Richard Jefferies Society : Election to the Executive Council

After what I think is about seven or 8 years it was wonderful to be back at the Richard Jefferies Museum at Coate, on the outskirts of Swindon, Wiltshire. Though this time in a different capacity to my former visits.

Marble bust of Jefferies recently arrived at the Museum on long loan from The Mercer Art Gallery in Harrogate. Bust created in 1904 in marble by W.J.S Webber.  

Around a decade ago I found myself spending a lot of time at the Richard Jefferies Museum. Then I was a Trustee of the Museum Trust. The Museum is housed within the birthplace of the influential natural history writer Richard Jefferies. At the time of his birth on the 6th of November 1848, his parents had the farm here, though in reality as the farm was less than 40 acres this was a large smallholding and by all accounts not that successful. However this farm, Coate Water which the land backed on to and the surrounding Wiltshire countryside had a profound influence on the young Jefferies and cemented his pragmatic view of natural history observation at a time of great change. In many ways his writing is as relevant, if not more, in 2023 than it was 150 years ago.

My visit was not to be involved with the Museum, but as a potential member of the Richard Jefferies Society Executive Council. In late January of this year I received an email out of the blue, within which was a question "Would I consider being nominated and proposed as a member of the Executive Council". 

At the Executive Council Meeting of the Richard Jefferies Society a week or so before, my name had been suggested as one who may be willing to replace one of the vacancies now created given a couple of members of the Council planned to step down later in the year. Initially, though honoured and thrilled, I hesitated to accept, for a short while at least. I'm not a scholar of Jefferies work. I've read many of his essays and books but would consider myself a reader rather than a knowledgeable devotee of his work. He is however a massive influencer for anyone who writes about English natural history, not just back then but today. Therefore after a quiet and brief discussion in my head, I replied that I'd be delighted and honoured.

Which is how (and why) I found myself walking through those familiar yet oddly different Museum grounds on a glorious sunny spring day on April 29th to attend the Annual General Meeting. I entered as a member of the Society. I left a few hours later as an Executive Council member.

Sometimes I worry that Richard Jefferies is encumbered with a noun ascribed to him every time he is written about. Victorian nature writer Richard Jefferies.  

Certainly he was a Victorian,  his short life ended before his fortieth year in 1887. However his writing has a timeless sense of place for those of us today reading his canon of essays, books, journalism and an astonishing Utopian novel about London after a natural disaster renders it unliveable. His influence continues and crosses genre, art, music and a mindfulness psyche of what it means to be in an English countryside. Edward Thomas, a huge admirer of Jefferies, wrote a perfect biography of him. The author W.H. Hudson who knew Jefferies work, so admired him and wanted to be buried next to him (some sources say with him). Modern day writers like Henry Williamson, John Fowles and Robert Macfarlane all quote Jefferies influence. Yet for the wider public he is somewhat unknown.

His thoughts in Victorian times really do resonate in the 21st Century, but for different reasons. Unlike writers such as Thomas Hardy or W.H. Hudson who looked backwards at a vanishing way of life in their writing, Jefferies was a realist, an acute observer, a pragmatist but not one who versed himself in some bucolic idyll. While he discussed the changes in the customs, ways and fashions of his nineteenth century countryside, and as a journalist in his early career wrote about the need to provide agricultural labourers with a better standard of living, he also embraced the new. He wrote about the railways then sweeping across the landscape and the benefits they should bring, neatly exemplified at the Museum which now has its own 'HALT' on the recently constructed Coate Park miniature railway at the boundary of what was once the Jefferies farm. Jefferies would I'm sure see the visitors who alight here to enter the museum as a positive reflection in the modern world.

I however came by car, and after my 65 mile journey upon entering the Museum, the first person I saw was John Price, the erstwhile chair of the Society. It was a lovely reacquaintance with an old friend. Immediately I felt at home. During a break in the proceedings later in the day John showed me his latest personal acquisition, a 1st Edition book of Jefferies Red Deer published in 1884, inside of which was written a short but loving inscription to E Jefferies, (Richard Jefferies mother), from the most loving author. I held that book, a tangible handing down through the eons of time. Jefferies, then living in Surbiton will have handled that book while writing the inscription to his beloved mother.  Now 175 years after his birth and with thanks to John, I too handled this book, albeit quite carefully it has to be said.

Although we were meeting at the Museum, which provided light refreshments, the Museum is run by the Museum Trust. The Richard Jefferies Society, whose membership is global, has a small influence in the Museum but is separate to it, and having been formed in 1950 the Society's main remit is, to quote from its literature  

" To promote interest in, and respect for the life and works of Richard Jefferies."

The Society does this through individual membership, meetings, regular Society newsletters and a journal, social media, research and maintains a book collection of Jefferies' output and more recent works on the author. The Society also does what it can to maintain physical links to Jefferies such as maintaining his grave in Broadwater and Worthing Cemetery in Worthing, and his memorial plaque in Salisbury Cathedral. All for an individual membership cost of £12 a year, which I feel is a bargain. 

