Rock of Ages

Shelter from the storm

I’m in the doldrums.  Brexit has cleft us all in two.  In Burrington Combe, not far south of Bristol, I stop for a bacon roll and a mug of tea.  Brown sauce stains my shirt.  The limestone walls of the gorge rise precipitously above me.  On one slab of near vertical rock there is an inscribed slate which bears the words:

Rock of Ages

This rock derives its name

from the well known hymn

written about 1762 by the

Rev A M Toplady

who was inspired whilst sheltering

in this cleft during a storm

Lucky Toplady!  He had somewhere to hide, though 'Twas in another lifetime (one of toil and blood, when blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud….)  and, to a certain extent, times have changed.    

This was not a good day.  Everything up to that point had been left unresolved, so I Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm. 

Unlucky me.  The chills of the insular Brexit wilderness surround me, a creature void of form, and I am up on the Mendips, slogging up to Beacon Batch, the highest point on Black Down, aptly named for my current mood.  People lived here in pre-historic emptiness.  Who knows what they felt in the darkest hour, before dawn?  Now, the sweeping views over Blagdon, and across the wild uplands, give me little solace. 

I trek across the watery tracks to Rowberrow Warren, and down through the forest, where seeing wood from trees is a pathetic joke.

Then I rise up over the flowery slopes of Dolebury Warren, with church bells tolling the knell of another wedding in the folds below.  The fort atop the Warren is traceable in dips and rises, piles of stones and grassy mounds.  To think that this was once London, or Brussels, to the people then.  To think that once mighty royal assent was dispatched from places such as this.

I slip down through the ash woods, as yet defying the disease that is sweeping across the continent.  I seek comfort in a cottage at Churchill Batch, ironically named The Crown, though no sign currently gives this away.  

Here an unseasonal fire cheers the small gathering of locals.  Conversation trips around the heady matters of the day, but no one is celebrating.  Temporary though this cleft may be, at least there is still some shelter from the storm.

Then I follow the contours back along the edge of the hills, passing the derelict Lookout, where no one sees what’s coming, and by Mendip Lodge Wood.  Near Bos Swallet I pass a group of young people, toiling along the Limestone Link.  I would like to think they were enthusiastic, but it wasn’t easy to read their tea leaves.  At Sidcot Swallet I cross a stream and mistake my path, soon finding myself rising high away from Whitcombe’s Hole and Burrington Combe, losing my way in the dense bracken above West Twin Brook, and I am on Black Down again. 

Will it never end?  I don’t want to go back.  I seek shelter, but not in retreat.  The reality of being lost squelches beneath me, and Toplady’s words resound in my mind:

While I draw this fleeting breath,

When mine eyes shall close in death,

When I soar to worlds unknown….

It is beautiful on these hills.  If I were to fall into Goatchurch Cavern, or stumble into darkness in Lower Ellick Wood, the world would move on regardless.  But I want to leave the world a better place, I don’t want to see it cleft in two, eroded into chasms into which my children might fall.  I don’t want to think it is hopeless and forlorn.

I am in the bottom of Burrington Combe again, one of the great clefts riven in our rocky uplands.  On the one side is water, on the other, blood.  One side is power; the other guilt…..   At the bottom of this cleft, somethin's been lost…..  I feel that we took too much for granted. The leaders, elected leaders who should have known better,  got their signals crossed. Those despicable individuals who, for various reasons of personal aggrandisement, persuaded many of my compatriots with their silver tongues and golden lies to vote for a completely unplanned future, have now disappeared. Leaving nothing but blood on [their] tracks.

The trouble now is nothing really matters much, it's doom alone that counts. 

Yesterday I received an email from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which stated that:

The EU Referendum Act received Royal Assent in December 2015. The Act was scrutinised and debated in Parliament during its passage and agreed by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Act set out the terms under which the referendum would take place, including provisions for setting the date, franchise and the question that would appear on the ballot paper. The Act did not set a threshold for the result or for minimum turnout.

