Scratchbury and Cotley Hills

There have been some new fences and gates installed on Scratchbury and Cotley Hills, which provided the perfect excuse for Suzanne and Phoebe (our spaniel) to get out on the hill and update our route description for this walk which is part of our West Wiltshire Downs itinerary.

Suzanne set out very early in the morning and had the downs to herself. She saw roe deer, rabbits, kestrels, buzzards, skylarks, raven, cinnabar moths and, as far as flora is concerned, scabiosa, lady's bedstraw, hawksbit, toadflax, rock roses and much more.

William Cobbett, the 18th century traveller, reformer and author (Cobbett’s Rural Rides), was especially impressed when he rode through in 1826, noting “the fine trees surrounding the farm yard, which had 22 ricks in it, the turnpike road running through the arable land with great flocks on the downs on one side, and cattle 'up to their eyes in grass in the meadows' on the other. The air must be of the best in the world, and the country singularly bright and beautiful.
If called upon to name the spot which I deem the brightest and most beautiful and, of its extent, best of all, I should say the villages of North Bovant and Bishopstrow, between Heytesbury and Warminster in Wiltshire; for there is, as appertaining to rural objects, everything that I delight in. Smooth and verdant downs in hills and valleys of endless variety as to height and depth and shape; rich corn-land, unencumbered by fences; meadows in due proportion, and those watered at pleasure; and, lastly, the homesteads, and villages, sheltered in winter and shaded in summer by lofty and beautiful trees; to which may be added roads never dirty and a stream never dry.”

What a great place to live! This post has also given me the opportunity to use this wonderful aerial photograph. Copyright Adrian Warren/Dae Sasitorn www.lastrefuge.co.uk

Scratchbury Hill (Scratchbury Camp) was also much loved by the World War I poet Siegfried Sassoon.....

On Scratchbury Camp

BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON

Along the grave green downs, this idle afternoon,
Shadows of loitering silver clouds, becalmed in blue,
Bring, like unfoldment of a flower, the best of June.

Shadows outspread in spacious movement, always you
Have dappled the downs and valleys at this time of year,
While larks, ascending shrill, praised freedom as they flew.
Now, through that song, a fighter-squadron’s drone I hear
From Scratchbury Camp, whose turfed and cowslip’d rampart seems
More hill than history, ageless and oblivion-blurred.

I walk the fosse, once manned by bronze and flint-head spear;
On war’s imperious wing the shafted sun-ray gleams:
One with the warm sweet air of summer stoops the bird.

Cloud shadows, drifting slow like heedless daylight dreams,
Dwell and dissolve; uncircumstanced they pause and pass.
I watch them go. My horse, contented, crops the grass.