And of course the Society hosts an Annual General Meeting for its members, the very reason I was there siting amongst fellow members watching a large screen. I sat there watching the faces on the screen again thinking what would Jefferies make of these Zoom members streaming into his childhood home via Wi-Fi, modern technology connecting a global audience to the home of a writer who spread his thoughts using the works of his pen. One of the ladies there was Jefferies great, great, great, granddaughter (I think I have the number of greats correct) who happily sacrificed her breakfast in California to take part.

In due course the AGM got onto electing new members to the Executive Council and after a show of hands, thankfully unanimous, I was voted in for a three year term. What I hadn't expected was after the vote Colin the vice-chair turned to me and said "Andrew, would you like to say a few words to introduce yourself". Caught off guard I rambled on incoherently for what seemed hours, but in reality was less than a minute, and having completed my rambling discourse a lovely chap called Roy sitting next to me whispered, "well done and you're very welcome". I must have made some sense then, that's a first.

With the AGM concluded members had time to fill before the afternoon lecture. Time for lunch. I popped out into the garden to look at the mulberry tree Jefferies used to sit under and think. It looked a little older than I remember, but, like the Red Deer book earlier, a tangible link back to the author. Those of us having lunch outside had a discussion about this theme of tangibility over our home provisioned picnic fare. It went along the lines of - with the advancement of on-line and digital storage, in 150 years time, what will people interested in history actually have to physically connect with? Will emails, e-books and documents be available, be readable or will the technology of today be as obsolete as wig powder and quill pens of the past.  It is an interesting topic for discussion.

Ahead of the afternoon lecture; A Sweet View : The Making of the English Idyll, given by its author  Malcolm Andrews via Zoom, I explored the grounds a little more. On one of my last visits to the Museum, we trustees were involved in a discussion about what to do with the farmyard. There are larger plans which one day I'm sure will be fulfilled, in the meantime the area provides fresh food for the Museum café. It still feels rural and unspoilt from this direction, in reality however Swindon has now all but encircled the farm. Sprawling residential areas built in the last few years now cover the fields Jefferies once walked over towards Liddington Hill, one of his favourite walks.  

While I personally find it sad that the uninterrupted view from the farm over the fields to Liddington has gone, a view I remember well myself, maybe given Jefferies himself had a pragmatic approach to change, it may be fitting that progress is not arrested just because of one man's legacy, a man who himself decamped to live near London to earn a better living. Once he had moved away he was only ever to return to Wiltshire three times before his death, yet while away from the land he loved, he wrote some of his best works.

And for me Jefferies legacy is what inspired me to accept the invitation and why I felt deeply honoured to be asked to be on the Executive Council of the Society. At the close of the afternoon lecture a question and answer discussion took place. One member piped up with this reminder of how important Jefferies is to nature writing and our views on the natural world. He continued by noting that Rachel Carson who in 1962 wrote her seminal conservation work Silent Spring, herself said she was mostly influenced in her thinking by two colossus of natural history writers. W.H. Hudson, and yes, a Wiltshire lad who wrote some of the most influential natural history books ever, Richard Jefferies. 

A fitting end to my first 24 hours on the Executive Council as I begin to do my best, and to try and promote the life and works of Richard Jefferies.

Links : 

Richard Jefferies Society :  https://www.richardjefferiessociety.org

Andrews, Malcolm A Sweet View :  The Making of the English Idyll (2021). 

Richard Jefferies Museum :  https://www.richardjefferies.org/

Thomas, Edward, Richard Jefferies:  His Life and Work (London: Hutchinson, 1909).

List of Jefferies works (non exhaustive list of books published in his lifetime - from Wikipedia) : 

The Scarlet Shawl (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874)

Restless Human Hearts (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1875)

World's End (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1877)

The Gamekeeper at Home (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1878) 

Wild Life in a Southern County (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1879)

The Amateur Poacher (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1879) 

Greene Ferne Farm (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1880)

Hodge and His Masters (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1880)

Round About a Great Estate (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1880)

Wood Magic (London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., 1881)

Bevis: the Story of a Boy (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1882)

Nature Near London (London: Chatto & Windus, 1883)

The Story of My Heart: An Autobiography (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1883)

Red Deer (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1884)

The Life of the Fields (London: Chatto & Windus, 1884)

The Dewy Morn (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1884)

After London; Or, Wild England (London: Cassell & Company, Ltd., 1885)

The Open Air (London: Chatto & Windus, 1885)

Amaryllis at the Fair (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1887)

North East Garden Wildlife

I've been spending a few days up in the North East as my father has been in hospital. What with hospital visiting and working full time the days have simply been a blur. No sooner have they dawned over the North Sea then the sun is setting over Newcastle, sun which at this time of the year is as strong and warm as we'd have in August. However in the few gaps of my rushing about like a headless chiff-chaff I've been doing some wildlife window watching.

My parents garden has always been good for wildlife. In the thirty plus years they've lived here no chemicals have ever been applied. Before that the two spinster sisters who lived here had let the garden revert for decades, and when my parents moved in it was impossible to get to the bottom of the garden. My parents have never liked a tidy conventional garden anyway - it is mainly trees, shrubs and borders which now are semi-wild as my father rarely goes into the garden now. The wildlife flourishes here, and with the garden being two hundred years old I'd like to think it has matured gently over time into a little mini nature reserve. As far as I'm aware nothing unique makes this 30m by 90m garden its home, but that doesn't distract from the joy I get observing what goes on outside while at the kitchen sink.