As the Prime Minister made clear in his statement to the House of Commons on 27 June, the referendum was one of the biggest democratic exercises in British history with over 33 million people having their say. The Prime Minister and Government have been clear that this was a once in a generation vote and, as the Prime Minister has said, the decision must be respected. We must now prepare for the process to exit the EU and the Government is committed to ensuring the best possible outcome for the British people in the negotiations…..

As the Prime Minister has said.... the decision must be respected....

Why?

Is this Prime Minister, who set up this farrago, and who didn't see through the selfish desire to quash disrespect within his own party, or vitriol from UKIP (United Kingdom Implosion Party).... the spineless Astoroid (sic) who has since jellyfished out of all responsibility.... Is this Primo Ministro to be respected? Should every person within what currently goes under the title of the United Kingdom (soon to be dissolved),  and practically everyone within Europe, suffer the degradation that will follow this vanity and egoism?

Well, I offered up my innocence I got repaid with scorn…  But, now I feel that I'm livin' in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line…..  If I could only turn back the clock.

I am at the bottom of Burrington Combe again, with brown sauce and ketchup on my shirt.  In 1762 the Reverend Augustus Montague Toplady found shelter from the storm here, and thanked his God. 

Not the labour of my hands

Can fulfill Thy law's demands;

Could my zeal no respite know,

Could my tears forever flow,

All for sin could not atone;

Thou must save, and Thou alone.

In my fear and despair I wish I could place my trust in someone.  I wish there was a God who would strike the discredited and the departing down, but if there is a God, then He must have ordained this situation, and sent the plague to test us.  Just to think that it all began on an uneventful morn….

Instead of going home, I drive to the village of Priddy, where I chance upon a cavalcade of tractors raising money for Air Ambulances.  

On Priddy village green there is a thatched shelter, which houses a stack of wooden hurdles.  An inscription explains that These hurdles are a symbolic reconstruction of the original collection.  They were stored here to form the Pens for the Sheep Fair which moved from Wells to Priddy in 1348 at the outbreak of the Black Death…..   The stack was destroyed in an arson attack on April 28^th 2013.  Volunteers rebuilt it that August….

I wonder how many symbolic reconstructions of things we will live to see?  How much of our history will be lost?  What else will we have to move to avoid the plague?  How many of the things we take for granted will be stranded without love? 

The village phone box now houses a defibrillator.....  No harm in that (Times have changed);  only perhaps that is what the whole nation needs?

If only someone would say Come in….  I'll give ya shelter from the storm....

Back in Bristol, on the edge of the Avon Gorge, looking for peregrines, the ground starts to shake.  I am almost run down by women in pink....

Suddenly I turned around and she was standing there....

"Come in" she said

"I'll give you shelter from the storm"

Is there hope yet?

(If you get close to her, kiss her once for me....)

From the West Country - The Mendip Fringe, 1

There’s a certain something about Bus Stations.  The cosmopolitan bustle, the unhurried purpose, the smell of spilt oil, and the purr of big diesels – all controlled but disparate movements and noises blending into a general hum of purpose.  Within the bright confines of the snack bar, tea steams in polystyrene cups, ashtrays spill over with teabags and crushed fag ends.  On the stands, men, women, young and old, queue in patient order, their expectations quietly contained behind their masks. The colourful coaches and double-deckers nuzzle in and load, then edge out and depart, heading for magical destinations, the great elsewhere.  Fishponds.  Bath.  Weston-super-Mare.  Midsomer Norton.  Yate.   

I board the Chew Valley Explorer, bound for Churchill via Blagdon, and head out of town, gradually leaving the suburbs behind.  For a change it is great not to have to drive, and, also for a change, it is wonderful to be able to gaze out of the windows, taking in the surroundings, not just having to concentrate on the exhaust fumes in front.  It is also great to have the raised vantage point that a bus affords, and soon we are skimming past Chew Lake, which shines like a polished mirror in the sun over the still, silver, frosted, beautiful countryside.  There is a clear crystal blue sky, frost everywhere, frost on the grass, frost on the roofs, and villages still in the winter sunshine: Bishop Sutton, Chew Magna.  The weak sun just glimpses over the skyline through the bare trees.  In West Harptree the church clock gleams golden like a face reflecting the sun.  Then Blagdon where the church tower stands proud above the lake.  There’s a chill in the air; it’s a sharp crisp winter’s day.  The bus leaves me to linger here, and there’s plenty to see and delightful pubs to savour, but I climb the hill, past Pratt’s garage, left in a time warp with 1950’s petrol pumps and signs.  Further up the hill, past the pottery, there is Channel View, 1908, and indeed you can still see across the landscape to the Bristol Channel. 

