Black Hill, Clun

Distant hills, grey through the fine mist,

blend indistinguishably into the sky,

from where minute water droplets

land with a delicate tapping

upon windscreen and roof.

Dandelions closed, sunshine absent;

yellow broom and gorse tussling

in the gusting waves passing over hill and tree

as if with the chastising threat of a heavy hand.

Lambs bleat, wren, chiffchaff and blackbird,

delicate in the face of weather's dominion

that here, on the edge of the uplands,

more visibly asks for observance 

and submission to its omnipotent power.

The darkening mist gradually dissolves

the uplands into silhouetted forms, 

devoid of springtime colour.

Out of half opened window I gaze out

enjoying not being bound to time

nor the desires of the world.

Earlier, I looked at a hillside tree 

on the other side of the valley -

our distance separated by the thickening mist.

Between us, an old landscape, quiet and still 

belonging to the whims of nature and farming,

not degraded by the necessity of towns

or the warehouses of consumerism.

My tree is now lost to the darkness

and, in the beating rain drowning out the wind,

together we share the night and await the new day.

Black Hill, Clun

I wonder for how much longer this carpet of moss will last before the logging machines move in to remove timber and churn up the soil. I have known this particular patch of wood for possibly 10 to 15 years or more, tucked away amongst the many blocks of conifers on a high Shropshire hillside. Here, nothing but the moss can survive in the perpetual dim light that the spruces produce under their high canopy. Already, where the winds have blown down a swathe of trees at one edge - an area exposed to strong winds when another nearby area was clear felled a few years ago - grasses, ferns, spruce saplings and bilberry plants have taken advantage of the additional light and the carpet has lost its sphagnum softness. 

With an underlay of many years’ accumulations of pine needles, many different species of moss have covered the bumps and hollows that mark out the original planting lines and the stumps of where trees have previously been thinned. From this soft deep bed the last remaining trees tower up, bright pale green close to, fading to almost black in the deep, lightless inner forest. Their trunks are covered with algae like a green camouflage material covering the mottled bark with many variations of colour. In the subtle light of a cloudy afternoon they are seem to reflect so much light that their colours are quite vivid. Old cones, twigs, bark flakes and needles litter the floor beneath the dense dark green canopy about 20 metres above.

Walking along deer paths and wandering between the trees is easy; the space is quite open and spacious with several metres between each trees. Younger plantations are usually a dense impenetrable mass of branches, brambles and bracken until timber is extracted at various stages. 

For those in search of a wonderful, almost unnatural selection of greens this is a wonderful place to be.

Stone Barn

Rain encroaches along the valley. The stones from which the barn has been built turn darker as the clouds lower and the fine mist heavies itself with ever increasing raindrops. An hour ago, the steep hillsides of woodland and pasture seemed to be almost painfully quiet to those unused to rural remoteness. Now the rain drums subtly on tree, roof and road. The warmth of a sunny spring evening still seems a distant hope even at the end of March. 

The only indication that this building might hold many memories is a pre-restoration photograph on the wall and the name: The Granary.  The walls and beams, now home to central heating, a dishwasher, microwave and flat screen tv have become a holiday home. Tasteful to the modern eye but it has lost most of its agricultural identity. I must take a closer look tomorrow and see what secrets might remain to a more dedicated observer. Just what is original I wonder?

How easy it is for the memories of this place to be forgotten. Who was the farmer or farmers that have lived here, trying to make a living on these steep rock strewn hillsides? Who were their families, their way of life, customs and culture. Time erodes such things as it draws us continually to the future and memories are rarely held in the place of their formation.

Stow Hill, Shropshire

(Only two words allowed and no hyphens)

Stow Hill

Icy wind

Circling buzzard

Gentle snowflakes

Crackling bracken

Crunchy ice

Wary fox

Hilltop snow

Chatting farmers

Whispering pines

Biting blizzard

Obscuring mist

Silent woods

Delicate outlines

Conversational starlings

Hedgerow snowdrops

Hungry sheep

Laid hedges

Possible bullfinch

Dilapidated barn

Chocolate Biscuits

Warm clothes

Enhanced contrast

Waterlogged sketches

Disintegrating combine

Exhilaratingly nippy

Shelter welcome

Shropshire Hills

A snowy sketch looking from Bedstone Hill across to Stow Hill in South Shropshire. Walking down and along the valley was quite pleasant compared to the almost blizzard conditions up on the top of Stow Hill in the distance.

