Barrows, Shucks and Bravery

After a week of (not so) hard labour, Little dog has been given time off for good behaviour. She is now out on parole, so we decided to revisit Wilmington and the Long Man. I had seen several references to long barrows and tumuli marked on the map in the vicinity of the giant which I wanted to take a look at. Little dog just wanted to run around and enjoy herself after her recently self imposed incarceration.

A long barrow is a bronze age burial mound usually for a chieftain or somebody of high status and a tumuli is a smaller grave. The most prominent barrow is on the top of Windover Hill above the head of the Long Man, it is approximately twenty metres long and is surrounded by a ditch. According to local folklore this barrow is the giants actual grave, he was killed after having a fight with another giant who lived on Firle Beacon a few miles away. The chalk figure outline was made as a memorial to him  apparently. Just below the barrow are several other smaller mounds and round trenches these are the spoil heaps and remains of neolithic flint mining.

Long Barrow on Windover Hill above the Long Man

Another view of the Long Man at Wilmington


Little dog did not take much interest in these bronze age remains, she had discovered a rabbit hole which was much more exciting. It appeared to go down vertically into the ground and reminded me of the rabbit hole that Alice went down on her visit to Wonderland. Judging from the size of the entrance it must have housed some very large rabbits.

Is this the den of a Shuck or of giant rabbits

Or could this have been the den of a 'Shuck' which according to legend is a large black ghostly dog that is supposed to haunt Windover Hill. Apparently shucks are shaggy phantom dogs about the size of a calf and they are associated with ancient trackways and ley lines. There just so happens to be an ancient trackway running across the hill and a ley line running from the barrow, through the Long Man to the church in Wilmington. Some shucks are supposed to be a portent of impending doom and others apparently guard the sites of hidden treasure. Little dog was doing her best to impersonate a shuck by rolling in something horrible giving her the appearance and smell of a demonic hound.

Ancient trackway looking towards Firle Beacon


We left Windover hill by means of an ancient trackway and as we turned a corner, there coming towards us was a shuck. Actually there were about thirty shucks, they were large black and shaggy about the size of a calf (some were the size of a cow). "Bollocks" I thought "I bet we're standing on a ley line as well". The thing about these shucks was that they didn't appear to be particularly canine in appearance, they were more bovine. Whatever, they certainly  appeared to be the portent of our impending doom.

A herd of black shaggy shucks, the portent of our doom (possibly)


We were on a section of track that dropped off like a cliff face on one side and had a steep bank on the other. Little dog bravely hid behind my legs as this gang of marauding cattle decided that they had right of way and were going to partake of that right no matter what. Something had to be done and fast; suddenly like those faithful canine companions of film and television, Lassie, Rin Tin Tin and Snowy, Little dog launched herself in front of this seething mass of bovine muscle (or rather she didn't, I launched her with a size nine up her backside).

A faithful canine companion, doing her stuff


Then a very strange and unexpected thing happened, the cows stopped as one and started to look a little worried. "We didn't expect him to throw a dog at us, that's not playing fair". Two of the braver cows were pushed to the front by their compatriots and held a brief parlais with Little dog. After a short 'Mexican standoff' the cows 'bottled it' and as if by a miracle the herd parted to let us pass. "That showed them eh! Little dog, double rations for you tonight".

Tea and Medals with The Queen for a Brave 'Little dog'


Note: This is the last post for about ten days as Mrs C and I are off to sunny Spain and Little dog is going to Grandma's for a bit of Rest and Recuperation after her recent adventures. She will be spoilt rotten, spending most of her day lying on the sofa being fed biscuits and grapes.

Crime Doesn't Pay (Apparently)

Little dog has been feeling very sorry for herself for the past few days. It may be because I took her to the Vets for her annual check up last week. Our Vet is a very nice man and Little dog being a complete tart started flirting outrageously with him. I think that he was flattered because he said that she was in very good condition for her age. Every thing was going well until he opened her mouth to check her teeth, then he recoiled in horror as he was struck by her very bad halitosis. She could obviously see the look of shock on his face and was deeply upset. No longer was she the belle of the ball, she was now the mad bag lady. To be fair to him he did say that it's not too bad (although he was holding her at arms length) and we've now sorted the problem out with some medication.

Little dog and me in happier times, before she embarked on her life of crime.

