Eyeworth Pond

 

Tucked away, hidden at the head of a wooded valley Eyeworth Pond was created in the late 19th century in order to supply the nearby gunpowder factory by damming one of the the upper tributaries of Latchmore Brook; until 1921 the factory here produced smokeless gunpowder, and at the height of it's success it employed 100 people. Though it wasn't the first industry in this locale, nor possibly the largest; under the Romans this part of the forest was a major centre of pottery production in the 3rd century AD, running numerous large kilns. It's hard to imagine bustling industries here in the tranquillity of the deep forest. 

And did those feet?

And did those feet in ancient time, walk upon England's mountains green? You bet they did, and they left plenty of traces of their passing by too. England's quite small really, so it's no surprise that the landscape is so abundant in the relics of foregone times. Again today we found ourselves walking the rural byways of Dorset and as if to perfectly illustrate my opening statement, through time. We parked up at the Kingston Lacy end of the 700 tree Beech Avenue created in 1835; past the Bronze Age round barrows of King Down (above); on past a really rare Romano-British barrow (35m diameter and 6m high, surrounded by a partially filled ditch); on past the architecturally fantastic farm buildings of Hemsworth with it's origins in the 16th century; past the earthen remains of a an earlier medieval settlement, listed as Hemedeswordes in the Doomsday Book; past the site of a 4th Century Roman Villa famed for it's fine mosaics; past woodland hiding the foundations of wartime accommodation; across the World War Two airfield of Tarrant Rushton from where, on D-Day, the gliders took off for the famous attack on Pegasus Bridge, the first allied troop in occupied Europe; along the Ackling Dyke Roman Road; below the ramparts of the majestic Iron Age hillfort of the Durotriges, Badbury Rings; and finally back to where we began. And that doesn't take into account the history I don't know, or that which remains hidden. A real walk through time I'm sure you'd agree.    

Old straight track

Bridleway you say? If you're an elf riding a stoat, maybe. This section of the old Roman road, Ackling Dyke, just north of Badbury Rings, is tightly flanked by thick towering country hedge, making the already slim path, very narrow indeed. It felt akin to being in a maze, just a long unimaginative straight maze; The Ackling Dyke runs across the softly rolling chalk farmland like this for about half a mile. It's a long time since I've walked these tracks, not since Norris got too old to walk them, 5 or so years ago. I like this landscape, although predominantly farmland there's diversity too, and a lot lies hidden too, less walked tracks to find, secluded spots and views are just amazing. Obviously, this shot doesn't show those views to their best. 

Water Lilies

I thought how the 'Head' has changed over the years as I walked through memories and time there this morning.  It feels as if Hengistury Head has always featured in my life.  Childhood days out with kites, or Noddy Train rides and the beach.  A favoured adventure land in my young teens, skiving school, jumping the Noddy Train, being chased by the Noddy Train drivers as well as the first place I wild camped. It appeared much wilder then, it was much wilder then, more removed, that said, it's still wild-ish now. It became a different type of adventure land in my later teens, substances ensured that. It's always been somewhere I've walked too. When I worked in the engineers department at the local authority we'd survey the Head regularly to record the rate of erosion, it took a couple of days, and we did that a few times a year. Nice work as I remember. Halfway down the harbour face of the Head are ponds above the waste tips created by quarrying in previous centuries. These, now thriving wildlife ponds, used to be near lifeless murky puddles, in fact the whole landscape had a tangible post industrial feel to it as I remember, a bare nakedness beyond first colonisers and invasive flora. So many memories connected with this place, I'm connected with this place. And, I know I'm just one of many over the centuries to have felt that connection. Hengistbury Head has been the focus of human activity for millennia, 14,000 year ago Upper Palaeolithic hunters utilized the headland, as did the our Mesolithic ancestors, the Bronze Age saw the harbour developing and the promontory was a focus of Round Barrow burials, the Iron Age saw the harbour port continue to develop as an important centre for trade, this continued throughout the Roman period. Later centuries saw smuggling, quarrying and defence all feature, in-between long periods of pastoral obscurity. So I'm not just walking through my history, I'm walking through the history of the country, human and natural, and I just love that. 

On the road...

On the road back in time. I though I'd explore a different aspect of Cranborne Chase on today's walk. I parked up between Gussage St Michael and Gussage All Saints and took 'Ackling Dyke' the Roman road the 4 or so miles to top of Wyke Down, where I sat a while on one of the prominent barrows and took in the full majesty of a landscape steeped in millennia of human activity. Well, it would be rude not to. But for an ever so slight kink just before you reach Harley Gap, the course of Ackling Dyke is, as you'd imagine, quite quite straight.  Build around the mid first century AD Ackling Dyke is your standard (ish) Roman road, it's constructed on a substantial Agger (embankment), about 15m wide at the base, with the road surface would be about 6m wide, and on either side would have been a broad drainage ditch. The section which runs for nearly 2 miles through the Drive Plantation is stunningly well preserved. The Agger shows few signs of degradation, the road surface still, for the most part, flat and the drainage ditch and low outer bank are clearly visible (on the woodland side, other side mainly ploughed out). Quite wonderful. The road would have given the local population a strong message, 'we are Rome, and this is all ours' type of thing. The road cuts through all manner of prehistoric features, features which although probably not visited any more, still held sway in the folklore and imaginations of the people.  Just like our colonial railways, the Roman roads weren't benevolent gifts to improve the lot of the locals, they were for communication, military and exploitation purposes. Ackling Dyke was certainly made to impress, and two thousand years on it still does. I really recommend this as a walk, I've not seen a better preserved length of Roman Road. 

