Wednesday 27 November 2013

Wychbury Hill

So today I went on another jaunt to an ancient site, but for some reason my mind thought that it was closer to my house than it was, just because I can see it from my back window doesn't mean it isn't 2 miles away. The journey was quite interesting as I saw White bryony berries, dog rose hips & crab apples which give you the full on autumnal feel. Not remembering where the footpath started from I thought it was locked so went to find another path in. I did but it was awful boggy  & the entrance to the woods was a little on the steep side as it was a defensive ditch designed to keep livestock out of the wood, but it was on a desire line so I thought that it was where people usually enter if coming from that direction, on entering the wooded part was greeted by the signs that a fallow deer had recently been shedding the velvet off his antlers on a tree which was great start for my actual walk around the hill & woods. It seemed almost churlish not to visit the Wychbury Obelisk or Wychbury Monument as it is more often referred to locally. Even after the renovation of it in 2011 they have not removed the Who put Bella in the wych elm graffiti on it referring to the body found in Hagley Woods nearby in the 1940's. I saw a skylark there as well as a couple of fieldfares. I then went back into the woods up to Wychbury Ring, the main reason for my journey. It is an impressive  feet of prehistoric engineering, it is the first hillfort I have ever been too. I took the lower path from the obelisk around the hillfort just to get the scale of it. It is not the biggest hillfort in the world but it is still amazing, especially seeing the amount of yew trees growing in the area. Taking the path which was steeper than I would normally consider safe to get my clumsy backside down I carried on, surprisingly without falling over. I carried on out of the woods to the man made mound in one of the fields, you can't get to the mound without trespassing onto farmland to decided not to risk a visit. I'm not sure what the mound is but owing to it's asymmetry it is not an 18th Century lawn sculpture, it has been suggested that it maybe a spoil heap from an underground reservoir which is highly plausible as no archaeological remains were found in it. I went back into the woods where I saw in one of the slightly more immature yew trees a goldcrest, it  was a gnat's breath away from me which was quite an exciting moment for me, further along the path I disturbed a female roe deer, I was well & truly in my nature geek element. I decided to climb the hillfort from that end which meant  being a little bit on the flexible side as for me not to injure myself had to find the easiest part of the fallen tree to climb over. It was well worth it & I walked across the top until arriving back at the monument entrance, this time though having seen the relevant stiles knew vaguely where I was going though the desire lines from the stile are not conducive to the actual foot path which I realised when it looked like it was going into a recently planted/naturally seeded blackthorn thicket I cut diagonally across from where I was to the stiles as the other end of the field accompanied by the sound of stonechats & headed home where I had a rabbit dart out in front of me. The place does have a special feel to it though & I will most definitely go back in the spring.

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