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England
The RidgewayAncient Trackway
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10 posts
Ridgeway (Southernmost Remains) Ancient Trackway |
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England's Ancient Ridgeway TrailAn interesting article in The New York Times.... THE Ridgeway is the oldest continuously used road in Europe, dating back to the Stone Age... continues... |
Posted by moss1st November 2009ce Edited 1st November 2009ce |
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New bunkhouse at YHA Clyffe Pypard A newly renovated bunkhouse set in a converted skittle alley and attached to a real ale pub has been leaving guests 'bowled over' in Wiltshire. Recently opened YHA Clyffe Pypard is conveniently located right next to the Goddard Arms and has already welcomed a steady stream of visitors from all over the world. click for complete article |
Posted by wysefool15th May 2007ce |
Motorbike Ban on Prehistoric RoadFrom an article published on the BBC News web site on 12th November 2004: Motorbikes and 4x4 vehicles which were damaging one of Britain's oldest roads have been banned from the area... continues... |
Posted by Kammer15th November 2004ce |
4x4s Banned from Ridgeway in WinterFrom the Scotsman: Drivers of 4X4 vehicles are to be banned from using parts of Britain's oldest known road this winter. Quadbikes, trail bikes and off-road cars will face a seasonal ban from vulnerable sections of the ancient Ridgeway which runs from Wiltshire to Buckinghamshire... continues... |
Posted by nigelswift24th March 2004ce Edited 15th November 2004ce |
Motor Vehicle Users Face Ridgeway BanYippee! At last! There may be peace and quiet for the walkers, bicyclists and horse riders who use the Ridgeway... From the Oxford Times, Thursday 10 July 2003 Laws banning motor vehicles from the Ridgeway national trail may come into force if a conservation project to repair the damage they have caused fails... continues... |
Posted by Jane10th July 2003ce Edited 26th January 2004ce |
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Stretching for 85 miles from Ivinghoe Beacon in the north east to Overton Hill in the south west, the Ridgeway's midsection cuts a dashing white swathe through my patch: Oxfordshire. A particularly fine short section from the Uffington White Horse to Waylands Smithy allows the walker/cyclist/rider to experience the drama of Uffington Castle enroute to the great long barrow just a mile and a half away to the south west. The views over the big wide fields and patches of woodland of Uffington Down are breathtaking. Park at the 'official' car park for the White Horse and follow the signs to Waylands Smithy for a real treat.... Knowing that this is the oldest trackway in Europe in continuous use, when I walk on it, I love the sense of my feet echoing back down the track for millenia. If you're into birding, this short section never fails to disappoint. Keep 'em peeled to see buzzard, brambling, greenfinch, yellowhammer, titmice (lots), kestrel, lark, plovers, thrushes, woodpeckers. |
Posted by Jane 7th May 2003ce Edited 7th May 2003ce |
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Tumuli Gaunt trees, scant shelter For the grass covered barrow On wind caressed downland Overlooking the vale The ancient chalk highway A stone's throw away Lies vacant, brooding; Acknowledges whispers, inaudible echoes Vibrations from invisible feet Weathered sarsen monoliths Stand to attention Lichen encrusted overseers Of a strange uneasy place The pulse quickens, reactive sensation An incorporeal feeling; The heart of past centuries Although hidden, still beats. David Pike |
Posted by wysefool 4th June 2007ce |
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Thoughts of the Icknield Way (downs of Berkshire) When wild west winds sweep o'er these Downlands free And sway ripe cornfields 'neath a changing sky They lash to dancing ev'ry storm-tossed tree And shout and sing of ages long gone by - We walk the Ridge, as did those skin-clad men Who chipped the flint and worshipped each new day, The Sun, Deliverer from night's terrors then, Ere Roman legions tramped that windy way. Where now wave toadflax and the scabious blue, Where Pasque flowers nestle, as the heights begin Of rounded hills lit with a rainbow hue: - Once ran the hares before the battle's din. Time was, when as the startled larks took wing, The blowing-stone went sounding far and near, As Saxon warriors rallied round a King, Who saved his land, yet held Christ's Faith more dear. Men saw his valour on the Field of Fame, His great forgiving of a captive foe, To whom, baptised into Christ's saving Name, Was granted freedom, and a new life to know. Men knew his zeal for learning and for law, Culture and music, love of kith and kin, But God alone his nightly vigils saw: - Those prayers in suff'ring that Heaven's strength could win. Sister Sylvia Wantage notes: 'Field of Fame' = Ethandune 'captive foe' = Guthrum and the Danish Leaders |