Take these jackdaws for example. This pair are now nesting in one of the disused chimneys. I sat in the garden one evening watching them fly in and out of the hole in the side of the chimney, while making a mental note to ignore this property decay. Each time they arrived at the chimney, one, which convention would suggest the male, (but I'm not sure as females also tail wag) would sit on the chimney pot, wagging it's tail as a sign of communication, while the other popped into the void to be followed by the first bird, but only briefly.  Then they'd both fly out sit on the chimney in the glorious evening sun and repeat this behaviour a number of times. The nest presumably is built and eggs inside, it is impossible to tell, though I'd have though the female would be nest sitting if that was the case. This pair may simply be late prospecting after all, with the tail wagging all part of a ploy to speculate in this real estate. But they are fun to have around.

I'd put a new bird feeder up as the old one had been trashed by the grey squirrel which has it's drey in the ivy covered rowan tree nearby.  I know these mammals are despised but I like them and this individual is as fit as a lop. I watched it last night sitting high on the pub roof next door. Suddenly it leapt into the large holly tree which dominates this garden. A distance of 3 maybe 4 meters, a crash into the branches and then a scampering up and along the branches out into an acer, then a jump into the rowan and disappeared. Brave little chap, no fear then of launching itself into the prickly holly tree. 

That holly tree itself is a micro habitat - we've long speculated how old it is. I'd suggest close on a hundred years as the trunk is about a meter in circumference, all gnarled and covered in those nodules older holly is known for. Over the years a magpie has nested in there, blackbirds and pigeons have foraged on the berries and it is also a place to watch holly blue butterflies. I can't remember the exact year I first saw holly blue in the garden but at that time they were spreading north and on reporting it to the local recorder, it was only the second or third record in this area. Most days this week half a dozen have be seen flying about in the sun. Along with a lot of bees and flies. Down at the lower end of the garden is a hawthorn which has been consumed by ivy, it looks like a huge green mushroom now. Stand there in the warm sun and the sound of hundreds of insects is evident from a gentle hum. Later in the year this will be a butterfly magnate. Oddly though while I've been here, aside from the holly blue,  I've seen no other butterflies or moths. That's probably observer error rather than lack of species. 

Next to the hawthorn is an ancient pear tree which is now in blossom. In the past I've seen bullfinch here, but not for many years since houses were built on the fields behind the house. It is a favourite spot though for the wood pigeon and often I've seen a sparrowhawk sitting here waiting to ambush, though not this week. One evening though I watched a blackbird nest building near by. Arriving at regular intervals with leaves or twigs it popped into the ivy and while I couldn't see exactly what was going on, the shuddering and juddering of the ivy gave the game away. A most enjoyable observation, which went on for at least half an hour as I sat in the evening sun with my mug of tea. I did think though at the time that while a good safe location concealed from most predators, the resident squirrel may have other ideas. 

However a lack of species was not my issue at 4.30am mid week. I'd had a restless night, thinking of this and that, so having woken I thought time for a cup of tea. Before heading downstairs and although quite dark still, I heard birdsong. I popped into the back bedroom where there are windows that open to almost the floor. As I opened them and sat on the window ledge the birdsong of a Tyneside conurbation dawn chorus hit me. The predominant bird was a blackbird, and as I listened there were at least three dotted about. But also in this soundscape, at least one song thrush, carrion crow, jackdaw, blue and great tit, and I'm sure a greenfinch, a smattering of house sparrows and a coal tit which are resident in the garden. A dominant wren added to the chorus as did a dunnock and later some passing herring gulls. No summer migrants yet. Dawn is getting earlier now and the soft apricot glow to the east added to the sense of peace and quiet after my restless night.

Yesterday however there was very little peace and quiet. The garden is home territory to a pair of collared doves with presumably a nest nearby. They sit for hours on the garden chairs cooing gently. But they are aggressive too. 

I'd discovered a handful of early Roman era crumpets lurking in the freezer, so having a sort out I threw them onto the lawn for the birds. First down the jackdaws. That was fascinating. I'm not sure crumpets are a staple diet of these birds, but immediately one hopped over and having quickly looked at it stood on it, before beginning to pull and peck at the crumpet - and of course standing on the crumpet meant it didn't move, clever. The jackdaw then moved around in a circular motion taking small bites on each pass. That was until the collared doves began attacking the innocent corvid. A bit of a tussle took place before the harrying doves chased the jackdaw away. All was calm, for a while at least. 

Half an hour later I heard a raucous commotion and looking out a carrion crow was in the garden eyeing up one of the crumpets. It was a matter of a few seconds before I saw the doves fly at the crow in a territorial attitude. Unlike the jackdaw the much bigger carrion crow was having none of this and before I realised it had either hit the dove with it's feet or its bill, but whatever had happened there was a flurry of dove feathers billowing in the air, with the dove flying off to look a little non-pulsed on the pub roof. Meanwhile its mate sat in the acer tree in an attitude of, I'm not going near that big lad. Calm restored once more the carrion crow picked up the whole crumpet in its bill and flew off, leaving a carpet of downy feathers as the only evidence of a battle.