Pot

As I made my through Amberwood Enclosure, through the fading bracken and over fallen limbs, I passed a toppled tree, and the archaeologist in me just couldn't resist having a look at the root ball and bole. As peered through the hanging roots I spied the shape of human agency in the form of a small pottery sherd. It's was what I'd been hoping to find looking into the root ball, and what I expected I might find. I knew Amberwood had been a site of pottery production during the Romano-British period, specifically in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. I'd found the occasional pottery sherd over the years walking here. A series of Roman kilns had been identified in the area, and excavated after timber extraction through 1969 to 1971. As I looked closer I found 2 more sherds, 1 reasonable sized and 1 fragment, none displayed any diagnostic features, and all I can say is that all were a sandy grey fabrics, the larger sherd and fragment are a sandy dark grey/brown fabric and appear to a have a black slip applied to them, the fragment also appears to be burnished, the small sherd (top and middle) is a sandy light grey fabric, though finer, and may have a thin white slip. I  need to give them a proper clean. Some of the pottery from these kilns may have travelled far across the South of England, although most sherds of Roman Mortaria (mixing/grinding bowls) produced in the New Forest identified on archaeological excavations have been in a fairly limited radius of say, 40 miles. These sherds represent wasters, and I imagine an investigation would show the area covered in a liberal distribution of these type of finds. You'd never know it today, but this area of the forest was once an industrial landscape, years later it's industry of another form which covers the land.

Hengistbury Head

The headland of Hengistbury Head has seen human activity since the Paleolithic, when reindeer hunters camped overlooking what was river deltas and plain, and is now the Solent. Later, Mesolithic, mobile hunter gathers, seasonly passed through exploiting the local resources; they were followed by local Bronze Age communities who buried their dead in mounds on the head.  As the Bronze Age gave way to the Iron Age, the double dyke defences were constructed and as the Iron Age progress the head became an important trading port. The head continued as important trading port throughout the Roman period. Little evidence remains of all these activities, other than the double dykes. Through the following centuries stone and iron loded stones were regularly quarried, leaving a deep scar across the headland.  During the Second World War the headland was taken over by the military; guns, radar and other defences turned the head into an important military installation, also extensive mines were deployed; clearance took some time and wasn't until the 1950's that most of the Second World War features were removed or destroyed, again leaving very little evidence. There are though the occasional signs of wartime activity, on the shoreline on the harbour side of the head are shattered remains of, what looks like, a defencive pillbox. On this piece above, one of the larger, you can easily make out one of the firing embrasures. Used for recreation now, it's impossible to know what the future holds for this well used headland.

Ackling Dyke

Not as its name would suggest a dyke, Ackling Dyke is the Roman road which ran between Badbury Rings and Old Sarum, from where it became the Portway leading eastwards to London. Though much of its length has been truncated over the centuries or absorbed into later roads, there are sections which remain visible. On the Hampshire Wiltshire border at Bokerley junction its raised aggar still stands nearly 2m high and in some sections the drainage channels either side can just be made out. Once a major artery transporting troops and traders in what was the most far flung region of the Roman Empire it would have buzzed with activity, now though the invasion of tree and shrubs would impede any movement along it.  When think it would have seen 400 years or more of use and has survived a further 1600 years of neglect, it really is a testament to Roman engineering...I doubt any of our modern roads would be recognizable in the landscape after so many centuries.

Martin Down

Looking out from a robbed out Bronze Age barrow on top of Martins Down, Bokerley Ditch snakes off across the the chalk downland landscape. As it happens, another landscape created by thousands of years of human activity and reliant on human intervention to stop its succession to woodland.

Penbury knoll

I like Martin Down, I like the chalk grassland landscape, it's an open book if you can read the language. I'm sitting on the crest of one of the later monuments to human activity, a large World War Two rifle range butt surveying Martin Down, a landscape created and marked by man since man made marks. Directly in front of me is Bokerley Ditch, a 3 mile long Roman bank and ditch defencive work which cut through the landscape, built, it's believe, on an earlier Bronze Age defencive feature. To my right, Ackling Dyke, the Roman road connecting Badbury Rings and Old Sarum.  Just beyond are the wooded mounds of Neolithic long barrows, which house the remains of the earliest static human residents. In the fields all about are the ploughed remains of Bronze age barrows, burial mounds of a later elite. Whilst, criss crossing the land are hedgerows, hollow ways and well trodden tracks, all that remain of a Post Medieval agricultural landscape. Finally, crowning the horizon, Penbury Knoll Iron Age hillfort* and enclosed field system. It's clear the land here has always been favoured and a land that's been toiled over since the introduction of farming. And that's only the monuments we can see, aerial photographs of the area show a landscape denslt covered in ploughed out features.  I'm lost for a while, deep in thought about the past of the land. Until a flock of birds, making the sound of rustling leafs, fly overhead and I return to the present.

*I've mention Penbury before, I don't Penbury as a hillfort, I think the RCHME categorized it wrongly. I think Penbury was something else.