A Crooked Trail or Two

As I write today, I can’t help but reflect that it was August 13 that the Cameron Peak Fire began, and my virtual run from Land’s End to John O’Groats became a virtual row, erging away in my garage.

Although this week was a particularly destructive one fire-wise across the West, locally it marked some progress in the course of fighting our fire. Snow on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday helped to contain the fire within its boundaries (after several weeks of explosive growth) and allowed some of our neighbors under evacuation orders to return home.

It is surreal to see snow scattered around burning trees, but that’s the reality of wildfires today: they are burning SO hot that even snow isn’t enough to extinguish them. We’ve been learning more about fire as we’ve tuned in to watch the nightly updates, including how climate change has changed fire’s role in nature. Historically, wildfires were a natural part of the western ecosystem; they burned fairly frequently, and also burned themselves out fairly quickly. But scientists have pointed out that as climate change and droughts have made our soils drier (and trees more stressed out before fires arrive) today’s extra-hot wildfires are extremely destructive, not as restorative as they used to be.

Firefighting in the snow! Vehicles had to be drained of their water, then winterized so that when re-filled, the water wouldn’t freeze. Courtesy the Cameron Peak Fire Facebook page.

The fire continues to burn, despite more than a foot of snow falling on it during the week. Photo from Cameron Peak Fire Facebook page.

The High Park Fire (back in 2012) was at that time the biggest wildfire in Larimer County history, and the second-biggest in Colorado history… and the “burn scar” where the fire came through has not regenerated as ecologists might ordinarily have expected. The erosion across the burn scar has been extreme, and the Forest Service has been aggressively re-seeding native grasses and Lodgepole Pine, as the forest hasn’t been able to recover on its own. Silt that washes down the hillsides into the Cache la Poudre River increases water turbidity, creating problems for riparian wildlife, like fish and frogs.

Now, the Cameron Peak Fire has surpassed High Park in size, duration and heat, and it’s still only 4% contained… so we can expect it will have a similarly negative long-term effect.

In any case, as fires burn across the West, we feel very lucky to be safe in our own home, and having had a few days of clean air in the past week. I even made it outside on the trails for three runs!

But back to our virtual run (and row) from Land’s End to John O’Groats…

Regardless of one’s own religious tradition, we shouldn’t pass through Salisbury without a stop at the Salisbury Cathedral. The awe of standing in a building whose foundations were laid in 1220 is hard to explain. Though I’ve never been to Salisbury, I’ve visited Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris many times (it opened 25 years after Salisbury, in 1345) and I never tire of thinking about the clever medieval craftsmen who built these structures.

Salisbury Cathedral, which opened in 1320, also is home to one of the four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta.

Interestingly, this very old building is actually the “new” Salisbury Cathedral, as its predecessor was in Old Sarum, a few miles north of Salisbury (formerly known as “New Sarum”). That cathedral dates back to the time of William the Conqueror, and was officially in service until 1226.

An aerial view of Old Sarum, with the foundation of the old cathedral visible toward the right.

Old Sarum (which we’ll also run past on our way north!) has a history of habitation dating back to at least 400 BC. It’s also where William’s Domesday Survey was compiled into the Domesday Book. That volume deserves a blog all its own… and happily, the team at the Hull Domesday Project have developed just such a resource!

Additionally, if you want to take a stroll through the individual pages of the Domesday Book, you can do that at Anna Powell-Smith’s site, Open Domesday. I don’t care much about genealogy — I mean, none of us chooses from whom we’re descended! — but if someone else has done the tedious work for you, it can be fun to plug the names of people and places into Open Domesday and see what pops up.

An ancestor of my paternal great-grandmother, Sir Gualter de Somerville, apparently came to England from Normandy, ultimately dying in a place called Wychnor. And there it is, on page 7 of the Staffordshire section! Fortunately, the Hull Domesday Project team members have already deciphered the writing for today’s readers, as there is no way I would have been able to make out the writing on my own.

A bit west of us in Salisbury but worth a little detour, is a hillside above the town of Fovant, which served as a military training camp during the First World War. Fovant also hosted a military hospital, and the local cemetery also includes rows of graves of people killed in the war.

In 1916, some members of the London Rifle Brigade, seeking to honor their fallen comrades, carved out a giant likeness of their regimental badge on a hillside, then refilled the trenches with chalk dug from a nearby slope. Other regiments decided to do the same thing, and by the end of the war, about twenty regimental badges had been carved into Fovant’s hillside. These badges took quite a bit of work to produce; one estimate is that each badge took about 50 men six months to create.

