Beautiful chilly day. 11 of us to have English heritage tour around the stone circle. Sun is still strong and scores of swallows swoop above stubbly fields while jets start their descent to Briz.
Great black drums glint in the autumn sun at Norton Malreeward and heat haze above the grass makes the houses behind it shudder slightly like I’m looking at them through a riffling stream. Beyond the pale brown of fields and the lush green slopes of the Mendips.
Join three peaks way. Mast off to the south west over Wells where I used to work. Reminder of burn out. Breathe out in relief.
Cross a bridge and as I get closer to the circle pass the first people. A man in a singlet and cap sits in the middle of meadow with his hands in a backpack next to him. Another man with a grey ponytail walks slowly looking into the water of the river.
‘Big BPM crew’ sticker stick on one of the footpath signs.
All those in the group I would say fit into the same demographic. Couples. Over 60. Most have been to Avebury and Stone Henge, the rock stars of ancient sites and both conveniently situated an hour from here.
I ask one man if he is an ancient site regular. ‘I’ve been to a few’ and after a pause ‘but I’m not a Druid’ perhaps because of his long flowing white hair and earring.
We are pilgrims of sorts – people drawn to places by an interest in the past and looking for a connection with the past.
Our guide tells us ‘People were gathering together in communities doing whatever they were doing.’
And what were they doing? Travelling and gathering at a special place. Pilgrimage.
The guide talks about there being a lot of people coming here on the solstices. ‘There was a coven from Spain and people with sound bowls and bells and crystals’
One man points out ‘this circle here lines up with the one there for the lunar standstill. The lunar one only comes about once every 23 years’ the moon wavers from side and side and reaches the furthest northwards’
Our guide says that some of the stones sparkle when the sunlight catches it. Is it quartz.
In the middle of the main circle someone has created a circle of yellow and red flower petals. There are pale pink crystals in the grass inside the circle.
Come back on a solstice.
The Slow Walker 