The Megalithic Empire

A routine walk in the Godalming area was used as a test case to see whether a randomly selected piece of the Surrey commuter-belt would turn out to reveal an underlying megalithic imprint. The experiment proved notably successful so, while on this walk, you can be mentally preparing to convert over-familiar Sunday afternoon jaunts into […]

Having verified on your walk that the old trackways are extant in places, you can trace even more of the original route from the map, but reconstructing the whole network requires a bit of sleuthing on the internet aided by some flights of informed fancy. The name Guildford or Geldeford is said to mean ‘golden […]

One of the things you need to do when walking in today’s countryside is to let your imagination encompass the passage of time.  Take a comparatively mundane example of a roadside marker you will definitely welcome—a pub. It is universally agreed that beer and other alcoholic brews such as mead have been around since at […]

Ilkley Moor and the adjoining Bingley, Burley and Morton Moors are collectively known as Rombald’s, or Rumbles, Moor.  The name is said to be that of a fabled giant, generally credited in folklore with superhuman feats in constructing these marvels, an explanation roughly as trustworthy as our own academic folklore that these things are geological […]

Avebury suffers from the crowds and is altogether over-egged by the Heritage Industry.  Even so, you’ll have to ‘do’ Avebury because of its importance.  Leaving the strict village environs and walking round the perimeter of the various earthworks will give you an impressionistic idea of the general relatedness of the landmarks.  The best map is […]

Route:  Avebury – Avebury Trusloe – Windmill Hill – Avebury Length: 4½ miles   The best map is OS Explorer 157 or Landranger 173.       From Avebury car park follow the path towards the village where all the usual slightly twee but not outrageous fare of the National Trust type is available and […]

The image of people dancing round ancient monuments—not to mention ancient monuments dancing round people if folklore is to be believed—has so impressed itself on the collective consciousness as to make the connection with maypole dancing quite overt.  In fact maypole dancing is a celebration of May 1st, which is the date when the sunrise […]

Since it became a National Park in 1951 Dartmoor has been popular with walkers and pony-trekkers but, in practice, you can walk all day without seeing another human being. As you pick your way across tussocks of grass and apparently random boulders, it is easy to imagine the landscape has remained more or less unchanged […]

One of the pleasures of walking is observing unfamiliar creatures; there is, however, little sign of wildlife on Dartmoor and few birds, just the odd buzzard glimpsed high above Staples tors. This dearth is unexpected given the lack of human habitation hereabouts. Merrivale Warren and the nearby Conies Down sound promising but there are few […]

WINTERBOURNE ABBAS    Walk One Route:   Winterbourne Abbas – Winterbourne St Martin – Hampton Stone Circle – Little Bredy – Winterbourne Abbas Length:  c. 12 miles     The best map is OS Explorer OL15 (1:25,000 scale) otherwise use Landranger 194 (1:50,000). This walk can be combined with the last part (reversed) of Winterbourne […]