The 800 gives a rough idea of
time span. The 43 is because 43AD is when Romans invaded. New rulers. New conventions. New
architecture. New roads! It didn’t happen over night but, given the overall
sweep of history, it brought about some pretty abrupt changes and, in some
parts of the country, we are still walking in straight lines. (The Romans liked
safe, straight roads with empty wide bits on either side so you could see if
anyone was coming at you). In some places, we are also walking around what’s
left of what came before - the tumuli and hill-forts of the Ancient Britons
(Celts).
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| Last year's leaf, still on a bramble. |
Not that it has anything to do
with Maidens. And it isn’t a castle as one would usually expect a castle to be.
The fist time I went there, I was bewildered. I was expecting huge blocks of
stone, towers and turrets. Instead, I was taken up a steep hill with its head shaved
off to create a flat area the size of fifty football pitches on top.
A very English method of
calculation this. We kept ‘feet’ when we dropped rods and bushels, and decided
to use football pitches and tennis courts rather than the newly introduced 'hectares'. (Not that many people apart from farmers ever knew what an acre looked like!) And, nowadays, if we want to indicate surprisingly long distances we
measure them by unravelled intestines. That’s when we’re not working out how
far round and round a tennis court someone’s gut will go! We’ll be consulting
entrails about the weather next!
And around it (that is, around
Maiden Castle) is a series of ditches. And these ditches aren’t what I’d call ditches,
any more than I’d call the hill a castle. They are deep, dug out gullies. (The
amount of effort that went into creating all this must have been stupendous!) They make climbing the hill harder and increase the distance from bottom to top - so invasion is more difficult than it would be otherwise. Maybe
the people who lived there . . . (or fled there or whatever they did there apart from
protect themselves and their cattle) . . . maybe they filled them with thorns or something. (Fire!
?) I don’t know. That’s what I would have done but I’m not going to find out whether
they anticipated my advice because it’s not to the point. I’m wanting to talk neither
about Maiden Castle nor about thorns in ditches - but about a thistle. And not
even a thistle on Maiden Castle but on a mini-maiden-castle on another edge of
the town - Poundbury Tumulus.
This is where the internet runs
out. I can’t find anything about this other ‘hill’. (Which isn't to say there
isn’t anything about it - just that I’m not spending the morning looking and
looking when it’s sunny outside and we’re expecting rain for later.)
A Roman Road runs along the foot and it’s smaller and shorter than Maiden Castle but, otherwise, it looks
just like it - and it has a tumulus (a burial mound) on top.
Come to think of it. It isn’t quite
the same. On Maiden Castle, the huge, smooth area on top is exposed. Maybe there
used to be a wooden fence or a stockade or something like that up there, if
only to keep the wind out, let alone enemy tribes. (And Romans.) (Not that it
did.) (The Romans were unstoppable.) But Poundbury Tumulus has a neat ‘wall’ of
earth round the top, piled high and impacted. It creates a sort of amphitheatre
effect.
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| Here we are on the top. You can see the earthen 'ramparts' going off into the distance. |
It was all last Thursday. I was
on my way to meet Kit Berry (who writes the Stonewylde books). She was on her way to a World Book Day event and we
were planning to find each other in a cafe at half-past-one. I had set out
early, hoping to take photographs of the huge cranes which were looming out of
the mist on a nearby building site. They looked very dramatic. Somehow, though,
I got diverted and ended up walking round the ramparts of my new discovery. (Not
that I am the first to have found it. There are gates and notices and a
wheelchair entrance. (Wheelchair entrance!)
I could, of course, have gone
straight into this big, open area in the middle - but the highest bit was too
tempting. Not that I could pay attention to much once I was up there - I had to concentrate on not
feeling giddy or slipping on the narrow path - until the way along
it sort of petered out and I came back down into the big, grassy area in the middle
- where I met a thistle.
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| The thistle is flat against the ground - just beyond the yellow blob in the middle. |
The mist had largely cleared by
then - but the thistle was hanging onto the dew that had fallen from it and it
shimmered white in the middle of the green grass. It was about a foot across
and flat - and I’ve learnt (from other iSpot members) that it’s a Spear Thistle
(Cirsium vulgare). In a place seething with military history (fifty-one decapitated Vikings were uncovered during preparation for a new road) - it's not a bad name!
(Unless, of course, it's a Woolly Thistle (Cirsium eriophorum) - opinion is wavering!)
(Or a Musk Thistle (Carduus nutans) . . . waver, waver!)
(Or a Musk Thistle (Carduus nutans) . . . waver, waver!)
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| Drawn closer to see what it is. |
There was nothing around it but
short grass (I don’t know how many football pitches worth!) and it was lovely.
Absolutely, lovely. There were none like it nearby . . . it was just there -
like a flattened crown that had been absolutely plastered with diamonds and
embroidered with fine white feathers. Sorry to wax lyrical about a thistle but
. . .
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For 'A Weekend in Black and White'
click the bridge.
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* * *
The Sub-section!
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| At the top of the post, a blackberry leaf dies. At the bottom - new leaves are beginning to break. There aren't many of these yet either - but before long there will be acres of brambles. (Not sure how many football pitches!) |
 Tree Following * * * New POSTS Down by the Sea Tree Following 2 On the Edge Gardening Beech Bark Garden's Eye View Ash Stump (amongst other things!) Gardening Ways (London Plane) Lichfield Lore Take a Bough Willow's Woolly World Flowering Cherry * * * New to the list * * * Let me know if you have a new post about 'your' tree and I'll add a link here. And remember - you can register with Treeblogging to receive updates about tree posts from round the world. |