Posted by wysefool 14th May 2007ce |
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Ridgeway Pageant All the hills are watching, Awed and still: Away below Retreats the faint-heart Vale. Above, An angry, mighty sky Rears high, Piled all triumphant to the setting sun - Lit mad in changing chaos: Silver backed, then gilded. Mottle-splashed with crimson... Darkened depths, part broken, Upward pierced By shafts of sunlight questing - Molten vistas glistening And portals passioned low In ranks of terraced fire. They drift, they fade.. New forms take shape - With opal half-light intermingle... Glare reflects a lustre On the pale, dry headland mass Of White Horse Hill. A strange, tense calm - Impending dusk alight with radiance: A wild serenity. In slow, rough accent: "That ther' brings some weather, sna..." A shepherd stays his sheep Before the blaze. Roye England |
Posted by wysefool 14th May 2007ce |
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Vesper Vale June, at evening, on the White Horse Hills! O, joy is overflowing, hope fulfilled, For summer lures long days to lavish pride. Lush her rising cornfields - rich the downs That trail, deep rounded, far to failing east. Hedgerows riot thick and countless starred; Green slopes are swathed with blush of clover pink. Beneath, past weighing elms, in soundless rest A village clusters down its ancient street. Distance silver, amber, stretches over; Wide the Vale and far the furthest view. Droop of sundown, musing, dwells the listless Prospect lightly. Sheltered farms, half hid, Yet lie outspread, and meadows lonely; woods Apparelled darkly - straying byways lost In gathered trees, and low-set fields struck gold By myriad buttercups. Afloat the plain Late scented breaths are stirred, and fitful murmurs. Hint of tedded hay pervades the heights' Rare potpourri. The listening air goes filled With trilling, winged of larks, from all the hills; In random field light-footed rabbits play And cattle gaze in deep unthoughtfulness. Roye England |
Posted by wysefool 13th May 2007ce |
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The Ridgeway Long Distance Footpath was officially opened at Coombe Hill, near Wendover on 27th September, 1973. It runs for 85 miles from Overton Hill in Wiltshire to Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire, crossing the Thames at Goring Gap, and is marked along the way by sturdy oak signposts, low stone plinths and white painted 'acorn' waymarks. The trackways it follows were old before the Romans came, having been in continuous use since man first travelled across the face of Britain. Indeed, the Ridgeway is thought to be the oldest prehistoric track in the country. Excerpt from the introduction of 'Walks Along the Ridgeway' by Elizabeth Cull and published in 1975. |
Posted by wysefool 13th May 2007ce |
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Vale of White Horse The Vale was once a gem: Far years speak beauty - make us long to know Their ways - to treasure, prize, As not the present, Can they be relived? No, hardly now. And yet Their joys survive - made yours, within these pages. Come, let's seek them. Backward Glance, and prove What gracious days then shone. This book recalls, alive, time past, sublime - The massing of great elms, Their shaded fields; deep thatch, men one with nature. Roam with us these pages... Find rich lands unspoilt - their paradise Till now not sung, not known. The Vale, seen still superb, awaits you here: Oh, come with hope - Explore... - Roye England |
Posted by wysefool 13th May 2007ce |
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To all those, of every generation, who made the Vale the gem it once was - a paradise, shared and tended by the men who lived there; who worked it, loved it, and kept it unspoilt: till modern change struck, and not caring, betrayed its charm. Roye England |
Posted by wysefool 13th May 2007ce |