Hopton TItterhill

A conifer plantation: tall maturing trees, widely spaced with little to impede a walk through the towering silent softwoods. No breeze, a soft overcast light.  I can hear a buzzard (or some bird of prey), small birds, an occasional distant car and some mountain bikers whose voices echo across the hillside. I sit on a carpet of pine needles and small wood sorrel plants that cover the ground like a dusting of green snow.

I like sensing the three dimensional space that surrounds me. Although I am just sitting with my back against a tree I focus on objects around me and try and imagine what they feel like with respect to temperature, moisture, texture etc and their place in the landscape. It is as though I am imagining myself being everywhere around me and not just within.

I have written before about finding space, peace and separation from technology in places like this over the years so I am trying to find new things to write about. With quick fleeting visits to these places that isn't always easy.

Over my life I have explored many woods like this and, generally they are quite safe places as long as one takes a few precautions. Forestry tracks can suddenly stop in the middle of nowhere or deviate from maps so having a good sense of direction is important. Fortunately, in this area of the country there aren't any vicious wild animals or venomous snakes that can cause harm. The only things that really worry me are ticks. They aren't too prevalent around here as in some parts of the country but I always check myself over when I get home. I was never too worried about falling branches until I watched a tv programme about american loggers who had armour plated logging machines. So far, in 50 years, I have never had a branch fall next to from high up and I generally avoid woodland in strong winds. Oh, and it is generally a good idea to avoid wood ants and gamekeepers.

Hopton Castle

It is 7am on a Saturday morning in early September and I am parked at Hopton Castle in South Shropshire. According to the information board this is thought to have once been a high status tower house rather than an actual castle due to rather undefendable position in the bottom of a valley. It is cloudy wth a slight drizzle with mist on the hills. Pigeons coo around me. I hear the occasional tit, crow, wren, chiffchaff and cow. A stream gently murmers nearby.

I didn't enjoy the drive up yesterday afternoon as motorway congestion held me up for an hour but once I was near Tenbury Wells I was happier. The hop harvest seems well underway with tell-tale tractor tracks of the rich red soil mark roads leading from the roadside hop yards to the picking machines.

Up on black hill near Clun I stop at one of my favourite views for tea. After a glorious summer of warmth and sunshine I seem to have travelled up here to see the arrival of autumn. Here, the hills of the Welsh border stretch out westwards into mix of rain bearing cloud and mist. It is surprisingly windy up here and the car is buffeted by the gusts and my gas stove struggles to heat my beef casserole. On my way up here I didn't notice any uncombined fields. Here though, on a nearby hill about a mile away, a green combine slowly completes one final field under the threat of the looming dark clouds. Nearby the road is lined rowan trees laden with deep red berries and there is a beautiful mix of dead grasses, docks and other foliage along the roadside.

I spent the evening just listening to the wind around me in the trees where I had parked up for the night. Just for a few hours I can create a space where I can forget about time and the pressure it places on my daily life and work.

The rain arrived sometime in the middle of the night and once the dawn arrived I moved on to Hopton Castle from where I could begin my day.

Wheelbarrow, Clun

I have been struggling with this picture for several weeks. I have sat down at several lunchtimes and tried to get this going but have either been distracted by other things or just not quite known what to do with it. The scene was taken from a photo I took in the village of Clun in Shropshire a few weeks ago. In the end I just sat down and filled in a few basic lines and decided to leave it at that. I don't like leaving things unfinished and now I feel I can move on to something else.

Selfie

This is me having walked up an incredibly steep hillside from Obley up onto Black Hill recently. It was windy, cold and wet! This is one of my favourite parts of the countryside around Clun.

Disc Harrow

I found this old MF26 disc harrow just inside a gateway on a hill near Clun a couple of weeks ago. I think it had been there for a few years or so but it wasn't overgrown with brambles. I'm not sure if a small harrow like this with a width of only about 6 ft would be economical to use these days. It may well have been used within the cultivated field in which I found it or it may have just been dumped here having been used for some other purpose - such as blocking the gateway (as old heavy equipment is often used for). I liked the red paint that was still quite vibrant amidst the rusty browns and wanted to experiment with finding an interesting composition within its structure that I would enjoy painting.

Sowdley Wood, Clunton

This JCB had been working all day recently up on the hill below Clunton in south Shropshire.  When the driver had gone home I took a couple of photos of the machine and then later worked them up into this sketch. All that I am basically doing is working over a photo on the iPad which is a technique I enjoy. It does produce an almost photo realistic image even though the paintwork is quite basic. It has enabled me to more quickly develop a style of working that I can apply to other images I use in my day job where I am having to create Christmas themed illustrations from scratch.