Then, above Blagdon, Luvver’s Lane plunges off between hedges, catkins high above the path, symbols of spring to come.  The hedge has been trimmed neatly but violently with nicely layered piece of hedge, uprights driven deep in.  Blackbirds chatter excitedly in the woods. 

At 200 metres above sea level, at the end of Luvver’s Lane, leading on to the Limestone Link, with Big Batch rising up to 325 metres above on the south side.  A charm of goldfinches leads me across the Barrington Combe road to moor land rising on left.  The bridleway churned up by horses, feet and bikes though the ground is frozen bone hard.  Near Goatchurch cavern I cross a deep gully carved by a stream; the limestone strata above Barrington Combe gently undulating like waves.  There is a waterfall gushing down the hill but it disappears down a swallet hole and the streambed is left dry. 

The sun is warm on my back, though there is ice on the puddles.  There are strange cuts and dips in the land, with spiky reeds.  Dry stone walls crumble among the trees on one side; on the other, Rowberry Woods fall away deep inky black with the sound of water flowing at the bottom of a deep scarp. 

I reach the foot of Dolebury Warren.  Before me is a ridge of limestone covered in grassland.  According to the information board this is a place of bee and pyramidal orchids, yellow wort, drop wort and kidney vetch.  Tiny but beautiful spring annuals such as rue leaved saxifrage, common storks bill and early forget-me-nots thrive on the shallow rocky soils.  In places bell heather and bilberry grow amongst limestone heath.  The acidic soils derive from sands blown onto site during the last glaciations.  Dolebury Warren is specified a site of specific scientific interest by English Nature and a scheduled ancient monument by English Heritage.  There is a 2000-year-old Iron Age fort from which there are excellent views out over the Bristol Channel.  The National Trust owns the site that also has a medieval rabbit warren (which provided the local inhabitants with fresh meat) and a Celtic field system.  The crisp frosted grass matches the shadows.  A buzzard flies low across past me, unconcerned by my presence.  I pass ancient anthills, hummocks grassed over and trimmed by the sheep like green nodules, ridged hillsides and bare trees:  not a single leaf. 

I am alone, high above the countryside around, but fringed by trees.  There is evidence of a tree felling programme within the hill fort ramparts to enhance wildlife interest:  they are taking out non-native trees, especially turkey oak and sycamore of very little wildlife value; good quality English oak and hawthorn, ash, spindle, holly and wayfaring trees are being retained to keep the open parkland aspect.  The ramparts are impressive with sizeable limestone blocks and scree stones, and the fort is some two hundred metres long, sloping towards the west.  There is an amazing view, and it is a brilliant defensive position.  The levels are flat like a map and diminutive church towers and steeples mark the parishes below. There is a steep track down through woods to the A38. 

There are four pubs in Churchill.  The extraordinary Crown Inn, CAMRA pub of the year 1999, on the corner of Skinners Lane and The Batch, which is a place that is almost from another time, certainly from a wilder world.  A step away there is the bright and cheerful Nelson Arms, and on the A38 there are two pit stops, one on either side of the road: the Stag and Hounds and the Churchill itself, with the grand old man’s cigar-toting portrait as an Inn Sign.  The Crown, however, is a different experience.  It is not an everyday, modern, carpet and fruit machine boozer at all.  Possibly, just possibly, it’s a place that started life around the end of the last glaciations, where Iron Age men raised horns of mead.  Certainly it is a fitting place to end a stumble through limestone gorges and over a 2000-year-old fort…