present upon past.

People amidst open space, dwarfed by the hills. I spotted them before Brena did, unusually. If they'd have been horses then she would have seen them first. People don't matter so much to horses. 

Belonging matters. I might comprise an almost immediately recent stratum, however I'm a part of a great broad continuum too. History defines each of us, and not just the recent years. Personal history, collective history, layer upon layer. 

Gazing upon the depth of long history one steps beyond pettiness. It's impersonal, I know, but people lived here and I walk their trails and amongst the relics of their communities. I travel where the saints mingled with them, and the holy warrior King Alfred too.

I am a part of long continuity. Call me an old soul, whatever. So I'm just a visitor amidst today. Call that destiny if you like, I can't change it. 

I've passed the old barn so many times, man-made structure upon the earth amidst new fields upon old. 

It's an allegory, that barn, a little rickety perhaps and yet useful, relevant within its remoteness. I love that spot, dream of living out there surrounded by fields and trees deep within the chalk plateau. It has a life, that barn, for one day later this year I shall pass and find it full of hay or straw. And I pass the old barn feeling happy or poignant, about to ask Brena to canter the long lane southward or content to walk. But always I would love to hear the stories of the people who lived and worked here. That is a part of my aspirational connection. 

English scenes

I recorded this scene riding through the village where Brena is stabled. We might have been back in the 1930s. 

A couple of hours later we rode across a lush meadow. My ears sought the swish of a scythe being sharpened. 

Barrow Downs ride

Tracks scratch and scrape the surface of the hills, exposing the bleached bones of the land.

So it must have been for millennia. And I expect that the horses of the ancients snatched at the delicate lace of cow parsley too. 

It's a time of white, early June: bare chalk, the last of the hawthorn blossom, and ubiquitous cow parsley. White foliage as summer's counterpoint to winter frost. 

Here we are just a mile from Seven Barrows, the inspiration (so it is said) for Tolkein's Barrow Downs. These hills are scattered with barrows, and around here they are especially prolific. 

I wonder what it was like back then when the barrows were being built? Were the hills populous? I suppose that they must have been to build a line of hill forts and all those barrows. Archaeologists have found the remains of field boundaries and huts. Probably it was a thriving upland region, safely free from the enveloping lowland forest. 

But chalk is chalk, porous then as now. The hills must have been dry, though the grass and crops grow well enough. Dry places make for tough people. For a moment I imagine tough upland tribes, like ancient bedouin of a temperate country that is harsher than first appearances might suggest. Hardy people with robust horses, I expect, because the chalk country grass is so good for growing bones. 

The hill forts, so-called, seem more like great concentric corrals. Maybe there were mounted games? 

Yes, this must have been a land of equestrians. It's just so suitable for riding and for keeping good horses.

Besides, it's such a nice idea, those ancestors riding about here. And there is the famous and very old Uffington White Horse carved on the scarp slope hundreds of feet from muzzle to tip of tail. Isn't that proof enough? Well, enough for a dreamer. 

It's a kind of vindication that Brena is laying her hooves upon the ghostly tracks of the prototype for the great White Horse that was - and is - carved upon the land. That's important to me. Brena and I, we're the most recent travellers. Part of a great continuum, we're not alone. Not if one excuses years and centuries. 

Out here I am free. 

Free to roam. Free from modern baggage. Free to dream, to imagine, to think. It's a wonderful liberty. 

All I need to find now is the travellers' cottage where we may rest and share tales. If that place isn't a metaphor. And if it is, there will be meaning to extract and a signpost somewhere along the trail. The magical sort of signpost that reveals itself only when one is ready to receive direction. 

Foals

I spotted these delightful little fellows playing near the trail whilst I was out riding this evening. 

They were quite interested in us too, gazing intently from the top of their lovely big field. 

Contentment

The cats are most content in willing repose. It helps that the two that don't really like one-another are separated by a neutral feline buffer. The weather is warm and bright: usually they only sleep like this when it's cold.  

The deer

The deer were out in force on a bright breezy evening, denizens of a broad tranquil tract of hill country. How they stared at a passing skewbald horse! Brena and I were probably the only visitors all evening. 

Temptation

It was all just a bit too tempting on a warm bright evening, that nice smooth path slightly rising homeward. We arrived back at the yard with yellow flowers lodged in stirrup irons. 

Dorset excursion

K and I rode in Dorset this weekend, following old trackways over the chalk hills. The geology might be similar to my Oxfordshire chalk, however the Dorset topography is different. Out there, west of Salisbury, we were up on a plateau, warm and breezy. 

Here's the Ox Drove, an old drove track that is now a byway. Nowadays one just meets the occasional motorcyclist out here, perhaps a hiker or a birdwatcher too. 

Turning north we headed briefly along a very minor road in order to reach a path down in to the valley. From up here the views were broad and green, almost a little reminiscent of my former Transylvanian trails. 

Whilst the plateau is dry and almost unpeopled, each valley bears a string of picturesque villages. Thatched roofs are almost the norm in these parts, along with flint walls and rich sweet smelling hedgerows.

Off the beaten track the way became lusher still. My feet brushed the seeds of long grass.

Suddenly I recaptured a feeling that first I experienced twenty years ago, exploring a new country on a good horse. That sense of excitement at a fresh place, the wondering at what lay around the next corner, the confidence to ride boldly on, the energy of a curious horse - it all came back to me. I felt younger, so much younger, the world newer and more wonderful, life brighter and better. 

Through a gap in the hedgerow these two fine examples watched us pass.

Then it was uphill to Martin Down. We were climbing steeply up the wide open heathland when I took this photo. The open space is so typical of traditional chalk downland, and such a contrast to the hedges and lanes. 

Along the crest lies a massive earthwork of great antiquity, a boundary ditch dug with enormous labour to separate forgotten tribes. It goes on for many miles, and there are others on neighbouring ridges. 

Descending a spur back towards the valley we followed an outlying branch ridge, now choked with the bright yellow flowers of prickly gorse. The footsteps of ancestors felt close here, and the sound of their picks. 

The final mile back to the parking place followed the foot of a Saxon ditch, treading a trail of fourteen centuries. The antiquity of this countryside is both remarkable and accessible.