Climbing Twmbarlwm

I've wanted to climb Twmbarlwm in South Wales for some time - ever since its distinctive outline, which you can see from many places on our side of the Severn, was pointed out to me. Ideally, I would have gone with Dru Marland, as it is deep in Dru Marland Country, but these days she's headed east on the Kennet and Avon and somewhere in the Vale of Pewsey, so I went with my boys and our dogs instead. (And fine companions they were.)

First, though, we made a return visit to Caerleon - not to follow the whole route we walked three weeks ago, but just to see if the bluebells that grow all over the hill fort on the ridge at the back of the town were out yet. 

This has been a difficult spring to predict, what with the effect of all that late snow, but in this, our timing was spot on. 

Great waves of bluebells rolling over the ramparts of the hill fort ...

... and so beautiful. 

But we had a mountain - or at least, a sizeable hill - to climb, so after three quarters of an hour or so we headed west to our starting point at Cwmcarn Visitor Centre. 

I have to say, it was hard going, but fortunately for me, there were plenty of reasons to pause and take photos. 

On the way up we bumped into David Hockney. (Not really.) 

It was getting really tough now. Luckily, there was a raven overhead, chiding me into keeping going.

Bilberries - or whinberries - and very shouty larks

Eventually we reached the outer ramparts of the hill fort, which - like the one at Caerleon - is believed to have been constructed between 500 and 150BC by the Silures, a fierce Celtic tribe ...

... and then - with much relief - the trig point on the summit.

Brean Down, Steep Holm and Flat Holm in the far distance

There's a rather prominent tump on top of Twmbarlwm. 

Its origin is something of a mystery. It might have been built by the Romans as a signal tower after they defeated the Silures in the area ... 

... or possibly by the Normans during the invasion of South Wales in 1070, as a temporary motte and bailey structure. 

A small shrine to another mother and grandmother reminded us of a Welsh nanna who might have been celebrating her 97th birthday at that very moment in whichever place she is now. (Another mystery.)

Too soon it was time to go. We took in the last of the views, over to the River Severn and the two Severn bridges in the distance ... 

... and Ted had a final puddle about.

Then it was all the way back down, far quicker, admittedly, than the ascent but - in my case - on jelly legs with toes crunched against the toecaps of my boots.

Loquacious raven alert 

Next time I might just take advantage of the car park near the summit, the existence of which we only realised once we were up there ... 

... because, in the words of Son the Younger, You've done it now, Mum. 

Romans, Knights and Pwca

Time for Son the Younger and me to take the two dogs for a walk. We'd been hoping it would be nice enough to go to the beach, but it wasn't, so we crossed the water and went for a walk in Caerleon, just outside Newport.

Caerleon is famed for its Roman remains. I hadn't been there since I was at school. We had quite a walk ahead of us, though, so we made do with a flying visit to the amphitheatre ...

... which was built to serve the nearby Roman legionary fortress of Isca Augusta (or Isca Silorum) in around 90AD. Interestingly, it was known in the Middle Ages as King Arthur's Round Table.   

We were headed for a different fort, however - the iron age hill fort that tops the wooded ridge overlooking the village. 

This involved a long and slightly tedious drag uphill ...  

... although there was some poetry - a passing glimpse of the Hanbury Arms, down by the River Usk, where Tennyson worked on his Idylls of the King, which is about King Arthur. (Are you sensing a theme?) ...

... and this sign in the window of a local primary school.

Then we were off tarmac and onto a muddy track and things started getting interesting. 

Lodge Wood hill fort was constructed some 300 to 500 years before the arrival of the Romans. 

The Silures - a fierce tribe, apparently - fought back against the Roman occupation, but were eventually either beaten or persuaded to work with them. 

When the Romans left in 400AD, many hillforts were reoccupied. During this period, King Arthur is said to have led the fightback against the Saxon invasion. In the 12th century, Geoffrey of Monmouth claims Caerleon is the site of Camelot. 

