Ridgeways and Richard Jefferies

Ridgeways – those magnificent and ancient tracks that often run for miles across our countryside. I shall be writing about them soon, though no one has ever done that as magnificently as the Victorian country character Richard Jefferies. I do urge you to seek out his writings. You can find out more at http://www.richardjefferiessociety.co.uk

You can watch an online film about his countryside on the society site. Now here are the words of Richard Jefferies from his book Wild Life in a Southern County.

A broad green track runs for many a long, long mile across the downs, now following the ridges, now winding past at the foot of a grassy slope, then stretching away through cornfield and fallow. It is distinct from the wagon-tracks which cross it here and there, for these are local only, and, if traced up, land the wayfarer presently in a maze of fields, or end abruptly in the rickyard of a lone farmhouse.

Richard Jefferies

It is distinct from the hard roads of modern construction which also at wide intervals cross its course, dusty and glaringly white in the sunshine. It is not a farm track—you may walk for twenty miles along it over the hills; neither is it the king’s highway. For seven long miles in one direction there is not so much as a wayside tavern; then the traveller finds a little cottage, with a bench under a shady sycamore and a trough for a thirsty horse, situate where three such modern roads (also lonely enough) cross the old green track.

Far apart, and far away from its course, hidden among their ricks and trees a few farmsteads stand, and near them perhaps a shepherd’s cottage: otherwise it is an utter solitude, a vast desert of hill and plain; silent, too, save for the tinkle of a sheep-bell, or, in the autumn, the moaning hum of a distant thrashing-machine rising and falling on the wind.

The origin of the track goes back into the dimmest antiquity; there is evidence that it was a military road when the fierce Dane carried fire and slaughter inland, leaving his “ nailed bark “ in the creeks of the rivers, and before that when the Saxons pushed up from the sea. The eagles of old Rome, perhaps, were borne along it, and yet earlier the chariots of the Britons may have used it—traces of all have been found; so that for fifteen centuries this track of the primitive peoples has maintained its existence through the strange changes of the times, till now in the season the cumbrous steam-ploughing engines jolt and strain and pant over the uneven turf.

To-day, entering the ancient way, eight miles or so from the great earthwork, hitherto the central post of observation, I turn my face once more towards its distant rampart, just visible, showing over the hills a line drawn against the sky. Here, whence I start, is another such a camp, with mound and fosse; beyond the one I have more closely described some four miles is still a third, all connected by the same green track running along the ridges of the downs and entirely independent of the roads of modern days. They form a chain of forts on the edge of the downland overlooking the vale.

At starting the track is but just distinguishable from the general sward of the hill: the ruts are overgrown with grass—but the tough “ tussocky “ kind, in which the hares hide, avoids the path, and by its edge marks the way. Soon the ground sinks, and then the cornfields approach, extending on either hand— barley, already bending under the weight of the awn, swaying with every gentle breath of air, stronger oats and wheat, broad squares of swede and turnip and dark-green mangold.

Plough and harrow press hard on the ancient track, and yet dare not encroach upon it. With varying width, from twenty to fifty yards, it runs like a green riband through the sea of corn—a width that allows a flock of sheep to travel easily side by side, spread abroad, and snatch a bite as they pass.

Dry, shallow trenches full of weeds, and low, narrow mounds, green also, divide it from the arable land; and on these now and then grow storm-stunted hawthorn bushes, gnarled and aged. On the banks the wild thyme grows in great bunches, emitting an exquisite fragrance—luxurious cushions these to rest upon beneath the shade of the hawthorn, listening to the gentle rustle of the wheat as the wind rushes over it. Away yonder the shadows of the clouds come over the ridge, and glide with seeming sudden increase of speed down-hill, then along the surface of the corn, darkening it as they pass, with a bright band of light following swiftly behind. It is gone, and the beech copse away there is blackened for a moment as the shadow leaps it