Landmark

Landmark

Some miles before reaching home, we see that familiar black topped hill, away to the west.

Nearly there, we think – or at least, this is our country now.

The landmark, Bampfylde Clump, is actually just a clump of trees – densely planted beeches, mature, but not especially ancient.  It’s said that a certain Bampfylde, one Baron Poltimore, established the tautological Round Ring (another of its titles), so that he could look around in all directions over the land he owned. 

More interesting, is the deep-rooted awareness of this natural high-point, and the celebration of it over the centuries, in various ways – secular and sacred.  Certainly, many coming into north Devon – be they resident or visitor – must have raised their eyes to the hills: Round Ring – there it is, Round Ring, as it’s always been, awaiting our arrival.

Who knows what lies in, among and under those beech tree roots?  Earlier burial places, perhaps even barrows, invisible now, will have been disturbed by the later plantings of saplings.  At least one significant find of Phoenician beads – just outside the Ring – is recorded, which I describe in my poem.

How many other artefacts and human remains, not to mention myths and legends are buried there?  Over the years I’ve taken many people up to the Ring.  We’ve all told all sorts of stories.

Entering that dark quiet clump, suddenly protected from the prevailing wind, looking up into the twisted, intertwined canopy, wondering which trunk belongs to which branches and picking your way round the circle to be abruptly surprised by the discovery that one has returned to the original point of entry – I’ve yet to meet anyone who hasn’t found it a strange, even mystical experience.

Old mine workings nearby add to the effect. There were copper and precious metal ores to be discovered in these hills. I sometimes wonder if this particular adit was driven towards the Ring in the subconscious belief that there was gold to be found.  Perhaps that was the case, though whether what they had in mind might have been raw or refined, like so many other aspects of this wonderful place, we shall never know.  Nor whether the mine was abandoned simply because it was unyielding, or the miners found the site, what shall we say, strange, even mystical…

What I do know is that for me this is a landmark, showing me I’m almost home.  

Bampfylde Clump

The dark clump called Round Ring

dense with its stories  

has long crowned the hill,

a landmark from long ago.

From near and from far,

from moor and from sea 

it draws in the visitor             

and they who return

as I do in my time

its gravity pulling me home.

           

The hedge fades when it nears

as if awed. There are sheep

keeping clear. I’m pulled closer

feeling a magnetic field.

There’s a fence to protect

these grey pillars of beech –

or does it retain them?

Although in the centre

branches are intertwined

as if holding hands.

The farmer was ploughing

when Darling’s front foot

got hitched in a hole

he said, like a pot.

He stopped to look –  

no golden coins but

some bits and pieces

he took home to clean –

soon newly-bright beads

the sort to surround

the neck of a queen or a princess

perhaps. Amber from far away –

the sun, with faience and lignite

circumgyrating – 

a special necklace for her

whose black ashes remain

in a round vessel, broken

in 1899

by a long dead draught horse,

pursuing her own curved path.

The clump is a quiet church

cool among columns of old trees,

young for a barrow, where no bird dare sing

over those stories. As I describe

the circle once more I walk and am drawn

centripetally.  There in the core,

is there still amber?  And high in the vaulting

whose trunks make which branches?

So many questions. I stumble,

my foot caught in a bramble – then break free.