I wondered what I was doing on this hill

In the Morning Service this morning there were four baptisms. The church was full, including the side aisles. “You have to get here early if you want a seat when there’s a baptism” said one elderly lady.



Above: In the afternoon I drove deep into the county to visit an exhibition. On the way back I stopped to buy eggs at this farm (the eggs were in the box you can see – you just took however many you wanted and left the money). Rural family pride has led the farmer to decorate the entrance with two large stone lions and an avenue of chestnut trees



Above: As the sun was setting I drove along the side of a shallow valley, and looked over a low hedge and saw this field of horses. As you can see, it was a beautiful sight. One of the horses whinnied loudly as if calling to me.



Above: Rounding a bend I saw some ruins in the distance, on top of a low hill. I parked my car and walked along a rough track until I came to a barbed-wire fence. A stile was to one side, but someone (the farmer probably) had moved the bench away and blocked the gap with more barbed wire.

I climbed over the wooden frame and jumped down into a field where the ruins were located. Lots of sheep were in the field, but seemed unbothered by my arrival (which is unusual for sheep, as normally they run off). I had to watch carefully where I walked to avoid stepping into sheep’s muck.

The ruins belonged to a small twelfth-century abbey of Premonstratension canons. The area was of great religious significance in the medieval period, and eight other monasteries were located in this valley (six on the west side of the river, three on the east side). The water in the river was supposed to be efficacious in the washing away of sins, and flower-decked boats were rowed along its course on the feast day of St John the Baptist (even into the twentieth-century marker stones in the local fields were anointed with river water on St John’s day).



Above: It became darker and colder, and without warning I experienced a sudden deep pang of depression. I wondered what I was doing on this hill, on my own in the half-dark, trying to understand old stones nobody cares about anymore. Not for the first time I asked myself what I was doing with my life.

Anyway, the moment passed, and in the light that remained I did a photographic survey of the site. Here you can see part of the refectory range. Notice the lancet windows, and on the left you can see the remains of an eighteenth-century farmhouse built in the ruins (and itself now ruined).



Above: Returning to my car, the last rays of the sun caught this sycamore tree and lit up the bunches of winged seeds so that they seemed to glow.