The other possible cause of her lethargy and the most likely, is that she has become a member of the criminal classes. On the evening of Friday last, she committed a burglary contrary to Sec 9 of the Theft Act 1968. That is she entered a building or part of a building as a trespasser and stole something. I'm probably stretching the law a little by accusing her of burglary as the part of our house that she trespassed in was our refrigerator, which strictly speaking isn't part of a building, it's a fridge. But she was definitely a trespasser therein, as we have strictly forbidden her entry to it. At the very least she is guilty of theft as she did take property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving them of it. In mitigation the door was left slightly ajar by Mrs C.

Her crime came to light shortly after it was committed when she walked into the living room coughing up something bright red. "Do something" cried Mrs C "She's coughing up blood"! I rushed to Little dog's aid and realised very quickly that the snotty crimson mess coming out of her mouth was actually the remains of a tomato. All that training at Hendon Police College paid off as I followed the trail of evidence back to the scene of the theft. They say that a criminal always returns to the scene of their crime, that was certainly true in this case, Little dog followed me to the fridge to see what else there was worth stealing.

Contemplating the consequences of her criminal behaviour.

I would like to think that Little dog was suffering pangs of guilt and a little touch of remorse for her actions. However I suspect that the most likely reason for her feeling upset is that the stolen item which she consumed at the time (trying to dispose of the evidence) was a smoked mackerel fillet. Not any mackerel fillet though, this one was covered in Peri-Peri spices. There were some rather loud and strange rumbling sounds coming from her stomach the following morning and she wasn't her usual bouncy self. This Springer had definitely lost her spring.

Having served her time in the House of Correction and done her porridge, Little dog has now been fully re-integrated back into polite society and is looking forward to her next adventure.

My Camino de Santiago (Puente, Picnic & Pink Socks)

The town of Puente La Reina is named after the bridge constructed in honour of its benefactor Queen Dona Mayor wife of King Sancho III (whoever he was). She commanded that it should be built to provide a safe crossing of the Rio Arga for the increasing number of peregrinos from both the Camino Frances and Camino Aragones which meet at this point on the route. The bridge is Romanesque in style with six supporting arches spanning the river which has swollen in size to a wide powerful torrent since we joined it near Zubiri.

On the morning that I crossed the bridge, the river was certainly wide but not exactly a powerful torrent, in fact it's surface was as flat calm as a mill pond (They obviously use a bit of poetic licence in the travel brochures).

I was walking in company with numerous pilgrims from all corners of the world the majority being Americans followed in descending numbers by Germans, Koreans, Australians, Spanish, Irish and one lone 'Billy no mates' from England, namely me. I did meet some other Britons along the way but we were definitely in the minority. Our idea of Spanish culture is to get pissed out of our brains in Malaga on cheap lager and throw up everywhere (apparently).

After approaching another peregrino and exchanging names the next question would usually be

"Which part of the United States are you from"?
"Florida, which part of Australia do you come from"?
"London"
"Is that just south of Sydney"?
"No, it's just north of Surrey"
"I didn't know that there is a Surrey in Australia"?
"There isn't, I'm from England"
"Why are you speaking with an Australian accent"?
"I'm not, I'm speaking with a London accent".

This is how I discovered that I was bi-lingual. I lost count of the number of Americans who thought that I was Australian. It got even worse though when some of the Australians thought that I was a fellow country man of theirs. A thought crossed my mind that if it carries on like this, I'll have to wear a string vest and a hat with corks around the brim. Later a couple of Australians that I met in Galicia decided to christen me 'Bruce' and make me an honourary citizen of Oz, I think that they were impressed with my beer drinking skills.

A few miles along the trail we stopped for a lovely picnic breakfast made from the remains of last nights meal by two of my new found friends. It was another glorious spring day without a cloud in the sky. The birds were singing, the bees were buzzing and all the flowers were in bloom (Now look what's happened I've turned into Mary Poppins).

As the morning wore on it got hotter and hotter and my left hand was suffering from the sun burn that I picked up yesterday. Luckily for me I was walking with a very resourceful young Woman from Colorado who made me a pair of sock gloves, an invention of hers that she had perfected in the highlands of Scotland a couple of weeks earlier. Another lady pilgrim donated a pair of old pink coloured socks which were turned into a gloves by cutting off the toe areas and making a slit along the natural curve of the heel sections. They worked really well in preventing my left hand becoming more sunburned, and matched my wife's pink coloured camera that I was carrying. I was definitely getting in touch with my feminine side out here on the camino.