Later in the evening this was repeated, but now with rook. Three rook dropped into the garden, with a similar number perched nearby. In came the doves cooing and flapping wildly. One rook perched on a chair was repeatedly dive bombed, a risky business for the dove given that a rook's bill is more like a pickaxe. The rook still perched on the chair but with its neck stretched upwards parred and stabbed at the repeatedly passing dove. Meanwhile the other two rook were making tidy progress with the crumpets. Eventually all three rook, presumably fed up with the collared dove, flew off while being chased by the doves who were still dive bombing the rooks as they flew away. The doves soon returned and sat on the table looking all innocent and delicate, cooing softly. 

Innocent and delicate, I don't think so. I know what goes on, I've observed all of this out of the kitchen window this week. So after all that, I think it's time for a bacon sandwich for breakfast.

Quantock Easter 3 of 3 : Alfoxton House and Dorothy's Waterfall

So far then we'd completed two walks in what I am grandly calling our Trichotomous Saga. Time then to push on and complete the third and final Quantock walk over Easter. This time following in the footsteps of Romantic Poets.

After our morning's excitement of visiting and finally locating the mysteriously difficult to find Holford Kelting nature reserve, we made our way back to the car and had our picnic on the Green. Lashings of tea from the flasks and jam sandwiches. As the weather forecast had predicted the wind was beginning to pick up, still sunny but it was getting quite gusty now and the roar through the trees was ever present. I again checked the weather on my phone, dry still but 40 to 45mph gusts due by late afternoon. Exciting.

Joining Mrs Wessex-Reiver who was patiently waiting for me on the Green, our first destination was to 'Dorothy's Waterfall'. I don't actually think it is called that, but this cascading waterfall in the Holford Glen was a favourite spot of Dorothy Wordsworth. Just a short while after moving to Alfoxton House nearby with her brother William in 1797,  Dorothy wrote in her journal 

“There is everything here; sea, woods wild as fancy ever painted, brooks clear and pebbly villages

so romantic; and William and I, in a wander by ourselves, found out a sequestered waterfall in a

dell formed by steep hills covered with full-grown trees.” 

I'd heard about this waterfall and to be honest thought it was higher up the valley. However until today I'd not looked for it with any conviction, today's visit then will be a first. The waterfall turned out to be closer than I thought.

From the Green at Holford we stepped onto the Coleridge Way, a long distance path named after the poet, of some fifty miles meandering between his cottage at Nether Stowey and Lynmouth in Devon. The footpath is marked by a red quill pen, though oddly not the direction to take, leaving that to the general footpath posts. We were now entering Alfoxton Park and proceeding along a wide track used by vehicles up to the house itself. Walking along Mrs Wessex-Reiver spotted a fish - it wasn't of course but the branch remains of a felled tree which looked remarkably like a fish wearing a hat. Close by another fallen tree resembled a wild boar. I wonder what was in those jam sandwiches? We seem to be hallucinating.

Spot the wild boar?

By a bend in the track we approached a footbridge. At the time of the Wordsworths' living here to reach the waterfall required dexterity of foot to scramble down the ravine. It was a favourite spot for them, William Wordsworth wrote the poem ‘Lines Written in Early Spring’  while sitting here, 

"...

The budding twigs spread out their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

..."

And his friend Coleridge wrote of this spot in his poem ‘The Lime-Tree Bower My Prison’ where he refers to the roaring dell;

"....

Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,

To that still roaring dell, of which I told;

The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,

And only speckled by the mid-day sun;

..."

Today then the footbridge transecting Coleridge's roaring dell both adds to and subtracts from the scene. Certainly it is safer to get to the location, however the bridge now crosses the ravine upstream from the actual waterfall which is a few meters downstream but obscured from this angle. I'm reliably informed that you can still get to the waterfall, but it is a precipitous ankle spraining climb down and not advised.

However the cascades here are very much in evidence. Along with the crescendo of the water down the valley below and the roar of the wind through the trees above us it all added to a very atmospheric soundscape, although not advisable to lean over the bridge railings for anyone with vertigo. It is steeper than it looks.

Retracing our way we re-joined the Coleridge Way as our next destination was to see Alfoxton House. This whole area is quite compact yet it offers a kaleidoscope of landscapes, views and history, therefore within a matter of minutes it can change the traveller's moods.  Rounding a corner the trees disappeared and a wonderful view emerged across fields to Wales and Brean Down. And a memorial seat to a couple who used to come here and watch deer. 

It isn't far to Alfoxton House, which is not in a great state of repair these days. The building having been a WW2 military camp for American troops, used for housing foreign workers and an erstwhile hotel the Twentieth century had not been kind to this building,  and since 2010  it has languished on an at risk register. Thankfully it is now being restored and brought back to life by the Triratna Buddhist Community as a Buddhist Centre. I think as the creators of the Romantic Poet movement Wordsworth and Coleridge would approve and appreciate it being rescued to become a centre for harmony with the world, both humanitarian and natural.

