In October my brother and I walked the 29km South Dorset Ridgeway which runs from West Bexington to Osmington (via Abbotsbury and Hardy’s Monument). Now known to be ritually and culturally important to the people of the Neolithic / Iron Age the way is referred to as a ceremonial landscape owing to rare Neolithic earthworks dating from about 3600BC and the large number of later Bronze Age burial mounds. The Dorset Council website says it is considered to have an archaeological significance that is on a par with the World Heritage Site of Stonehenge and Avebury. It was mind blowing to imagine that even when the Romans invaded two thousand years ago, these walkways, barrows and megaliths were lost to antiquity.
The experience was elemental. After 8 hours of walking we realised just how attuned we had become to the weather patterns, watching the murder of crows pre-empting the squall showers that followed minutes later… the landscape was as changeable as the weather and the trees! Scores of south westerly beaten Hawthorn standing guard for the duration of the walk was inspiring and I kept feeling we’ve lost the simplicity of greatness in connection with our landscape.
We were elated after that walk which ended with a spectacular sunset by the Osmington horse hill figure. A well deserved pint was waiting for us at The Manor in Swyre.