One interesting note: Today, volunteer associations keep the Fovant badges clear of overgrowth, but during World War II, the badges were deliberately allowed to “green over” so that hostile aircraft wouldn’t be able to use them as landmarks.

Manuscript image from the Stonehenge blog. What a helpful giant!

Finally, we end the week just up the road from Salisbury at Stonehenge, perhaps the best known prehistoric monument in Europe. Stonehenge could be the subject of many lifetimes of study and contemplation, so anything I share about it here is going to be insufficient. The Stone Circle is a masterpiece of engineering, and building it would have taken huge effort from hundreds of well-organized people who had only simple tools and technologies at their disposal. Across the millennia, each generation has had its own theory about how Stonehenge came to be built.

I’m guessing it probably isn’t accurate, but my personal favorite theory is that the wizard Merlin erected Stonehenge with the aid of an obliging giant (depicted in this 14th-century manuscript).

The Stonehenge website has a wealth of fascinating information about this unique monument, including live webcams that allow you to “visit” at any time of the day or night. One day I hope to visit in person! Oh… and in case you’ve ever felt your life is incomplete because you lack Stonehenge-themed socks or golf towels, the thoughtful people at English Heritage have got you covered on that front, too.

Stonehenge may be administered by English Heritage, but it’s a place of importance to the entire world.

Fancy a pint?

Unlike the Naylor brothers, who pledged to “abstain from all intoxicating drink” during their 1871 walk on this route, I’m not at all opposed to popping into interesting-looking pubs along the way. Here are a few along this stretch of the journey:

The Alice Lisle in Ringwood is a historic pub with entertainment… and not just your usual trivia night or board games. With an expansive back garden, the Alice Lisle has become known for offering live theatre: specifically an entire series of “Shakespeare in the Garden.”

I love this idea, in part because while today one often experiences Shakespeare’s plays in a formal theatre setting, in his own time, audiences were a lot rowdier, interacting with the players and enjoying food and ale as the performance went on. We can’t recreate the past, but it seems the Alice Lisle is offering everyone an opportunity to at least get a taste of a less-uptight theatre experience.

The historic Haunch of Venison pub, in Salisbury

I hate the name of the Haunch of Venison pub, preferring living deer to dead ones, but I love the historic atmosphere… and it’s another addition to our “haunted pubs” list. It dates back to around 1320, when the building was used to house craftsmen working on the Salisbury Cathedral. The pub is also home to a “smoke preserved mummified hand,” believed to be from an 18th century demented whist player who lost it in a card game due cheating. (Apparently, having been stolen several times, the hand is now securely locked behind a metal grate.) For more history, check out the pub’s website and the blog of Jaunting Jen, who wrote about the Haunch after visiting in 2014.

North of Salisbury, but before we reach Stonehenge, are the three towns of Lower, Middle and Upper Woodford. And it’s in Lower Woodford that we find The Wheatsheaf, a historic, cozy pub that dates to the mid-1600s, and there are packed bookshelves all over the place! My heart flutters to think about picking a volume off the shelf, then finding a place near the fireplace to enjoy a pint with a good book.

The pub is also just two miles from the original Salisbury Cathedral, atop Old Sarum, and not far from Amesbury, which has been named the oldest continually-occupied settlement in the U.K., as archaeologists have found evidence that people have lived there since at least 8820 BC.

Sustenance for the Hungry Vegan

One of the first towns we reach this week, Fordingbridge, is in a nature reserve known as The New Forest… and fortunately, one part of this eco-approach is offering vegan options! So Aubrey’s Forest Kitchen - despite offering some meaty dishes - includes an all-vegan menu that looks very tasty indeed.

Vegan options abound at Aubrey’s Forest Kitchen

A dish on the “Vegan Feast,” at Salisbury’s Baroushka

In Salisbury, Baroushka serves food that, in its own words, “evokes the buzz of the Middle East.” It’s not a vegan restaurant, but I found it to be a good sign that some of the most glowing online reviews said things like “My favorite menu item is the Vegan Feast… and I’m not even vegan!”

The atmosphere seems modern and vibrant, and the food looks delicious.

Situated in a beautiful building on Salisbury's historic New Street, Cosy Club is part wine bar, part restaurant, and also has a large outdoor eating area. Although the restaurant is part of a chain that has outlets all over England, each restaurant feels unique, as many are in historic buildings and each seems to offer its own menu, based on individual chefs’ preferences and locally-available produce.

The vegan offerings are extensive, and the cocktails look to be crafted with creativity too.