Rowley Gallery Blog
This green cathedral is at Jacks Hill, Epping Forest. It was October 2020, the last time it was safe to go walking in the woods. The Covid beast has been at large and we’ve all been advised to stay at home. But deep in the forest, away from the crowds, is perhaps the safest place to be. I’m writing this in late March, the sun is shining outside and I am missing the trees. Continue reading “Walking In The Woods (3)”
We’d been told to stay indoors and not go out, except for exercise and if so to stay two metres apart, breathe fresh air, think separate thoughts and cast our own shadows. Stay safe, take care and not go viral. It was the sunniest Sunday I’d seen in ages, the car parks of Epping Forest were overflowing, all of us fleeing the city to escape the epidemic. That’s how it felt, as if there was protection here. Continue reading “Chasing Shadows”
I suppose that’s a bit of an exaggeration, we didn’t stay overnight, but it sounds better than two visits or two day trips to Epping Forest. The first was a week after Easter, on St George’s Day, inspired by blogposts and tweets about holloways, I wondered what’s the closest thing to a holloway in Epping Forest? And so we went up to Jack’s Hill and walked to the western edge of Ambresbury Banks. Continue reading “Two Days In Epping Forest”
A circuit of Ambresbury Banks in Epping Forest, an ancient earthwork built circa 500BC. According to local legend it was the site of the defeat and death of the great British Queen Boudicca at the hands of the Romans in AD61. The Iron Age banks and ditches formed an enclosure used as a cattle fold. Nowadays it is overgrown with beech trees and was covered with a carpet of leaves and beechmast when we visited. A series of lovely undulations striped by tree shadows in leaf filtered light. Continue reading “Ambresbury Banks”