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All Ages Waken Long thousand years fly lost Since Alfred gazed the Vale in moods as these - Ago when wildboar ranged the marshy plain Ere forest yielded: when, cut hoar, the Horse Saw Saxon truce with Dane. Yet no more rapt Hung vesper magic then than pauses now In beauty hallowed timeless, unbetrayed: For, God - All ages waken when there falls Of evening, spell-bound, so enchanted calm Roye England |
Posted by wysefool 13th May 2007ce |
The best example I know of.. [an] excellent sort of vitality in roads is the Ridgeway of the North Berkshire Downs. Join it at Streatley, the point where it crosses the Thames; at once it strikes you out and away from the habitable world in a splendid, purposeful manner, running along the highest ridge of the Downs a broad green ribbon of turf, with but a shade of difference from the neighbouring grass, yet distinct for all that.From 'Pagan Papers' by Kenneth Grahame (1893). You can read the rest at Bill McClain's home page here: http://home.salamander.com/~wmcclain/grahame-pagan-papers.html |
Posted by Rhiannon19th July 2006ce |
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A mere one thousand years ago, King Alfred marched this crest of chalk To fight the Danish foe, And strained to see that very lark. In this same Saxon blue. Just two thousand years ago, The feet of Rome stamped here and here Upon this bouncing turf, And glittering, ravenous conqueror's eyes Devoured these seemly, gentle hills. From here, four thousand years ago, The men of Bronze surveyed their works Through eyes as wide as mine, As wondrous Silbury, virgin white, Bedazzled in it's prime. And here, six thousand years ago Gazed Neolithic eyes On wonders older still: On tombs of Kennet, Avebury Henge And ancient, ancient Windmill Hill. Now they are gone, those mighty men, Those Lords of all they saw, And only I am left to walk This high and winding lonely lane, Whilst all around, on deep-etched hills, Their proud, immortal marks remain. What voice commands, what power compels That such as they should go? It is the same insistent call As whispers in my ear: There is a time for mortal men, You may not linger here. Perhaps, like mine, their spirits soared, Above this magic land, Perhaps they both rejoiced and cried At beauty unconfined, Perhaps this final earthly view Blazed in dying eyes. Perhaps that spark has never died, And essences remain. For see that joyous soaring lark And hear it's blissful cries. It could not be more free than I, Nor joyful nor fulfilled: Perhaps no power, no time, no death Can take me from these hills. |
Posted by nigelswift 30th June 2003ce |
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Ridgeway like a friend I hated you at times the paces you put me through each time I go further and faster so I always know how the pilgrims felt on their way south to silbury and the stones of Avebury and beyond |
Posted by mindweed 25th April 2002ce Edited 6th February 2003ce |
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YouTubeA 2 minute Countryside Commission film about the Ridgeway.. you will love this. Especially when the weird rabbits turn up at Wayland's Smithy. (Might well be a 'public information film' but at least it's not as frightening as those ones about frisbees in electrical substations that haunt me from childhood). |
Posted by Rhiannon 16th May 2008ce |
Icknield Wayofficial Icknield Way web site (encompasess the Rudge) |
Posted by wysefool 14th May 2007ce |
The Friends of The Ridgeway'Fighting to preserve the spirit of The Ridgeway' |
Posted by wysefool 13th May 2007ce |
National Trails Ridgeway section |
Posted by RiotGibbon 31st August 2001ce Edited 19th July 2006ce |
Latest posts for the Ridgeway |
Ridgeway (Southernmost Remains) (Ancient Trackway) — Images (click to view fullsize) |
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Posted by thesweetcheat22nd February 2010ce |
Ridgeway (Southernmost Remains) (Ancient Trackway) — Fieldnotes |
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The Romance of the Road by Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932) Among the many places of magic visited by Pantagruel and his company during the progress of their famous voyage, few surpass that island whose roads did literally ''go'' to places -- ''ou les chemins cheminent, comme animaulx'': and would-be travellers, having inquired of the road as to its destination, and received satisfactory reply, ''se guindans'' (as the old book hath it -- hoisting themselves up on) ''au chemin opportun, sans aultrement se poiner ou fatiguer, se trouvoyent au lieu destiné.'' The best example I know of an approach to this excellent