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Photos from walk on 9th January from Aston Tirrold

Two hills (Lollingdon and Blewburton), a railway line (Cholsey) and a poet laureate (John Masefield).


There will be mud and diversions

We started from
the five acre ASTONS RECREATION GROUND owned and managed by the parish councils. It was purchased in 1897 by public subscription in honour of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Chestnuts and limes were planted to mark its boundaries. Since then it has hosted many a village event and is extensively used.

 

A new pavilion was built in 2009, replacing one built by the village football club in 1968, which in turn had replaced an earlier (thatched) pavilion which had burnt down “in mysterious circumstances” in 1967. The current pavilion was the last of several improvements to the grounds which culminated from a recreation survey carried out at the time of the Millennium, which included a new hard surface play area and a youth shelter.

 

It is believed the adventure playground dates originally from the 1953 Coronation celebrations, but it has been added to and improved on several occasions. [source page 10]

 

On Lollingdon Hill

 

Lollingdon Farm & John Masefield (Poet Laureate 1930-1967)

In July 1914 the Masefields were at their country place, Lollingdon Farm, on the Berkshire Downs. He wrote, later, in St George and the Dragon, a lecture he gave in New York on St George’s Day 1918

 

“In the first week of July, 1914, I was in an old house in Berkshire, a house built eight centuries ago before by the monks as a place of rest and contemplation and beauty. I had never seen England so beautiful as then, and a little company of lovely friends was there. Rupert Brooke was one of them, and we read poems in that old haunt of beauty, and wandered on the Downs….”

 

The Masefields had to leave Lollingdon Farm almost immediately, as it was requisitioned for the use of the cavalry for a few weeks or months.  [source]

 

An alternative source implies it was three years before they moved:

 

It was around the time that Masefield went to France (Spring 1917) that he decided to move his family away from Lollingdon Farm, a move they deeply regretted but one that came from practical necessity. His wife Constance was finding the remoteness of Lollindgon a little lonely and the house was damp with a leaking roof which was playing havoc with their son Lewis’ health.

 

They moved to Boars Hill near Oxford where they could still see, and visit, the Berkshire Downs.   [source 2]

His poem, August 1914, is here [source 3]

 

And scroll down for more poetry…

 

Our route to Cholsey took us down the “Lollingdon track, [which] was originally the main route to Cholsey – being the first dry stretch after the boggy fields to its north. In the 18th century a toll was introduced to fund the higher and drier route – the present A417 – leaving the old track to become less used and the houses along it more isolated. ” [source]

 

The tunnel under the GWR line at Cholsey

 

Early signs of spring: Sticky bud

 

Lone snowdrop outside Aston Tuirrold Church (St Michael and All Angels)

 

The walnut tree at Blewburton Hill, with moon and runner

 

Boot wash (Spring Lane)



There was a request for “poetry”, so I’ve found the volume of poems called Lollingdon Downs, by John Masefield, and so far I see little mention of the downs or the countryside.  The best perhaps is section XXI

 

Up on the downs the red-eyed kestrels hover,
Eyeing the grass.
The field-mouse flits like a shadow into cover
As their shadows pass.

 

Men are burning the gorse on the down’s shoulder;
A drift of smoke
Glitters with fire and hangs, and the skies smoulder,
And the lungs choke.

 

Once the tribe did thus on the downs, on these downs, burning
Men in the frame,
Crying to the gods of the downs till their brains were turning
And the gods came.

 

And to-day on the downs, in the wind, the hawks, the grasses,
In blood and air,
Something passes me and cries as it passes,
On the chalk downland bare.

 

I wonder if this is a reference to the Battle of Ashdown

 

If you want more, the more famous poem from the collection is number VIII

 

THE Kings go by with jewled crowns;
Their horses gleam, their banners shake, their spears are many.
The sack of many-peopled towns
Is all their dream:

 

read the rest

 

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