Figsbury Ring, the Winterbournes and Visions of Horror?
- Elaine Perkins
- 8 hours ago
- 6 min read
This is another blog from a year or so ago and takes in a walk near Salisbury that includes the Winterbournes and Figsbury Ring.
This walk can start from Castle Hill Country Park or from the Figsbury Ring car parks. We did our walk from Castle Hill on a mid-October afternoon in 2022.
At Castle Hill we turned our backs on the view of Old Sarum and headed east. We then followed the route through the park, past the school buildings and on through to the path known as Green Lane.
At Green Lane we turned left and then immediately right along a treelined track to a bridge over the River Bourne. I have walked this route many times, and I always enjoy stopping at this bridge to watch the waters flow past. The Bourne always flows at this location, and in winter it can flood. After a dry summer the walk through to the road at Ford is pleasant, with access to the river where shoals of small fish can be spotted. On the day of our walk we also noticed fairy rings of small brown mushrooms. However, we didn’t venture nearer to determine what sort of mushroom they were, as we all know what happens to those who get too close to fairy rings.
On reaching the village we turned left and crossed a road and a wonderful stone bridge over the Bourne. We took the footpath to the right just after the bridge and continued our walk towards the Winterbournes. By now the hedgerows' bounty of blackberries and hops had dwindled, but the golden afternoon sunlight captured the soon-to-be-changing leaves beautifully.
At the end of this path we turned left and then almost immediately right and joined the Monarch’s Way, the long-distance trail that follows the escape of Charles II after the Battle of Worcester. The modern path retraces that remarkable journey for more than 600 miles. Around 40 of these miles cross Wiltshire. This section of the long-distance path is so peaceful it is almost soporific. As we walked past dozing cattle and lazily took in the intermittent views of the river, we could have fallen under the spell of the heady atmosphere, but we knew we had further to go and a climb was ahead of us, so we continued on, turning right and into the village of Winterbourne Dauntsey.
Winterbourne Dauntsey derives its name from the Bourne River and the D’Auntsie family, who owned the land in the area. Later Winterbourne Dauntsey joined with Winterbourne Earls and Winterbourne Gunner. They are now collectively called 'The Winterbournes'. The curious fact is that, as far as I am aware, the river is no longer a winterbourne through the villages, as it flows all year round. The river only dries during the summer to the north from Idmiston.
As we walked, we passed wonderful thatched cottages with hens running freely around and the autumn sunshine picked out the leaves on the Virginia Creeper as they were starting to change colour.
From here we crossed the road and walked on past the church. For a long time, all of the villages had their own churches, but the former ones at Winterbourne Dauntsey and Winterbourne Earls became too dilapidated to maintain. Eventually, they were both pulled down, and the new church was built from the rubble to the design of T.H. Wyatt.
As we still had the walk to Figsbury Ring to do, we did not stop to visit the church but continued on under the railway line and started our ascent up to the earthworks. Now we were surely walking in the footsteps of those of many centuries. The views were mostly rural. To our right, the spire of the cathedral could be made out in the haze, and Old Sarum appeared closer in the view. Behind these landmarks other hills can be made out. Possibly they are the ones that hold other hill forts such as Clearbury and Chiselbury, and I was struck by the number of hill forts that remain in this area.
Soon we arrived at Figsbury Ring, and we were met by our first obstacle of the day. Cattle were guarding the entrance to the earthworks. As usual, being the only country bumpkin in the party of walkers, it was I who made the first move to go through the kissing gate and walk past the beasts. Very little happened, and as Mr P and (the not so) mini P realised that I had survived, they then decided to also run the gauntlet of the cattle. It was only on looking back that we realised that some had some vicious-looking horns.
Now we were within the heart of the earthworks, and we realised that it seemed different from others that we had visited. Maud Cunnington et al. had dated it to the Iron Age, but more recently it is thought of as being earlier, most likely dating to the Neolithic, where it was possibly a causewayed enclosure that might later have been modified into a henge monument.
The day we visited Figsbury, the place had a wild, almost untamed feel about it. However, the atmosphere was quiet, and yet I felt something subliminal and intangible, a certain sense of something that I had felt only once before. That was at Bryn Celli Ddu in Wales. When, as I was about to leave, a fierce wind came from nowhere and pushed me back towards the earthworks, it seemed as though that place had wished me to stay. It took me all of my strength to get back to the car. It was something so strange that I will never forget it.
This time I stood in the centre of Figsbury Ring, watching the other members of my family walk around the outer earthworks, feeling strangely more distant from them than the physical few metres we were apart. Could this be the same sensation that E. M. Forster felt that inspired him to write about the earthworks in The Longest Journey? Perhaps it too inspired William Golding to write The Lord of the Flies as he watched his class of boys playing there when he was on a school trip. Had he seen the horror of bully-boys and human nature then? Had Forster been inspired by the wild environment but also seen his protagonist's brutal fate? Were the boys provoked to select a natural leader and shun the outcasts? Had they all been under the same spell of the area that I had then also felt?
As at Bryn Celli Ddu, I forced myself out of the sensation that had momentarily grasped me and after taking some photos of a solitary ash tree, a solitary tree is also mentioned by E.M. Forster. I too worked my way towards the outer embankment and joined my family before we exited the monument away from the cattle and returned along the same route back to the Winterbournes.
At Winterbourne Earls, we decided to walk back across paddocks and on to the small hamlet of Hurdcott. Hurdcott is possibly so named because it was once the location of a herdsman’s cottage. It is an attractive settlement with elegant brick and flint buildings and, at one time, a pub, “The Black Horse", where in my younger days I misspent more Friday lunchtimes than I care to admit, but those days are long gone now in so many ways.
Walking past the pub, we joined a footpath, where we turned right and scouted around the edge of fields before entering a treelined lane and then a road. From here it is possible to walk along the footpath that goes along the back of the houses at Ford, but we chose to take the road past the mill and then onto the field with the fairy rings, where we retraced our steps back to Castle Hill.
On arriving home, I was pleased to find that my digital photographs of the day all appeared as they should be. However, that was not the case for my film photographs from that time at Bryn Celli Ddu, they all appeared blank as if overexposed, and yet the rest of the film was fine; every single one had been taken on automatic setting, so it made me think it had to be something other than operator error.
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