sort of vitality in roads is the Ridgeway of the North Berkshire Downs. Join it at Streatley, the point where it crosses the Thames; at once it strikes you out and away from the habitable world in a splendid, purposeful manner, running along the highest ridge of the Downs a broad green ribbon of turf, with but a shade of difference from the neighbouring grass, yet distinct for all that. No villages nor homesteads tempt it aside or modify its course for a yard; should you lose the track where it is blent with the bordering turf or merged in and obliterated by criss-cross paths, you have only to walk straight on, taking heed of no alternative to right or left; and in a minute 'tis with you again -- arisen out of the earth as it were. Or, if still not quite assured, lift you your eyes, and there it runs over the brow of the fronting hill. Where a railway crosses it, it disappears indeed -- hiding Alpheus-like, from the ignominy of rubble and brick-work; but a little way on it takes up the running again with the same quiet persistence. Out on that almost trackless expanse of billowy Downs such a track is in some sort humanly companionable: it really seems to lead you by the hand. The ''Rudge'' is of course an exceptional instance; but indeed this pleasant personality in roads is not entirely fanciful. It exists as a characteristic of the old country road, evolved out of the primitive prehistoric track, developing according to the needs of the land it passes through and serves: with a language, accordingly, and a meaning of its own. Its special services are often told clearly enough; but much else too of the quiet story of the country-side: something of the old tale whereof you learn so little from the printed page. Each is instinct, perhaps, with a separate suggestion. Some are martial and historic, and by your side the hurrying feet of the dead raise a ghostly dust. The name of yon town -- with its Roman or Saxon suffix to British root -- hints at much. Many a strong man, wanting his vates sacer, passed silently to Hades for that suffix to obtain. The little rise up yonder on the Downs that breaks their straight green line against the sky showed another sight when the sea of battle surged and beat on its trampled sides; and the Roman, sore beset, may have gazed down this very road for relief, praying for night or the succouring legion. This child that swings on a gate and peeps at you from under her sun-bonnet -- so may some girl-ancestress of hers have watched with beating heart the Wessex levies hurry along to clash with the heathen and break them on the down where the ash trees grew. And yonder, where the road swings round under gloomy overgrowth of drooping boughs -- is that gleam of water or glitter of lurking spears? Some sing you pastorals, fluting low in the hot sun between dusty hedges overlooked by contented cows; past farmsteads where man and beast, living in frank fellowship, learn pleasant and serviceable lessons each of the other; over the full-fed river, lipping the meadow-sweet, and thence on either side through leagues of hay. Or through bending corn they chant the mystical wonderful song of the reaper when the harvest is white to the sickle. But most of them, avoiding classification, keep each his several tender significance; as with one I know, not so far from town, which woos you from the valley by gentle ascent between nut-laden hedges, and ever by some touch of keen fragrance in the air, by some mystery of added softness under foot -- ever a promise of something to come, unguessed, delighting. Till suddenly you are among the pines, their keen scent strikes you through and through, their needles carpet the ground, and in their swaying tops moans the unappeasable wind -- sad, ceaseless, as the cry of a warped humanity. Some paces more, and the promise is fulfilled, the hints and whisperings become fruition: the ground breaks steeply away, and you look over a great inland sea of fields, homesteads, rolling woodland, and -- bounding all, blent with the horizon, a greyness, a gleam -- the English Channel. A road of promises, of hinted surprises, following each other with the inevitable sequence in a melody. But we are now in another and stricter sense an island of chemins qui cheminent: dominated, indeed, by them. By these the traveller, veritably se guindans, may reach his destination ''sans se poiner ou se fatiguer'' (with large qualifications); but sans very much else whereof he were none the worse. The gain seems so obvious that you forget to miss all that lay between