The ruined church and kissing trees of Lacaut

 

My walking book for the Wye Valley and the Forest of Dean tells me that the first time I visited the ruined, 12th century Church of St James at Lancaut was twenty-five years ago in February 2001, with my now ex-husband and our four children. I remember this walk well; it was during February half-term, the first cases of foot-and-mouth in what would be a devastating outbreak had just occurred, and I was desperate to get out for a walk before the countryside was closed down completely. 

The second walk was eight years later, in October 2009. This time I was with my late collie, Ted, who was just a puppy and my initials had changed, as had my marital status (or at least my divorce was under way). 

It's now nearly 17 years since that second walk, so ... high time I went back. Though I wouldn't be retracing my steps today; it's far too hot right now for me and Cwtch to go clambering over the boulders that form part of the route alongside the River Wye. Instead, I decided to drive to the car park high above the Lancaut promontory and walk down through the woods instead.

A fellow dog-walker warned me that cows were loose down by the church, so I put Cwtch back on the lead as a precaution (though unlike the aforementioned Ted, she's far more likely to hang back behind me than charge at such large, lumbering creatures). We sat on a stone stile for a time, in the hope they'd wander off so we might explore the ruins, but they didn't, so we had no choice but to brave them. A fair bit of staring each other down ensued, but we reached the church without incident.

St James, such as it is, is all that's left of the village of Lancaut, which, after centuries of dwindling population numbers, was finally abandoned in the 19th century. Just outside, there's a socket stone that presumably once held a stone cross. 

The lead font that belonged to the church now stands in the Lady Chapel in Gloucester Cathedral.

The piscina

I was sorry to see that someone has scratched some crude religious slogans on the 17th century ledger stones. Here's how one of them looked in 2009:

The cows were still hanging about while we were inside the church, but then disappeared, much to our relief. We explored the outside ...

... carefully avoiding what remained of a poor, dead thrush ...

... and then headed down to the very edge of England. 

In addition to the church, I wanted to find two trees I'd seen online, an ash and a sycamore, that are growing so close to each other they've become inosculated - or are 'kissing'. This is a fanciful way of saying that their trunks and branches rubbed against each other, wearing away the bark, so that they are now fused and share the same support systems, maybe even being the same tree. Or not. All I knew about their/its location was that they/it are/is near the ruined church on the banks of the Wye. 

Lancaut's horseshoe meander, looking downstream towards the cliffs of Wintour's Leap

I decided they must be a little way along the river bank, but the footpath was temporarily closed, presumably because of this downed tree (which means we wouldn't have been able to do the Chepstow to Lancaut walk even if we'd tried). I resigned myself to not seeing them this time, and headed back up through the woods by a different route ...

... encountering on the way this magnificent oak, which has clearly lost several enormous branches recently.

And then, as I sank onto a bench thoughtfully positioned at the top of a particularly steep flight of steps, I saw, off to one side, the kissing trees.

sycamore and ash

Obviously, I didn't have time to get to know them intimately, but I wouldn't mind betting their pronouns are they/them. 

hoggin

pheasant, jay, blue tit, thrush, tawny owl