I stopped for lunch in the shade of an under pass beneath the main road where I brewed up a cup of good old English tea on my super light camp stove, Titanium cup combination. It wasn't real tea unfortunately, but  it was the next best thing, instant tea powder from an old army ration pack. It tasted great and was a change from cafe con leche which I was beginning to get fed up with. Everybody who passed by found it highly amusing that I was brewing up along side of the trail. Just another eccentric Englishman, mad dogs and all that. On the wall of the underpass amongst all the usual graffiti  somebody had drawn an amusing cartoon of a typical peregrino which was so apt.

The rest of the afternoon was a long dusty slog under the heat of the unremitting sun but I was in good company. We eventually reached Estella our destination for the evening and booked into the municipal albergue. An hour later after a warm shower and a couple of cool beers I felt  almost human again. 'Buen Camino' as they say in these parts.

Not Forgotten - George Arthur Lumby

On this day ninety seven years ago my Great Uncle George died, not peacefully in his sleep as an old man with his family around him. No, he died a sudden and violent death at the age of twenty five in the mud and blood of France. There is not even a grave for his wife and family to visit and pay their respects. He is one of the many thousands of men whose remains simply disappeared into the earth, blown apart by two further years of shelling and mechanised warfare on an industrial scale. Until ten years ago I was totally unaware that I even had a Great Uncle George as nobody in my mothers family had ever spoken about him; he died several years before she was born.

The Lumby family. George is standing in the middle. My Grandmother Helena is on his left.


I have been interested in military history since I was a boy but never bothered about WW1. Like most people I thought that it was just four years of stalemate with two opposing armies shelling the life out of each other. This all changed in 2002 when I visited the Western Front with some work colleagues, for a laugh and a weekend of drinking beer. We went to several cemeteries, where we saw row upon row of identical graves, just like soldiers lined up on parade. I don't know how it happened, but reading their epitaphs, many just saying 'A soldier of the Great War, Known unto God' simply blew me away. After coming home I set about finding out as much as I could about these men who died such tragic deaths far from home and their loved ones.

War Graves at Serre Road Cemetery on the Somme


The scale of the casualties was so great that I thought virtually every family in Britain and the Commonwealth probably have an ancestor who died during this terrible conflict. This inspired me to look into my own family's history. I decided to look down my mothers line because her mother had the unusual maiden name of Lumby, easier to find a match than Smith or Jones etc. I wrote to my elderly Aunt Gladys for information about her mothers family which she very kindly sent to me along with a family photograph taken just before the war.

My Aunt Gladys sitting on her Mothers knee. My Grandfather was also in the West Yorks Regt.


While waiting for this information to arrive from my aunt I did some research on the surname via the Commonwealth War Graves Commission web site. Here I discovered  a George Arthur Lumby of the West Yorkshire Regiment who died on 17/08/1916 and is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial to the missing on the Somme. I am a very sceptical person, that's what 25 years of being a Police Officer does for you, but some how I knew that I was related to this man. Was this his spirit calling down through the years, or was it something from my subconscious mind that I had heard when I was very young, who knows! A few days later I received a letter from my aunt with the necessary information, confirming what I already instinctively knew to be true.

Thiepval Memorial to the missing on the Somme


Armed with this information I visited the National Archive at Kew to find out all about George and how he lived and died. Unfortunately sixty percent of  individual soldiers service records, including that of George, were destroyed during WW2 when the Public Record Office was bombed in the blitz. This led to several months of investigation using Regimental and Brigade war diaries and other sources until I eventually discovered the tragic circumstances surrounding his death (I will post about this at a later date).

George's name inscribed on the Thiepval Memorial to the missing


I have been to the Somme several times since then and on each occasion I made a point of visiting the Thiepval Memorial where I left a small cross and poppy in remembrance of George and his comrades who died attacking 'Lonely Trench' on the night of the 17th August 1916. He was married to Elizabeth Ann Kyle but I don't know if they had any children and As far as I am aware I am the first and only person to make this pilgrimage. 'So he is not forgotten'.

A Cross for George from his Great Nephew

My Camino de Santiago (Onward and Upwards)

Another early start. First stop was at a bar about fifty metres from the albergue for the usual coffee and croissant to wake me up. Now fully awake and refreshed, I followed a long crocodile of peregrinos out of Pamplona through a well manicured linear park; coming towards us was an equally long crocodile of joggers. The horizon ahead of us was filled by a long flat hill with a thick white cloud sitting across its summit like a table cloth. Oh Joy! we would be climbing this in a few hours time, and it was already beginning to get very warm.