The JCB had been tidying up the left over branches and wood left after a mecahnical tree felling machine had cleared the former conifer plantation of timber. All the loose material was being piled up into large windrows across the hillside in between which new saplings could be planted on the cleared ground. The remaining tree stumps are left in the ground to rot away naturally.

Clunton, Shropshire

Clunton, amidst the South Shropshire hills. A sunny mid-February day with about 50% cloud cover. A cold wind blows but in sheltered spots there is some warmth.

I've walked up the side of a steep hill on the north side of the Clun valley. The footpath follows the course of an old trackway through sheep pasture. The base of the track is about three or four feet below the surrounding grassland and is lined by a hedge of mature trees on one side. Erosion on this side has exposed the tree roots penetrating the rocky soil. Today it is no more than a grassy depresssion and as I climb upwards it shallows out and eventually disappears completely in the more open higher pastures. Fresh tractor tracks in the surrounding grass up here shows that this is a route used regularly by a farmer to tend his sheep this winter, but not frequent enough to wear down any significant ruts. I come to a place used as a feeding point for sheep. There is an old trailer that has been parked here for many years. It carries a modern white plastic water tank that leads via a bright blue pipe to a blue water trough. There is also a metal hay rack nearby and in a hedge corner a very old and rather flattened wheeled sheep hay rack half buried in the soil. In the hedgerow beside the trailer is a crab apple tree and on the ground many tiny green apples can be seen trampled into the earth by cloven hooves. I also found some old metal railings tangled up in a hedge. Just beyond this is a dense hedge of holly and above that, on a fairly steepish gradient is a field that had been sown with corn last year. On another of a hedge I see a very old wooden wheeled sheep hay rack. A robin sings in a hawthorn bush beside me. I disturb a flock of perhaps a hundred redwings/fieldfares and see a few other small tits and associated little cheepy things that I can't identify.

My main thought here was whether, at some stage in the past, there had been a habitation or barn near the holly trees - though in reality this may be no more than my wishful imagination. It is a south facing site and in a small dip on the hillside so it would have been quite sheltered. I found no evidence of any structure and it would have been ploughed out anyway. But with the old track, the seemingly long established feeding point, the crab apple and hollies I just wondered if there had been something here once. 

I like places like this. They seem to generate a sense of nostalgia that I like in the landscape and harks back to my farming roots not far from here. Trying to read the landscape is an interesting task and in this case I would only know if I were right by looking at some old maps or doing some local research. I have always been interested in small places that hold memories of an agricultural past. This place may be no more than just a convenient place in which to feed sheep over the years based on the field structure, access, shelter etc.

Further up the hill there is depression in a pasture, several metres square, and full of water and boggy grass.. The outlet of a spring. About a quarter of a mile away, off the footpath, is a group of three old farm buildings forming a 'C' shape and a well is marked on the map. This is probably the farmstead I was looking for. Judging by the number of mole hills around here and the fact that several more fields on the hill top have been cultivated suggests that the soil around here might be of a reasonable depth.

I wonder why the hills are cultivated more around here than the valley bottom and flood plains where I might assume the soil was of better quality? Perhaps, with the shade that the hills give over the valley pastures, the higher soils dry out and warm up bettter in the spring and are less prone to potential flood damage. The soil looks quite good up here, if a little rocky - perhaps better than the chalk flint filled shallow soils of  the more intensively farmed areas around home in Bedfordshire.

Two treecreepers, yellow hammer, heard a buzzard. Celandine, primrose, dog's mercury, snowdrops, daffodils, cyclamen, dandelion.

Ramblin' Man

I had been looking forward to my week in Shropshire for many months. I was particularly eager try and solve a creative problem that has been with me for a while: in what direction should my art and illustration work go?