the springing stride of the early start and the pleasant weariness of the end approached, when the limbs lag a little as the lights of your destination begin to glimmer through the dusk. All that lay between! ''A Day's Ride a Life's Romance'' was the excellent title of an unsuccessful book; and indeed the journey should march with the day, beginning and ending with its sun, to be the complete thing, the golden round, required of it. This makes that mind and body fare together, hand in hand, sharing the hope, the action, the fruition; finding equal sweetness in the languor of aching limbs at eve and in the first god-like intoxication of motion with braced muscle in the sun. For walk or ride take the mind over greater distances than a throbbing whirl with stiffening joints and cramped limbs through a dozen counties. Surely you seem to cover vaster spaces with Lavengro, footing it with gipsies or driving his tinker's cart across lonely commons, than with many a globe-trotter or steam-yachtsman with diary or log? And even that dividing line -- strictly marked and rarely overstepped -- between the man who bicycles and the man who walks, is less due to a prudent regard for personal safety of the one part than to an essential difference in minds. There is a certain supernal, a deific, state of mind which may indeed be experienced in a minor degree, by any one, in the siesta part of a Turkish bath. But this particular golden glow of the faculties is only felt at its fulness after severe and prolonged exertion in the open air. ''A man ought to be seen by the gods,'' says Marcus Aurelius, ''neither dissatisfied with anything, nor complaining.'' Though this does not sound at first hearing an excessive demand to make of humanity, yet the gods, I fancy, look long and often for such a sight in these unblest days of hurry. If ever seen at all, 'tis when after many a mile in sun and wind -- maybe rain -- you reach at last, with the folding star, your destined rustic inn. There, in its homely, comfortable strangeness, after unnumbered chops with country ale, the hard facts of life begin to swim in a golden mist. You are isled from accustomed cares and worries -- you are set in a peculiar nook of rest. Then old failures seem partial successes, then old loves come back in their fairest form, but this time with never a shadow of regret, then old jokes renew their youth and flavour. You ask nothing of the gods above, nothing of men below -- not even their company. To-morrow you shall begin life again: shall write your book, make your fortune, do anything; meanwhile you sit, and the jolly world swings round, and you seem to hear it circle to the music of the spheres. What pipe was ever thus beatifying in effect? You are aching all over, and enjoying it; and the scent of the limes drifts in through the window. This is undoubtedly the best and greatest country in the world; and none but good fellows abide in it. Laud we the Gods, And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils From our blest altars. Taken from the Pagan Papers a collection of essays by Kenneth Grahame written in 1893. (Kenneth Grahame is the Scottish born author who went on to write Wind in the Willows in 1908). http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/g/kenneth-grahame/pagan-papers.htm |
Posted by tjj27th December 2009ce |
Ridgeway (Southernmost Remains) (Ancient Trackway) — Images |
     
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Posted by Chance9th July 2008ce |
Ridgeway (Southernmost Remains) (Ancient Trackway) — Fieldnotes |
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These are stuck in the middle of a field south east of Alton Barnes and you wouldn't look twice at them normally. But the fact remains that these are the southernmost visible traces of this ancient route. All you can see is some raised ridges in a field. Just to the north you can actually join the Ridgeway for the first time (unless you feel like hopping into the field!) while walking through Alton Priors, at SU110622, though the official beginning of the Southern Ridgeway is signposted just north of the village, at the start of the climb up to Adam's Grave (SU110623). This post appears as part of the blog post "Pilgrimage"
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Posted by Cursuswalker26th January 2004ce |
Ridgeway (Southernmost Remains) (Ancient Trackway) — Images |
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Posted by Cursuswalker 26th January 2004ce |
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