Rowley Gallery Blog
We came to Symondsbury for breakfast, the best coffee and bacon roll in months, then down past the church and up the hill to Shute’s Lane. We were staying under Eggardon and we’d already driven down a tunnel of green lanes to get here. This one was closed to traffic so now we were on foot. Continue reading “A Holloways Walk”
We were in West Dorset at last and I was elated. I’d long wanted to drive these roads. We were in a maze of high banks and hedgerows, hidden from the wind, burrowing back down to earth, gone to ground. Continue reading “Deep Lanes & Holloways”
A beautiful short film shot on Super-8 and painstakingly woven together by Adam Scovell. He was inspired by Robert Macfarlane, Stanley Donwood, Dan Richards and their book Holloway. I first stumbled into it here and I find it hard to leave. Adam has written a great piece about his film here. It’s mesmerising.
Herewith a message from Robert Macfarlane:
I’ve come to realise, in the eight years since I first wrote about holloways, that many people share my fascination with these sunken lanes, which have been harrowed down into the landscape by the passage of feet and rainwater (and sometimes 4x4s…). People have sent me photographs of the holloways they know, the paintings and sketches they have made of them, maps with their locations indicated, or the stories, memories and folklore they associate with them. Continue reading “Flickr: Holloway”
Holloway is published this month by Faber & Faber. Caught By The River are hosting a launch party at Rough Trade East on May 14th. Its original publication last year inspired this earlier post, Holloway.
I’ve had this image as the desktop background on my computer for the last three years. It was the highlight of a walk from West Wycombe to Hughenden Manor. We passed many grand buildings and sweeping landscapes but this place, at the intersection of two sunken paths and the curious steps leading up to where the light filters down through the leaves – Beam me up, Scotty – this was my favourite moment of the walk. Continue reading “Holloway Junction”
One of the many highlights of our recent trip to Cornwall was one that I took with me. Just a couple of days before we left London I received a copy of Holloway, a book by Robert Macfarlane, Stanley Donwood & Dan Richards. I kept it unopened in its Jiffy bag with Dan’s handwritten label and best wishes until we arrived, so that it became a part of our holiday. Inside, when I finally opened it, was a beautifully printed and illustrated book that told of the search for an ancient Dorset holloway, previously visited by Macfarlane with Roger Deakin. They were looking for the hide where the hero of Geoffrey Household’s novel Rogue Male went to ground. I’m not sure which I knew first, Household’s book or the film with Peter O’Toole. The abiding feeling was not so much of threat but of the safe harbour to be found beneath trees. Continue reading “Holloway”