To me, my creative spirit is a disturbed spirit. It finds no home and is distracted by many things. It wanders over the landscape seeking the touch of inspiration. It reaches out into the natural world to touch, sense and explore everything. Mainly it is an observational spirit, it doesn’t ask many questions but just accepts what it finds and dwells in the presence of being present in places. There is a song by Lemon Jelly called Ramblin’ Man (on Youtube) that I recently came across. It speaks to me in many ways and it isn’t often songs do that to me. It carries with it a sense of wandering, going places and never resting. There is a sense of journey, but never ending, just a continuous walk from place to place. Recently, a long walk found me up on Bury Ditches just north east of Clun. I hadn’t quite planned to walk up there but I was out for a day’s walk and it was a bright, clear day with a hint of spring in the air. As I walked around the ramparts of the hill fort on  top of the hill and overlooked the surrounding valleys and hills, I thought of this song and noted how much I just love to walk. I could walk all day. With no time limitations I could go where I wanted to and just walk and walk. This was all I wanted to do. It was the end of my holiday and this was my last full day away from the busyness of work. Up here, on a hill in my homeland, I felt at peace and at home. But also a place to which I would have to say goodbye until my next visit.

The next day I walked into the greenhouse in the walled garden at Croft Castle and did a little bit of sketching whilst sheltering from a cool breeze. In front of me was a bench with a few small watering cans and some plants growing up and around the iron framework. As I scribbled on my sketchpad I suddenly felt as though a whole wealth of ideas and possibilities suddenly merged. In front of me I had the solution to how I could work on the iPad, do paintings and a develop a new way of working that could cross digital and traditional hand illustration. Things take time to evolve with me. It is like going on a long walk or a journey. Ideas may appear but it may take ages of thinking, trying out ideas or exploring techniques before something of value emerges.

Clun

Quick sketch of ducks in the river at Clun. It was a little chilly out and I didn't t really concentrate much on this, but I had an excellent long walk in the area

Sowdley Wood, Clun.

Some sketches made around Sowdley Wood that streches along the southern side of the Clun Valley between Clun and Clunton in South Shropshire. These were sketched just above Clunton on cold hazy mornings when the colours were quite muted. The third sketch, high up in the woods on the edge of a thick conifer plantation was sketched whilst sheltering under an umbrella. The joy of using an iPad is that it can tolerate a little more dampness than a sketchbook can. At this time of year the oranges of dead leaves, bracken and that of the algae that grows on the shaded sides of tree trunks can be quite striking.

Pines in Sowdley Wood

This was a sketch made between rain showers of some pine trees in Sowdley Wood near Clun. They had been planted amongst a mixed stand of conifer and old oak woodland and stood alongside some redwoods. Both types of tree towered high above me and looked spectacular even on a dull and wet day. I have spent quite a while trying to identify this particular tree but haven't quite found anything that exactly matches what I have seen. What struck me was the gorgeous pale turquoise colour of the trunks that stood out in the dim light. I am often struck by how intense colours can be in nature even when there is very little sunlight. The bark was very smooth and with fine horizontal markings but very little cracking except at the very base of the trees. One rather interesting feature on all the trees was a diagonal stripe on the bark that curved very slightly anticlockwise by about 5 or 10 degrees, approximately 10ft long and beginning 20ft up. I wondered if this was a mark made by some protective covering of the young saplings when they were originally planted, but I don't really know. Judging by their height they must have been planted early in the last century as they looked far grander than stands of commercial conifers that are grown nearby.

After a little scrambling about on the step hillside I did find the remains of some very large fir cones and, as they don't match those of the redwoods or other nearby Douglas firs, they must come from these trees. Even after an extensive Internet search I cannot exactly match them to anything. I could be missing something fairly straightford and I am a little annoyed at not being able to name them but I do like an occasional puzzle like this.

Sunrise

(Notes from a recent visit to the Shropshire Hills)

I've awoken to a perfectly clear pale grey-blue Sky with a bright creamy horizon silhouetting the distant charcoal hills over which the sun will shortly appear. It looks like there has been a light frost. The past few days have been cloudy and hazy with few distant views to be had. Yesterday Afternoon saw a change with April-like showers and brief bursts of sunshine. Outside the wooden lodge where I ams staying a blackbird sings boldly above the continuous sound of the tumbling river. As the light improves so the definition of the landscape increases. The hills of Sowdley Wood, Purslow Wood, Radnor Wood and Clunton Hill form steep sides to the River Clun valley. The hills quite abruptly give way to the broad flat expanse of the sheep pastures that line either side of the river. Alders and willows line this meandering stretch of water that carries water down from the Welsh hills. The river is probably about two meters below field level here but the whole nature of the area; the flatness of the fields, the close proximity to hills and the fact that the lodge I am staying in is raised off the ground by a metre or so is a good indication that the whole area can be prone to severe flooding.

Looking out towards Clunbury hill a couple of miles away, it looks like the sun will rise almost directly behind the trees on its summit. The sunlight of this new day will highlight the hills around me first and then the bottom of the valley a few minutes later. I go and get my daughter out of bed and together we sit watching as the light intensifies and then the bright and increasingly dazzling sun fills the landscape with light.