Yet with a slight feeling of frustration, as we approached the house we found we could not get any closer than the path due to a Retreat being in progress. Which answers a question as to why an Ocado delivery van was out on Easter Monday on the gravel track. The Coleridge Way passes through the grounds of Alfoxton which was a strange experience as we now found ourselves among people.  It was strange namely as for most of the time we'd been exploring this area this Easter we'd walked in empty landscapes without seeing no more than a handful of people.

Passing the house and by the farm buildings there was what looked like a newly erected notice board with some information for the passing walker. It is good that the Centre is acknowledging the importance of this landscape to not only poetry but a slice of history.  We pressed on past the buildings and saw ahead of us a steep path, and half way up was a lady with walking sticks standing looking at the view.

We stopped and chatted to this lovely lady for a good ten minutes. She was local, living in Holford all her life and walked this landscape daily. Sadly both age and horse riding accidents when younger now means she is not as nimble as once was. Informing us that she's recently passed a significant birthday (we suspected 80) she was very pragmatic about the fact that her gradual developing infirmity meant that despite her wish to walk the full circuit when she set off from home earlier, seeing the climb ahead she had reluctantly decided that a walk up the hill would be too strenuous today. And I suspect inwardly she knew that decision would apply in the future too. But, as she informed us, she goes walking every day despite her neighbours thinking she is mad to do so. I loved this attitude, one very much of being in the present, enjoy life and maintain a drive to continue walking each day until unable. 

It was such a joy to chat to this positive lady, not least as she informed us that when we begin climbing up what I now know as Pardlestone Hill in front of us, we need to look for a five bar gate,  go through that and then look for a smaller gate on our left further up the hill. As it turned out without that vital piece of information we may have just kept on the track and veered way off from our planned circular walk.

Reaching the mid point up Pardlestone Hill we were beginning to struggle. It is a lung buster and with the wind increasing it was head down and stoically plod on through the five bar gate and then keep going up the hill, where a single red deer was just visible before it scampered off.

As we climbed the wind increased. Last year's leaves eddied and blew about in all directions and the roar of the wind through the trees was amazingly loud. I've long loved that sound, much like the sound of waves crashing on a pebbly shore. It recalls nights spent half awake during storms, safe indoors but listening to the maelstrom being unleashed by mother nature outside. A comforting sound in many ways. Once again though we had the landscape to ourselves. It is amazing how quickly even in a popular location like this a quiet area can be found to walk in very quickly. 

A quarter of an hour later we found and entered the smaller gate we'd been informed to look out for. Finally we had reached the top of the hill. Thankfully then no more climbing today as we had just about reached our limit of the enjoyment of uphill walking! Either that or our level of fitness could be improved. Once in this area the mood and the landscape changed quickly. The pathway followed the ridge-line but through birch, scrubby rowan and hawthorn. It felt different and presumably that is because this is remnant parkland. Down by the house huge sweet chestnuts, distorted and twisted by age, mingled with standing beech, in a landscape so different to the predominance of sessile oak in the Combes.

Eventually we reached the ridge path and after one last look at Alfoxton House from up here it was time to turn left and downhill to Holford. By now the wind had really picked up and at times the gusts were blowing us about. However what I hadn't realised until reading about this later, was this trackway we were now walking on was once the main route from Nether Stowey to Watchet. Back in Wordsworth's time this was a very busy highway with people, horses, cattle, sheep and wagons from the various villages and industry in the area moving to and from the only port on this part of the coast. Watchet was once a major harbour for iron ore to South Wales and other products like wool and cloth heading up the Bristol Channel, the Irish Sea, or London and the Continent. Trade between here and South Wales was brisk from the seventeenth century. Watchet was a favourite destination for the walking poets too and the town is credited in being the inspiration for Coleridge's epic, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, after apparently he looked down at the town, and presumably the ships in the harbour,  from St. Decuman’s Church. 

It is a meditative process to be simply walking the paths of history remembering the thousands upon thousands of feet that have passed this way before you. Coleridge composed his lines on the move, could it be then that on this track as he returned home, he mused on the Ancient Mariner structure. I like to think so. And in 2023 these routes still provide safe passage for the weary traveller. We'd almost reached the bottom of the path when I spied a pair of red deer in a field. They seemed unconcerned we were watching them, but it struck me as I looked at them through an old holly hedge that for generations wildlife and human activity have intermingled in this landscape, and many other landscapes across the country. Britain is a very small landmass but it really does offer a wealth of interest if we just take time to look.

Just before we left the woodland I saw a rabbit in an adjacent field, and that made me stop and think. We'd not seen a rabbit all weekend, three walks, around ten miles in total, and only a single rabbit. I'd not seen one this year either and couldn't remember the last time I'd seen one. How the fortunes of this once populous mammal have changed, and I find that quite sad.

Back at the Green we unleashed the second picnic of the day, tea and Bakewell slices. More exposed here than in the woods we were really getting a buffeting by the wind, challenging when pouring tea but ultimately an exhilarating diversion. The rooks however were having less fun up in the swaying trees. Adult birds were on sentry duty next to the now wildly gyrating nests, clinging to branches with their heads facing into the wind. Some birds were obviously enjoying the weather and flying in loops overhead. I've noticed rooks doing this sentry duty many times in windy weather - is it the female who's left the nest for safety, or the male standing guard? I'm not entirely sure but an interesting observation.

