Creech Hill

Purbeck again this morning, and what a wonderful day for walking, the light on the landscape was stunning, the vistas had an ultra real quality to them. We parked at Corfe and made our way along the base of Knoll Hill, our now familiar route easing us into the hills, where after a couple of miles or so we rose up Ridge Hill with it's fabulous 360 degree views. I know I'm repeating myself, but Purbeck is something special, a landscape unique. After taking our fill of sites, we walked on following the high ridge past Grange Arch, an 18th century folly, and eventually reaching Creech Hill where we sat looking along the Tyneham Valley with the sea and Portland beyond. Man, what a breathtaking rural scene, a patchwork of fields, hedgerows and copses, nestled in the folds of hills and cliffs, I breathed it all in. Later as we descended Ridgeway Hill we met a chatty elderly local lady on her way up and we got chatting; I try not to miss any opportunity to indulge my passion for local aural histories. The lady told of being born in the Corfe Valley, having lived here all her life and of all the changes she'd seen. Of how the nature of the population had changed, how when her children were young there used to be 40 children on the school bus from Kimmerage to Corfe. Of how the land has altered, how there used to be lots more small fields, more hedgerows and how the valley bottom fringing the Corfe River used to be all flower meadow. I could endlessly listen to people telling the story of a land they're intimately connected to; I love it. My mind wandered as Geoff and I continued on our way, imaging the valley as the lady described; so, a timeless landscape more changed than I'd imagined.