Wondering and pondering – Croft Ambrey Hillfort

The first problem with this walk is avoiding the coffee shop and its delicious cakes at the first bend in the road.

            I’m at Croft Castle (National Trust), heading for Croft Ambrey Hillfort. I’ve left Bella, my dog, at home. There is a shoot going on in the near distance and she made it quite clear that she would be happier staying put with her other attendant.

            The day is delightful and, after a long and happy week spent toiling over the drawing board, I’m ready to stretch my legs in the early autumn sunshine.

            There are cheerful people all about. Folk have come down from the cities north of here. I’m so glad that the weather has turned out nice for them. Herefordshire is at its best when the sun is bright and the leaves are on the turn. I hope that they all have a marvellous time exploring.

            A gentle but enduring climb greets anyone intent on visiting the hillfort. The path will take you past gnarled and ancient oaks and through patches of native trees and other, intentionally planted woodland. The managed trees have a regularity of planting which I find distracting and peculiar. Here, like so many other places, the intentionally planted pines are being cut down and the woodlands are being restocked with locally appropriate species. When the oaks grow tall and strong this place will look very different.

I stop at the big gate at the end of the first section of uphill. There horse chestnut trees have dropped a bounty of bright fruit. I pocket a couple. When I was younger these conkers would have been snapped up by children searching to find the perfect 7-ener or 8-er. I stop to draw a conker, still half encased. It gleams and I smile at its perfect gloss.

The big gate is heavy and the well-worn top bar feels warm as I push through. I’m in woodland proper now. I pass a tree that had the perfect hole at the base to have been Badger’s house from Wind in the Willows. In my imagination, I walk for a few yards with Kenneth Graham. My impression of him is a man with a majestic moustache, smoking a pipe and muttering about what a good fellow Mole is.

I cross the forestry road and into a section of twisted trees and boggy ground. It doesn’t feel like the sun shines its face on this hollow and I pick up speed a bit. Through a big puddle and jumping over an impressive cow pat I come to the gate to the hillfort.

            My light research suggests that the hillfort was occupied from 1050-ish BCE, or there abouts. In broad terms, people have been wandering the path that I’ve just walked for three thousand years, give or take. There are lots of theories about the hillforts, many of which suggest that they were only called hillforts as the people who first started studying them were ex-military types and the big walls and imagined or conjectured palisades fit the mental picture of a fort on a hill.

The path cuts back on itself twice, past an oak which has split in two, and then you are out into the open space and can see the views. You can see the Clee Hill hillfort, British Camp in Malvern, Creden Hill hillfort and other ancient residences from up here. I wonder what the picture would have been at night. These hills would have been lit with firelight. A warm glow on the horizon of others under the stars. It must have been a thing to behold.

            I plod around the enclosure. What stories must have been told here? In the true dark of the past when our ancestors felt that they needed to be up on the hill, behind high walls and guards. What was told over the firepits? I fancy tales of wolves and bears, of things half seen in the woods and nightmares inspired by grandmothers saying “don’t go out in the dark alone or the thing will get you.” I shiver in the sunshine.

            Walking to the edge of the hill I can see some grand buildings. Homes left alone and kept in family hands for generations. There are several stately halls that would be perfect for a Jeeves and Wooster romp. Was it Pidgey Wigeon that lived in Herefordshire? I forget.

            I sit on a fallen branch and sketch for a bit. The peace is broken by some children capturing the hill. I smile at them as they charge past. Their grown up tips his cap at me. He looks happy and goes back to telling the children a story about this place. I reflect on the fact that the car park had been absolutely full of people and yet I’ve only seen five others up here. I hope that more will make the trip up the hill.

            I turn to go. I pause on the spot where my dog Ro and I spent a delightful afternoon painting up here. I’d dragged my easel up. He lay in the soft grass and napped. I miss that dog so much.