thesweetcheat

Towards Low Rigg and High Rigg as pink turns to orange.

The circle awakens in the dawn light.

Towards Blencathra.

First light over High Rigg and the conical focal point of Great Mell Fell.

Stumbling about in the dark, pre-dawn.

Great and Little Mell Fells, from the slopes of Blease Fell.

The settlement is located centre-left of picture, on the sunlit slopes above the quarry. Clough Head is the mountain immediately above, Great Dodd the shadowed peak on the skyline. Viewpoint is Blease Fell.

Castlerigg in sunshine in the centre of the picture. Long zoom from Gategill Fell Top (the SW top on the Blencathra summit ridge).

The settlement in its landscape context, centre of image, from Blencathra summit. Helvellyn looms darkly (centre skyline). The deep valley to the right is St John’s In The Vale.

Great Mell Fell (centre, middle-distance) from Hallsfell Top, the summit of Blencathra. Doddick Fell and Scales Fell in the foreground.

Carrock Fell (in shadow, centre skyline) seen from Atkinson Pike (Blencathra).

Great Mell Fell from footpath above Scales, to the WNW.

Final light.

Looking southeast.

Looking SSE, Helvellyn fading into the gloom on the left.

The sun sinks low over Causey Pike.

Looking NNW, with Little Man and Lonscale Fell providing the backdrop.

The outlier.

From the north.

The barrow from the west.

Leckhampton Hill from Wistley Hill to the east.

The earthworks continue beyond the trees.

What appears to be further earthworks in the trees to the NE of the fort.

The eastern earthwork.

The eastern earthwork.

Looking along the eastern rampart, glorious autumn day.

Yang out the horse’s tail.

On horse back...

Horse’s eye to Dragon Hill.

“His horsey head makes him sob for his mum”

The highest point in Oxfordshire (which used to be the highest point in Berkshire) is marked by the trig pillar on the eastern side of the fort.

Approaching along the Ridgeway, from the southwest.

The impressive facade in autumn sunshine.

Inside out.

(Presumably) natural cups on one of the side slabs in the entrance passage.

Neat (restored) drystone work between the sarsen slabs of the chambers.

Inside the western chamber, where abstract chalk art seems to be the order of the day.

The magnificent long barrow.

Autumn comes to Wayland’s Smithy.

Uffington Castle seen on the skyline from the west, on the footpath south of Hardwell Camp.

Another section of the western bank.

Looking south along the western bank.

The footpath along the west side of the fort runs between low banks – not sure if this is part of the original earthwork or a holloway that has developed over a thousand years or more since the time of the fort’s occupation.

Standing on the overgrown western bank, looking down into the fort interior.

The wooded site from the northeast.

Dragon Hill (left) and White Horse Hill (right) – the curves of the White Horse can just be seen on the slopes.

The grassless scar atop Dragon Hill.

The flat-topped Dragon Hill.

From White Horse Hill.

The southeastern corner of the fort, looking towards the Ridgeway, which follows the fence-line. The wooden “rope ladder” is an attempt to minimise erosion.