Time passes and all too soon we joined the Madding Crowd of stop-start traffic on the M5 as we headed back home. The memory remained though. The walk up Hodder's Combe on Saturday, the morning walk to the 'lost reserve of' Holford Kelting and then a short literacy ramble in the footsteps of the Romantic Poets during an afternoon enriched by conversation. 

And all from this single location beneath a rookery close to the A39 on the slopes of the Quantock Hills. Well done Somerset.

Quantock Easter 2 of 3 : Somerset Wildlife Trust's Holford Kelting Nature Reserve

Less than 48 hours had passed since we had enjoyed romping up and down Hodder's Combe in the Quantocks, before we found ourselves back in this lovely part of the World on Easter Monday, poised like mountain goats for a second walk. Actually this walk was followed by a third walk later in the day, details on that in the next post.

Roll back a day or so. After returning home on Easter Saturday I found myself flicking through a walking guide of the area when I stumbled across the name Holford Kelting, which as it turns out is a Somerset Wildlife Trust nature reserve. 5 hectares of a steep sided valley in the Holford Glen.

Strange name I thought. I looked up Kelting - not much on-line but it is either a)  a surname of Germanic origin meaning field or place by a field, or more likely in my imagination b)  the ability when two (or more) people are able to communicate via Telepathy. The mind boggles, I've led a sheltered life, I had to visit.

By 11am we were off walking through the lanes of Holford Village and into the Glen itself. In all the years I've visited this area, I have never walked in this direction. Today, even with the car park full, no one else walked in this direction either it seemed. It was bliss. Soon we walked through a gate and into another world as we descended on a steep path through the most wonderful woodland. The woodland floor was awash with ferns, celandine, wood anemone and wild garlic. Mosses covered the buttress trunks of trees. Overhead woodland birds called. It was magical and we were not even in the Nature Reserve, this was just the aperitif. My notes I'd jotted down said - walk half a mile into the woodland and then enter the reserve, taking care on the steep sides which may be slippy if wet. Duly noted. 

We kept walking, the path became steeply descending and we were in heaven walking into somewhere new where way down below we could hear the unseen river gushing and cascading through the understory. It is a long time since I've seen a woodland floor this covered in spring flowers - primroses, violets, and wonderful carpets of anemone rising up the valley side.  And that was just what we could see while walking.

All the while I was looking for a sign or notice that we were at the reserve. We'd now been walking about twenty minutes and nothing was obvious by the time we came to a gate into a field. We went through and suddenly the landscape opened out. To our right and ahead of us a huge grass field littered with celandines. To our left a tree line crowning the lip of a steep valley. Maybe there's a gate into this valley further into the field. 

This was magical, aside from a large flock of jackdaws noisily flying around some mature beech trees, we were the only other moving thing. No sheep, no cattle, just the jackdaws and us. The once well defined path up to the gate now became barely visible in the field. We were actually on a bridleway as seen by recent horse shoe indentations in the sward. But everywhere there were celandines and ad hoc clumps of primrose.

Mid field a really fresh badger set was being worked, it looked like the winter bedding had been evicted for a new spring mattress. 

Eventually though we came to another gate. Mrs Wessex-Reiver checked her fitness app. We'd walked 0.8 miles. Where on earth was this entrance to the nature reserve then? We had not passed anything obvious at all. That said it didn't matter as we were thoroughly enjoying this walk into an unknown land, and ahead lay what looked like a wonderful piece of ancient woodland. I half expected to find Baldmoney, Cloudberry, Dodder or Sneezewort guarding this gate and their woodland home to BB's Little Grey Men. We stood by the gate for a while listening to the silence other than the chorus of the natural world. We then ventured in.

And what a woodland. The first flowers of wild garlic were just emerging, their scent was subtle but in a few weeks it will be overpowering. Aside from the pathway not an inch of land remained bare earth. What had been we thought wonderful woodland at the start of our walk, was now surpassed by this hidden gem of modest size.

Five more minutes walking and we reached another gate. We'd done 0.94 miles. As we'd missed the entrance to the reserve we needed to turn back, but before that we spent a few minutes enjoying the view towards Kilve and the Bristol Channel a mile or two further on. A new hedge and gates have been installed in this field which was interesting and I'm still not sure why there and then continuing up the hill, the distance between hedges slowly becoming narrower. Overhead a buzzard mewed while being noisily mobbed by a carrion crow. More jackdaws, the yaffle of a green woodpecker and a few other woodland birds completed the soundscape.

Reluctantly we turned and retraced our steps back through that magical woodland copse, through the gate and once more onto the wide fields rolling down the ridge to the tree line standing sentry to the valley below. 

I kept looking as we walked but the fence on top of the valley lip contained no obvious entry points, until that is when we reached the felled tree. Next to this I saw a small wooden stile which we'd missed on the way out. But this can't be the entrance, it was covered in brambles and no obvious pathway lead from it.   It felt right that the reserve was below us, we just didn't know how to get into it. Oh well we've had a lovely walk and on our next visit we can try again with better directions.

