Hill fort fever: Barbury Castle

Over the last few years, I've developed new loves in the landscape. One is the Ridgeway, a 5000-year-old track that starts at Avebury and ends 87 miles away at Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire. I've only walked a couple of short sections of it, from Avebury to West Kennet long barrow, and from the Uffington White Horse to Wayland's Smithy, but it is a place of chalk and magic and I would love to walk its entire length (but know I probably never shall). 

The Ridgeway at Barbury Castle

The other love has come upon me incrementally, and those increments are called Blaise Castle, Brackenbury Ditches, Brent Knoll Camp, British Camp, Bury Hill Camp, Caerleon Hill Camp, Cam Long Down, Castle Ditches Camp, Coney's Castle, Hembury Hill Fort, King's Weston, Lambert's Castle, Leckhampton Camp, Lydford Fort, Maes Knoll, Old Sarum, Small Down Camp, Stokeleigh Camp, Twmbarlwm, Uffington Castle, Wain's Hill ... and others, I'm sure, that have slipped my mind. The hill forts I've encountered on my walks, once a source of interest, now a passion. 

Barbury Castle with the Ridgeway running through it

I don't know what it is about hill forts, but they seem to me to be the thinnest of places, as if the people who lived there and defended them thousands of years ago are still just a heartbeat away. 

So when my daughter needed driving from Bristol to Swindon for an event, I decided to take the dog on a walk somewhere up near there for a change, and as I'd long wished to visit Barbury Castle, which is a few miles south of Swindon and combines hill fort mystique with Ridgeway delight, that's where we went.

Barbury castle has two distinct rings - even three in places - and the size of it means that you can do a walk of a fairly decent length for an elderly woman and a little collie who's approaching middle age and has never really had a work ethic, just by roaming around them, with the added advantage of not getting lost (except in your imagination).

The photos make it look like Cwtch and I had the place to ourselves, but we didn't.  When we arrived the car park was full of teenagers with unfeasibly large rucksacks, but they headed off elsewhere and that was a relief. (For me to derive a degree of self-regulation from my walks, they need to be quiet.) 

But as soon as we got to the fort, it became apparent there were a lot of cyclists coming through ... streams of them, in fact, on a route along the Ridgeway marked by day-glo orange flags. Maybe next time we go there - I would love there to be a next time - we'll choose a week day!

My wildflower ID app - I'm not very good at orchids - identified variously, as broad-leaved marsh orchid, heath spotted orchid and common spotted orchid, what I think were probably all examples of the same species. I suspect we can discount the marsh variety. It's a spotted one, but I'm not sure which.

Top row: orchids of some description, yarrow, scabious, salsify

Middle row: meadow cranes bill, lady's bedstraw, bird's foot trefoil, yellow rattle, small burnet, yellow mignonette

Bottom row: wild carrot, thyme, thyme-leaf sandwort, rough hawkbit, nodding plumeless thistle, creeping cinquefoil

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Meadow brown on hawkbit, thick-legged flower beetle on hoary plantain, marmalade hoverflies on hogweed, a painted lady, six-spot burnets on bird's foot trefoil

The Ridgeway

Bluebells at Cam Peak, Fritillaries at Cricklade

The bluebells were over in Bristol, but there were some still flowering just twenty miles up the road, on Cam Peak in Gloucestershire, so I headed up with Cwtch, who's always keen to visit new places. (Not that it was a new place for me, but with 16 years having elapsed since my last visit, it was still exciting.) 

The hill is 16 years steeper to climb than it was back then, when tackled head on from the car park. I felt like the English Woman who Went Up a Hill and then Went Up a Mountain. Or maybe it's because I was still in my forties then and now I'm well into my sixties.

bluebells and red campion

Just when I thought I might not make it, I found I'd made it.

Cwtch and I then made for Cam Long Down hill fort, which, again, I'd walked all those years ago with my friend, Jill, and my old collie, Ted, who wasn't old at all back then - I think he was just a year old.  

There was a lovely sunken lane to walk up onto the down. It was so deep the violets were almost fluorescent. 

Along the skyline, from far left: May Hill, the Malvern hills, and Bredon Hill

Downham - or Smallpox - Hill, the latter name deriving from an 18th century isolation hospital sited there

Looking south to Nibley Knoll and Tyndale Monument, which I can see when looking north from my bedroom window

May Hill and the River Severn just coming off its huge meanders around Arlingham and Awre

On the return route, Cam Peak was in view for much of the way. 

This time we walked around the back of it, through the little wood that was still quite bluebell-y.

There's something so magical about bluebells growing in the open. They are one of my very favourite sights on Dartmoor, but Cam Peak being only 20 miles from home, these make a very acceptable alternative during these days of shoulder impingement and increased petrol prices.  

bluebells and red campion; violet; ground ivy and buttercups; ground ivy and herb Robert; bluebell; bluebells and cowslips; forget-me-nots; bluebells, red campion and whitethorn

While the jaunt to Cam Peak was on the spur-of-the-moment, the trip the following day to North Meadow in Cricklade with my friend Cathy had been longer in the making - in fact, I'd been keeping an eye on 'Fritillary Watch' for a couple of years before we got around to setting a date.

whitethorn flowers and berries

Why fritillary watch? Well, incredibly, North Meadow - which consists of traditionally managed Lammas lands - contains no less than 80% of the country's snake's head fritillaries growing in the wild.

We set off in a clockwise direction, and saw - well, a pretty paltry amount of fritillaries, to be honest. Cathy apologised for not being able to come last week when they were at their height, but although there were a few that were over, there weren't a huge number of them. It was a bit of a mystery. We walked on. 

Cuckoo Flower or Lady's Smock

A very high foot bridge over the infant Thames, suggesting how high the waters might rise in times of flood

Every now and then I knelt to take photos of individual fritillaries. Every now and then I wondered if I'd be able to get back up - but managed it.

Then, about two-thirds of the way around, just as we were reconciling ourselves to a slightly disappointing trip, we spotted ... more fritillaries. In fact, a lot more fritillaries. 

Finally, this was more like what we'd imagined. A triumphant jaunt snatched from the jaws of defeat!

Hemlock Water Dropwort in the River Churn ... 

... and a holly blue butterfly

There was just time to drop a couple of my books into the nearby Little Free Library, and we headed home, well pleased with our morning out. Bluebells are glorious, but other flowers are available.