From the car park we go to check the kiosk, tastefully built after the fashion of an iron age round house, to find it firmly shut. No toilets, no snacks and not even a cup of tea - although there was a portaloo. Presumably the place has fallen victim to local authority cuts, despite being a major attraction, with one of the groups attracted on this day being what looked like a large family group from southern India, a group which seemed far keener on flaunting a range of expensive gadgets than admiring the natural beauties of the place. They also, thoughtfully, thought to share their music with the rest of us.
Various humps in the grass which reminded us of the rather larger humps in Bushey Park. Maybe these humps were down to ants too.
We then headed north to inspect the scarp which was all present and correct, although it seems that the wind was not as the one paraglider we encountered was off to some other part of the hill. I remember we were there once when the paragliders seemed to be able to just step off the front of the scarp slope and sail away into the sky.
Having savoured the clean, clear air (which seemed quite different from that on Box Hill, the explanation presumably being that Box Hill at 172m is a good bit lower than Butser Hill at 270m), we then bore off to the west to inspect the deep dry valley running north then west from the top of the hill, the dry valley hosting the clump of beech trees illustrated (google maps 50.980650, -0.990584) and which one imagines is an evening trysting place for all kinds of activities. One can imagine long hairs having had a good time there back in the seventies with their incense and other substances. We descended for a closer inspection than had been possible back in 2009.
Back up the other side without too much huffing and puffing, catching various hawks on the way, of various sizes but with wings with pointed rather than rounded ends. No idea what they were. And then at the top a small herd of paragliders and one chap flying a radio controlled glider, a silent variety of model aeroplane of which I heartily approve.
Picnic'd looking out the other way, out over the Isle of Wight, although without a map I was a little puzzled by how low Culver Down looked compared to Shanklin Down, but checking the map today I find the former to be a mere 104m to the latter's 235m. (Not a sort of checking that google maps is much cop at: the combination of street map with aerial photography is no substitute for a proper map, at least not for these purposes).
There was also some squeaking which I thought might have been kites over the woods below us, being quite different from the mewing of buzzards, but we did not see anything of either sort.
Then down (by car) to the Butser Ancient Farm (http://www.butserancientfarm.co.uk/), a place which BH has been trying to visit for thirty years or more, in which time we learned that the place has moved twice. Not really a farm, more a farm yard and there was no way that one could make an agricultural living out of the place. No serious ground for crops and no woods to supply the large amount of wood they were getting through to make their fences and buildings. And certainly no marsh for the reeds for their thatch, or even for the rush hat that an enterprising lady in iron age togs managed to sell to BH. No fixed price but she judged the depth of our pockets very nicely. They also offered an interesting demonstration of a rather basic sort of weaving.
All quite interesting, with the small (new build) Roman Villa giving one a rather different take than the large (old build) Roman Villa at Brading, over on the island. It made a lot of difference having walls and a roof, rather than being not much more than foundations and floors.
And so home. Maybe an hour each way, about the same that Kew Gardens, the other candidate for the day's outing, would have been.
No comments:
Post a Comment