And then, just as we went through a five bar gate and re-entered the first piece of woodland we'd walked through I saw what looked like a path, one I'd not observed on the way through. A rarely used path indeed which ignited memories of exploring woodland as a child. I looked at Mrs Wessex-Reiver and said "shall we" and she nodded - and so we headed down this leaf strewn path as if descending into a primeval forest no human has entered before. It wasn't easy, with the leaf cover it was slippy in places but not obvious until our legs slid from under us. Hidden branches provided a trip hazard and fallen trees a head injury opportunity. But this was great, I was eight again and exploring the landscape of Rothbury in Northumberland. If this is the reserve entrance, the reserve itself must be superb.

And boy were we not disappointed. Suddenly the path emerged at the river we'd heard earlier. A rubble strewn shallow river which threw me back all those years to making dams and looking for caddis on the underside of stones. Water flowed over the pebbly bottom providing a chorus of liquid music into the otherwise silent valley. We stood at the water's edge, just taking it in, silent not talking. This is exactly what a river should be, meandering, semi blocked by fallen trees, little pools, shallow rapids, swirling eddies, chaotic.

And this is what being in the natural world is all about, nature quietly doing its thing and we as observers leave it well alone, and that was why we never went any further into the reserve, our path ended at the river which meanders to the sea, just as it should. 

I can't recall how long we spent there, it felt like hours but probably a quarter of an hour.  A mental note was made to return with a picnic and just sit and do absolutely nothing, nothing other than sit and watch the croziers unfurl from the many ferns down in the valley floor, or watch the sunlight dancing off the surface of the water. Of course like Brigadoon we may never find this place again, but I'll know where it is, it felt like home, and we will be back.

Quantock Easter 1 of 3 : These Boots Aren't Made For Walking

Over the weekend, three contrasting walks were taken by myself and Mrs Wessex-Reiver. The first of these, which I'll write up as a Trichotomous Saga, began on Easter Saturday before dawn.....

An insipid light irradiated the curtains from outside, curtains still closed tight against the now rapidly receding nightfall. I lay in bed identifying the birdsong, blackbird, robin, dunnock and jackdaw dominated, some herring gull way off. All the while I struggled to rouse myself for a planned early start, though to be honest by the time we were on the M5 the sun was well over the horizon and its solar light dazzling the now awake landscape. 

All my life if I plan an earlier than normal morning start I can never sleep properly the night before. Easter Saturday was such a day where after waking at 2am, I lay in the darkness until just after six, before a mad scramble out of the door before 8am. There was a long walk ahead of us, I needed breakfast. After 20 minutes on the road I swung the car beside a Greggs on an industrial estate in Bridgwater, leaving minutes later bearing one bacon butty (three slices and tomato sauce), a large sausage roll and a hot chocolate for my companion for the day, Mrs Wessex Reiver. A bargain indeed at £3.80. Fifteen minutes later I switched off the engine at Holford Green Car Park to begin our walk after that very welcome breakfast, a breakfast accompanied by the harsh loud caws of the rooks in the rookery above our heads. I like it here. I'll take the sausage roll with me for my elevenses.

Spring is really gathering pace in Somerset as field and dale turns green by the hour, yet here at Holford nestling in the Quantock Hills winter still had a firm grip on the landscape. The lack of leaves in April is an illusion of course. The territorial  birdsong as we began our walk was phenomenal, song thrush, green woodpecker, robin, dunnock, great, blue and long tailed tit, blackbird and above most of this and ostensibly everywhere, nuthatch. We come here a lot.

Holford is a small village off the A39 that has so much to offer the walker and naturalist. The poets Wordsworth and Coleridge knew this landscape intimately as Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy lived for nearly a year at Alfroxton House less than a mile away.  The duo would ramble over this landscape at all hours of the day and night, composing poetry, conversing with each other though above all integrating themselves in and as part of nature.  I'm currently reading a fascinating 2020 biography; Radical Wordsworth by Jonathan Bate, to better understand the man and how this west Somerset landscape inspired his writing. As a prodigious walker, Wordsworth in his lifetime is estimated to have travelled 175,000 miles on foot. We'll not do quite that distance today, just five miles, though a walk of lovely contrasts.

We began at the lower end of Hodder's Combe where the deep valley sides cut by the stream over millennia  hold extensive areas of sessile oak. At this low elevation the birdsong is very much of a woodland mix. In a few weeks time the summer migrants will add to the native chorus, willow warbler, wood warbler, cuckoo, spotted flycatcher or if we're lucky a rare native here, a lesser spotted woodpecker. My favourite of these woods is the the pied flycatcher which I've seen and recorded its call here a number of times. Today though it was the the chiff - chaff call of the onomatopoetic chiffchaff adding a little finesse to our steady climb up the combe.

We'd been travelling for about fifteen minutes when Mrs W-R, pointed to a space ahead of her and called out yellow wagtail - initially it was by the side of the stream, before flying up into the tree. Honestly it is in that tree above, as you can see from this terrible photograph below, I only had my mobile. Oh well we saw it, just the one bird in fabulous condition and I would not be surprised if this bird had literally just arrived in the last 24 hours as it wasn't fidgety as wagtails usually are, and sat obligingly on the branch for a considerable time preening. I've seen them here most years, with a handful taking up territories in the fields along the streamside by the ford we now crossed. [ed. probably grey wagtail in this shot - thanks Stewart]

We climbed higher. Subtly the tree cover begins to open out. The valley widens and sunlight floods the ground. Once this was an industrial area with tanneries and weaving mills utilising the bark and water from the stream. At the time of Wordsworth this was a busy semi-rural-industrial landscape full of activity. Today the air is clear and lichen covers virtually every tree trunk

Occasionally one can see a relic of the past in a tree, such as this 'wire cut' which denotes a long lost fence the oak tree will have grown into and around producing this tell tale growth.. 