.

My father loved this landscape and I too am deeply drawn to it. It has certainly felt fairly spring-like here. The temperature has been cool, but not cold. Snowdrops are everywhere in gardens and around human habitation. I've found wild honeysuckle full of small leaves in sheltered hedgerows and numerous other plants are definitely spying the initial touch of spring.

Oak

(Notes from a recent visit to the Shropshire Hills)

A dry, hazy Sunday morning in February. The distant hills are hidden in the paleness that hides the boundary between the hills and the sky. It is cool, but not too cold. I am above the village of Clunton in Shropshire, looking over the Clun valley below me and hearing a landscape that is full of birdsong. Snowdrops fill gardens and roadside and the river tumbles over stoney rapids between feelers of sheep.

In front of me is a magnificent oak tree. It stands on the northern side of the steep hill between the valley field and the start of the extensive conifer plantation that reaches high above me. It is a huge tree and surrounding it is a grass clearing that looks as if the conifers were intentionally not planted in its immediate vacinity sixty or so years ago thus allowing the tree space to breathe. A fence has been place around this clearing, approximately 15m x 30m in size, though quite why I am not sure as it now separates this patch of grass with the adjoining sheep grazed field that leads down the hill and there is no gate or access to this clearing. Perhaps it was just becoming an awkward area of grassland for the farmer to manage but I don't quite see why it has been contracted this way.

It is just a beautiful tree. It's broad central trunk branches out in almost perfect evenness to form a huge symmetrical arch. It probably stood out for me because, in the dull light, its dark form is highlighted by the pale pastel colours of the misty backdrop of fields. Branches of dull brown,grey and black are highlighted by bright green mosses. 

I am tempted to draw the the tree but I am not sure that in a small amount of time I can do it justice. There are just so many branches all radiating out in even patterns of intricacy that I will spend most of my time being visually lost in its complexity.

I am grateful that the forestry planters years ago seemed able to have a heart and not swamp this tree with conifers. It seems to have been left to reach a glorious maturity.

Hopton Titterhill Quarry

I have been to the top of this hill in Shropshire many times but haven't really walked around its lower edge. On the northern side lies an old quarry and yesterday I sat there a while to do a quick sketch. Some long-tailed tits passed by and one of them flitted around some of the seed heads of wood sage which had grown abundantly on the waste rocks. These are one of my favourite birds and they are always a pleasure to watch and listen out for as they flock together and move around the landscape chirping.

Darkness

I find myself back on Hopton Titterhill in Shropshire on a late November night. It feels uncharacteristicly warm with a soft gentle breeze and there is no need for a coat. It is dry, but misty and overcast. I have been up here on moonlit nights and seen the landscape for miles around me but tonight it feels quite different. There is a heavy silence amongst the trees apart from a slight murmur of the conifers. I have to make a phone call and I almost feel ashamed to be speaking out loud. I am so conscious of every sound I make and so speak in a soft voice almost as if I don't want anyone to hear me and yet there are no people around to listen in. I go on a short walk and almost feel deafened by my munching on a chocolate digestive biscuit. It becomes all I can hear and I horridly finish my snack so that I can be aware of the subtleties of my surroundings. I venture along a track and out into a field. I had been planning to go for a longish night walk all week but, now I am here, the darkness forms an almost impenetrable blanket and I somehow don't feel confident to safely walk very far - and I haven't got a torch. Why? Well it feels wrong to use one when there is natural light at night; it pushes the night-time experience into the shadows and also immediately announces where I am to anyone for miles around.

I stand in the field and look around me. All the trees and hedgerow vegetation are just a solid, indefinable matt black. The sky, track and field are just a subtle shade lighter. It is almost impossible to make out and define any objects right in front of me and I have to feel my way over a gate and fence. We always seem to want to push darkness out of our lives and, when it is present, fill it with uncertainty, story, fantasy and fear. My mind is full of past images from films and tv and I have to try and reassign these thoughts to the back of my mind and readjust to being in a landscape that is exactly the same as it is during the light of day but just has the absence of light. We take night and day for granted but here I just want to experience and appreciate the difference that, out here, isn't defined by man-made time-keeping and calendars but is a natural phenomena that our planet experiences.

Owls hoot and screech in the woods. I always seem to hear them here. An occasional aeroplane rumbles far above me but otherwise it does feel awfully quiet.