We had a very pleasant stroll along a gently ascending path towards the foot of the long ridge, it's summit decorated with a row of wind turbines. On the way I stopped for a short rest next to a wayside shrine dedicated to a Belgian peregrino who had died after suffering a heart attack a few years earlier. This was just one of many others that I would pass along the camino over the following weeks. As a sign of remembrance I deposited a small stone on the shrine. This is a practice that I first discovered whilst visiting war graves on the Western Front a few years ago (apparently it is a Jewish tradition). I think that it is a wonderfully poignant way of showing other visitors that this person is not forgotten.

The sun was beating down upon us as we struggled with our heavy rucksacks to the top of what had now become a very steep hill. On 'The Way of St James', they talk about Camino Angels, who appear when you are at your lowest ebb and provide you with help or the thing that you need most. On the summit of the Alto Del Perdon, the name of this hill, I found my first Camino Angel in the form of a local man who was selling ice cold beers. Suitably refreshed I took my turn posing in front of a large sculpture of medieval peregrinos and their animals leaning into the westerly wind. It is called "Where the path of the wind crosses the stars" and is one of the iconic landmarks along the Camino Frances.

From the narrow summit of the Alto Del Perdon, I could see my destination for the evening, the small town of Puente La Reina; several miles in the distance, across a patchwork of fields. After walking for a few miles I left the designated route to visit the church at Eunate set amongst fields of oilseed rape. This detour turned out to be further than I had anticipated but was well worth the extra effort getting there. Unfortunately though with the sun still blazing down out of a cloudless sky I ended up suffering from sunburn on my left arm.

When I reached the church which was built in the 12th century by the Knight Templars, it was closed. However there were several Australian pilgrims sitting outside who assured me that it was due to open in about thirty minutes. One hour later a car pulled up and the church warden got out and quietly unlocked the door. The church is horizontal in shape with a free standing porch surrounding it. Inside it was very peaceful and pleasantly cool; decorated with a small altar upon which stood a statue of the Madonna and child. While I sat quietly admiring the simplicity of the church, around me several people were kneeling in prayer or taking photographs.

Gradually we left the church and got our credencials stamped by the warden who warned us about leaving our rucksacks unattended, as there have been a lot of thefts since the recession hit Spain. We then walked together for the last few miles along the main road to the municipal albergue in Puente La Reina (The Queens Bridge). Opposite the albergue stands an old stone church with several storks nesting on the roof of its tower. That evening several of us got together and enjoyed a communal meal that we prepared ourselves, washed down with the local red wine. It can be extremely tough on the camino. Never mind tomorrow is another day!

The Long Man

We've been out and about in the Ashdown Forest rather a lot recently, so today I decided that Little dog needed a change of scenery for her daily perambulation. There is a range of hills a few miles to the south of my home called the South Downs (a strange name as they are all ups). They start near Winchester in Hampshire (King Alfred the Greats Capitol city of Wessex) and run eastwards for approximately 100 miles to Eastbourne where they drop abruptly into the English Channel at Beachy Head.

Wheat fields following the escarpment of the South Downs in East Sussex


We, or rather I, (Little dog doesn't get a vote) decided to pay these magnificent hills a visit as we haven't been there since the beginning of the year when it was cold and frosty. Today is a beautiful sunny day with large cumulus clouds filling the sky, so I thought that this would be a good time to pay our respects to 'The Long Man' and hopefully take some half decent photographs. After a very pleasant drive through the country lanes of East Sussex we arrived at our destination, where all hell breaks loose as Little dog desperately attempts to get out of the car and begin her walk.

The Long Man is a 70 metre tall figure cut into the chalk escarpment with both arms outstretched and holding a long stave in each hand. He is situated on the north side of Windover hill overlooking the peaceful little village of Wilmington with it's Norman church and old Benedictine priory. There is a lot of conjecture as to who carved the figure. Originally it was thought to be from the bronze age as there is a Long Barrow nearby and a few miles away on Mount Caburn stands an ancient hill fort. Another theory is that the benedictine monks may have carved it, but this is thought unlikely as the figure is naked.