We didn't see the ghosts of any Roman centurions or courtly knights, but there was a funny feeling about the woods. As if the Pwca might live there.

The place will be full of bluebells shortly.

In the meantime, we got to admire the beautifully delicate and quite widespread wood anemones. 

The woods thinned as we left the area of the fort and views over Newport and the looping River Usk opened up. 

I kept Ted well away from this pond. 

We picked our way down a very slippery hillside to the road by Pwll-Mawr Farm. 

Our route should have taken us round the back of the hill over land described as marsh, and then up the steep and at times disappearing path through the woods. 

However, the ground was so already so wet  and treacherous that we decided to return to town on the new boardwalk alongside the river. 

Still, you know you've had a good walk when your boots look like this. 

Calleva Atrebatum and St Mary the Virgin, Silchester

Time for a joint birthday jaunt for Daughter No 2 and me. We had a think and decided to go to Silchester in Hampshire. 

We had lunch in the Calleva Arms. Calleva Atrebatum, we are told, is the Roman name of the town they built near the present village in the first century AD. 

Our first stop was the ancient Church of St Mary the Virgin, but we arrived ten minutes before a baptism was due to take place, so diverted to the site of the Roman town walls and amphitheatre instead. 

We walked along the drove cutting through the centre of the site. Now it's fields; then there was a grid of streets with houses, public buildings and a forum. Discoveries are still made during the annual summer excavations by Reading University. 

Silchester was never built over or reoccupied after it was abandoned in the 6th or 7th century, and so archaeologists have an unusually complete picture of life there. 

I bet it didn't include alpacas. 

There were several groups of people wandering about trying to find the amphitheatre. We were misdirected twice before we found it. 

I had that knot of emotion in my throat again as I walked into the middle. 

No evidence survives to indicate the sort of entertainment taking place here. Shows involving gladiators or wild beasts might have been too expensive, but blood sports with bulls, dogs and bears are possibilities, and public executions would have been carried out. 

The opposing entrance/exit 

One of two semi-circular niches recessed into the seating banks  on the east-west axis. They might have been refuges for 'participants' in the 'games'; elsewhere, evidence has been found suggesting that such recesses contained altars to Nemesis. 

On our arrival, we'd noticed a slightly alarming sign which said the car park would be locked at 4pm, and time was getting on, so we hurried back via the walls on one side of the site. 

Silchester boasts 'some of the best preserved Roman town defences in England' - and they are quite impressive. 

The North Gate, then and now

Back, then, to St Mary the Virgin, where the only remnant of the baptism was a disposable nappy left behind in the car park. 

The church is ancient and a far more modern site than the walls we'd just walked. The earliest surviving masonry dates from the early 12th century, though its position, tucked up inside the east wall of Calleva, suggests it inhabits a site held sacred in pagan times. 

As soon as you step inside, you see the plain, late 14th/early 15th century font - clearly still in use - with its beautiful 1985 corona by Giuseppe Lund, representing shoots growing from seeds to maturity. Behind it, a modern memento mori in the form of the striking Carpe Diem window by Jon Callan, a memorial to two young people, Andrew Culbert and Sophie Wilsdon, who died in accidents within six months of each other. 

Here's a more traditional one. 

The chancel  screen, dated by its carved pomegranates to the time of Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon ... 

... the frieze of which is comprised largely of finely carved angels. 

As someone brought up in the Methodist church and attuned to the Virtues of Plain, I wasn't surprised to learn that the pulpit dates from the Commonwealth, c1650. The sounding board above it is 11 years earlier and illustrates the change in prevailing attitude towards church furniture of the intervening years. 

Enormous spider descending

Quite a few traces of paint have been uncovered that give the imagination a tiny glimpse of what it might have been like inside before the wielding of great brushes of whitewash. 

The tomb of Eleanor Baynard, depicted in her widow's weeds, who survived the first incursion of the Black Death and died some time after 1359. 

Chancel wall decoration, c1230