We'd been walking about forty five minutes now and the heat was beginning to build bringing out the first butterflies. I've not seen many butterflies this season, yet today we saw a number of peacock and speckled wood in the higher parts of the woodland here. Up on the ridge it is possibly too windy for them but down here is a microclimate they seem to enjoy, evident as I watched a pair of speckled wood twist and turn like a vortex on the wing.

While the Lepidoptera may be few, everywhere there is the sound of water from miniature waterfalls and cascades. At this point we were nearly through the trees and about to climb up onto the open ridge via a path through an area known as Lady's Edge.

One of the many natural aspects these woods are famous for are the polypodium ferns which grow here on the trunks of the sessile oak. While not unusual to do this, these ferns tend to exhibit this epiphytic behaviour in western woods where there is a constant and high level of humidity.  Looking around today I noticed a lot of these ferns have vanished leaving just a hair like wiry stalk sticking out of the moss. Last year was a severe drought season, we're still technically in drought after all these wet winter months. I'm assuming then despite being a fern that can tolerate a modicum of dry weather, the many months of dry weather last year hasn't been beneficial. Anecdotally there is less fern cover on trees here than when I first visited twenty odd years ago, which is worrying. Climate change is playing funny games in ways we'd not expect.  

This woodland is also managed to leave standing dead timber unfelled, allowing the passing observer sights like these turkey tail polypores [Trametes versicolor] to enrich a walk.

By now we were up onto the open moorland and scrub, where the birdsong changed. A few robin and wren remained vocal but with the silencing of the woodland species the predominant bird now was the stonechat. I counted around six pairs along this path - males resplendent in their black and red-sand plumage with a vicars dog collar, the mottled grey-brown females always close by. I do like stonechats, they just add vibrancy to a landscape, and are easy to see too.

As were the lambs and ewes. We'd almost made it to the top, and a wooden marker known as Bicknoller Post. It was absolutely stunning up here, the sun was now strong and the heat was building in the earth beneath our feet. Time for a well earned rest and to take in the view.

From this point and those nearby we can see all the way to Exmoor, with Minehead in the middle ground, then around to Wales and the North Somerset coast where Brean Down thrusts itself reptile like into the Bristol Channel. No wonder then Coleridge rehearsed and wrote his famous poem the Rime of the Ancient Mariner while walking this landscape. It is a landscape of contrasts that energises the soul. It did for us, for after a ten minute break we pushed on along one of the tracks. Just because it was there.

It was on this track, high up and importantly dry that I spied this pill millipede [Glomeris marginata]. Such a stunning arthropod though somewhat out of place on this high plateau, and in daylight. The track was being used by many cyclists and horse riders, so doing something I rarely do I intervened and placed it in a cooling bilberry thicket. Of course as I picked this little fellow up it instantly rolled itself into a beautiful ball, its colouring making it like a marble or jewel in my hand. 

We'd been on the go now for around two hours. I had hoped we may have seen a ring ouzel up here, they are reasonably common on migration, but not today, and so despite a wonderful skylark singing over our heads it was time to retrace our steps. 

We stopped at this point below to allow two cyclists to push their bikes up through the mud. I'm not against cyclists in the hills, and we had a nice chat to them about the red deer they'd just seen, but there is an ecological footprint that worries me - especially in a delicate landscape like this which is under increasing pressure to provide physical and mental solace to a growing population. I can't complain at all, after all we were two walkers ourselves adding to the disturbance and the erosion. I do wonder though sometimes what these places would be like if we excluded humans altogether - how quickly would nature take over? How much would return? There is a lot of research taking place into this as the world had a golden opportunity to re-set nature during the lockdown periods of the Covid-19 pandemic. I know personally of areas where pre Covid-19 there were just muddy paths, but a year later these paths had vegetated and become lush grass and often with abundant flowers. In just twelve short months.

We returned to the car just short of three hours walking - not fast, we only covered 5 miles but it was half uphill and half down, we'd had our exercise and near to the car I saw the first bee-fly of the season. A fitting end and a good workout at least. 

But why the title 'These Boots Aren't Made For Walking'? Well, in the rush to leave the house I couldn't find my normal hiking boots, instead I wore my lightweight summer boots which Mrs Wessex-Reiver bought for me last year. Sadly there's something not quite right about these boots - for me. Walking on the flat they're like wearing slippers. Walk uphill they are like wearing comfy shoes. Walk downhill though they pinch and buckle so much that by the time I got to the car I could hardly walk. I can't put my finger on what's wrong but it feels like the support needed to propel a late middle aged Wessex Reiver downhill is just not there. Note to self then, I must remember to take my proper hiking boots with me next time.... which actually turned out to be Easter Monday when we returned once again to Holford....