The Long Man Summer and Winter


The earliest written record of this figure goes back to 1710 when it was known locally as the Green man because the outline was just an indentation in the turf of the hillside. It was renovated by the Sussex Archaeological Survey in 1874 making the figure more visible by covering the outline with yellow bricks, these were later replaced by white concrete blocks in 1969. It is thought that during the renovation work the direction of the feet were changed, because an earlier record states that they both pointed outwards giving the appearance that the giant was walking down the hill. This was later confirmed by geo-physical survey.

Wilmington viewed from Windover Hill

Across the wheat fields towards Firle Beacon

Little dog and I spent a good couple of hours walking and taking photographs around the Long Man and she was very well behaved throughout, probably because I was standing on her throat whilst attempting to take my photographs (only joking no animals were harmed in the making of this blog).
Before heading for home we enjoyed a nice cup of tea and a fight over some hob-nob biscuits together. If anybody is out and about in East Sussex, the Long man is thoroughly worth a visit and if that doesn't inspire you then there are some really quaint Pubs in the local villages all along the foot of the Downs which sell excellent ales and food (that's my bit of free advertising for the East Sussex Tourist Board and Licensed Victuallers Association).

My Camino de Santiago (Hemmingway Country)

At 6:00 a.m. sharp we were all awoken by the sound of music playing, not from the film with Julie Andrews (there were no Nuns in this albergue) and the lights coming on. I had a quick wash and packed away my kit then set off to look for breakfast. After about four kilometres of walking alongside a small country lane I found it in the small village of Burguete. Although it was still early on a Sunday morning the only bar was open and doing a brisk trade selling cafe con leche and croissants to the hungry peregrinos. Ernest Hemmingway used to stay in a small hotel in Burguete where apparently there is still a piano bearing his signature and the date 25/07/1923.

It was a beautiful cold and sunny spring day, the hawthorn and cowslips were both in flower and the birds were singing. A great day to be alive! The traditional Basque houses were alpine in style and wouldn't have looked amiss in the mountains of Switzerland or Austria. There was a dog chained up  in every yard who barked as we passed by; and the fields were full of short stocky horses each sporting a cow bell around it's neck. I think that they are bred for food.

I walked in company with peregrinos from all around the world, however the majority appeared to be from the United States. Even though it was only day two everybody was chatting and making new friends. The main question being, why are you walking the camino? Everybody had their own reasons for being there but the main ones were religious, cultural or just looking for an adventure.
Some of my fellow pilgrims were starting to suffer from blisters and knee injuries, the result of carrying rucksacks that were far too large and wearing new or ill fitting footwear.

That night was spent in a small private albergue in the village of Zubiri and the next day I carried on to Pamplona. Our journey started by crossing the Puente de la Rabia, where legend has it that if an animal is walked around the central arch three times it would be cured of rabies. The route then followed alongside the tranquil little rio Arga until we reached the outskirts of Pamplona. Direction finding is very easy along the Camino Frances as the entire route is way marked with painted yellow arrows, so there is no need to carry loads of maps. As I entered Pamplona I noticed that one enterprising bar owner had painted a series of yellow arrows on the pavement leading into his bar.

Pamplona is a magnificent city, capitol of the Basque country with many splendid cafes and bars in the medieval streets. It is  famous for the running of the bulls at the fiesta of San Fermin in July each year. Some legends say that San Fermin himself was martyred by being dragged through the streets by bulls. The albergue here has been recently refurbished and is similar to the one in Roncesvalles with all mod cons. It is situated just around the corner from the Cathedral and Museum which had two very strange statues of giant babies heads in its front yard. That evening I shared a fantastic meal in a local bar for twelve euros each, complete with a free bottle of wine (they forgot to charge us for it).

Via Romanae & Milliarium

If you have seen previous extracts from this blog you will probably have worked out that I have this thing about maps. I love them and can quite happily sit down and read one as other people will read a good book. We are very lucky in the United Kingdom as we have some of the best maps in the world because they contain so much information. Looking at the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 scale Explorer Map of the Ashdown Forest you can clearly see many sites of Antiquity including the course of an old Roman Road (Via Romanae).

This is the remains of a road that linked Lewes with London and starts at the bottom of the map near Buckham Hill to the west of Uckfield. It carries on north past Maresfield up onto the Ashdown Forest following the ridge line until eventually leaving the map near Holteye to the north west of Hartfield. The road then continues up through Edenbridge, Titsey hill and West Wickham (half a mile from my old house) and on into London.

These roads or streets were constructed to follow a straight line as far as possible, only deviating when necessary to avoid serious obstructions in the landscape. Many modern roads have been built on top of these Roman ones. A short section of this road is visible opposite Crows Nest camp, alongside the B2026 and conveniently placed in Roman road car park (so that's why it's called Roman road Car park then; and why did they build Windsor Castle so close to the airport). Although it is covered in heather you can clearly see the raised road surface or Agger with a ditch on either side.

At every mile along these roads the Romans placed a milestone (Milliarium) which was normally a stone pillar standing about 6 feet tall showing the distance between two major towns. On the Continent the milestones showed the distance from Rome itself and in the centre of Rome was the Milliarum Aureum or Golden milestone. The Roman mile was 1000 double paces approximately 1720 yards, a bit shorter than an English mile at 1760 yards.

A short way north of  Roman road car park alongside the B2026 can be seen a milepost from a later date. This milepost shows the distance from London's Eleanor cross which stands outside the front of Charing Cross railway station in central London, close to Trafalgar Square.

Apparently in days gone by there was a Decree that the King could not travel more than fifty miles from london without a Minister. This annoyed the Georgian Royalty particularly the Prince Regent (renowned for his philandering at the Dome) to such an extent that although Brighton is fifty four miles from London all the milestones showed that it was less than fifty.

Stage coach companies used these mileposts to work out their fares; and when the first postal service was formed these distances were used to calculate how much postage needed to be paid for the delivery of mail to a particular address. Even up to a few years ago Metropolitan Police Officers were not allowed to live more than thirty miles from Charing Cross.

The ELG, holes in the ground & more Pillow mounds

Yesterday Little dog and I went exploring on the Ashdown Forest again. We went to look at the site of something that I keep finding on the internet described as an ELG. These letters stand for Emergency Landing Ground which in layman's terms is an emergency runway for aircraft. ELG's were built on open areas of flat ground all over the south east of  England and East Anglia during World War Two.

This particular one is adjacent to the A22 at Wych Cross (opposite the Llama Park) running roughly south to north on a slight rise in the ground. It was constructed by the Canadian Army who were stationed all over the Forest and surrounding areas during both world wars. A B17 (Flying Fortress) Bomber of the USAAF made a successful landing here on 6 September 1943 having  run out of fuel after returning from a raid on Stuttgart.  Two other B17's on the same raid also landed in the vicinity, one at Pippingford Park and one by the Ashdown Park Hotel.

The Emergency Landing Ground at Wych Cross looking South


Using an excellent leaflet that I got free from the Ashdown Forest Visitor Centre I easily located the site of the ELG. Unfortunately there is nothing left now to show that there was ever a runway here. The original construction would probably just have been made of graded earth, which has now returned to heathland, covered in gorse, heather and bracken. At the moment much of this heathland is blackened and charred after a recent grass fire, although new plant life is starting to appear.

In the Saxon calender 1st August was known as 'Lammas day'. This was the day when they began harvesting cereal crops  and baking the first bread after a month of enforced fasting. Prior to the Industrial revolution most people in England relied on agriculture to survive. This leads me conveniently to something that I had spotted on the map marked as 'Marlpits' in several locations principaly at Fairwarp and Nutley.

Remains of a Marl pit at Nutley


Marl is a soil made up of a mixture of clay and calcium carbonate in the form of lime or chalk. I assumed wrongly, that it was used as a daub for the walls of medieval houses. It was in fact used as a fertiliser to enrich the sandy soil of the Forest and increase crop yields. These marl pits were used communally and located on common land. Treating the fields with marl was a very labour intensive occupation but luckily only had to be done once every twenty or thirty years.

Marl pit in woodland at Nutley


Many remaining marl pits throughout the country were quite deep and a lot of them were eventually filled with water and used as ponds, much as disused gravel pits are flooded today. The ones at Nutley however are shallow and partially covered by trees and bracken which as you can see from the photographs are not much to look at.

Whilst looking for holes in the ground at Millbrook, I spotted some more pillow mounds on the map. These are much larger then the previous ones and easier to identify. Unfortunately I couldn't get access as they are on  private land  near Old Lodge Farm. Luckily I had a long lens with me and managed to take some half decent photographs across the valley. As you can see there is a large circular mound in the centre and a straight one running down the hill on the right. Many pillow mounds were constructed on hills as they used the sloping ground for natural drainage.