The Cotswolds is an area of England that conjures up images of postcard picture perfect villages, many inhabited by second home owners, blond stone buildings nestling in folds of rolling estate farmland and densely wooded hillsides. A recent visit to catch up with an old friend allowed me to discover how much of this stereotypical view was for real. As a long time resident he knows the area well and was keen to share some of its treasured features with me.

1500 years ago, when under the benign rule of imperial Rome, the area around the administrative centre of Cirencester (Corinium) was home to some 50 villas. These palatial homes were at the heart of rich agricultural estates. Their wealthy owners, with extensive land and mercantile interests, lived a luxurious lifestyle and imported goods from all over the Roman world…So plus ca change on that front!

One of the best preserved of these Roman villas open to the public is near the village of Chedworth, just off the ancient Fosse Way. It nestles at the head of a coombe below sheltering woods. The spring that rises here provided a vital water supply. The villa’s owners revered spirits of place and made a feature of the pure waters emergence with a shrine to the resident nymphs (nymphaeum).

It wasn’t until the 1860’s that the historic site was rediscovered and excavated by the family of the local aristocratic landowner. An arresting feature of one room is the remains of a tree trunk embedded in a dividing wall that shows the ground level at the period of excavation.

The museum and warden accommodation, now offices and storage, dates from then and stands, somewhat incongruously, on the dividing wall of the villa’s central courtyard.

A scale model made of metal gave us a three dimensional overview of the building in its 4^th century prime. The excavated ranges of single storied interlinked rooms is now mostly roofed over for preservation and interpretation.

Our meander there led us along raised walkways over and around a series of fascinating floor mosaics, the largest collection in the country still in their original positions. Ploughing and other disturbances in later ages have damaged the original fabric but the remnants in the luxury dining room and baths sections remain substantial enough to impress.

Underneath the floor lies an elaborate hypocaust system that provided dry under floor heating. Millions of tesserae made from pieces of coloured stone sourced from far and wide make up the mosaics. Some are local (white, off white, olive), others from Somerset (blue, greys) and the Forest of Dean (purple, browns) with broken brick or tile for reds. There’s some dispute, centered on the mortar used, whether Chedworth’s mosaics were assembled on site or prefabricated elsewhere.

How the interlinked bathing areas were developed and used is also still up for interpretation. Sauna like arrangements, hot semi-circular baths and a cold plunge pool with steps all feature in the arrangements.

Modern research indicates this villa survived the withdrawal of Roman troops from the province of Britannia in 410 AD, albeit as a purely agricultural holding, for at least another century before being finally abandoned. Roofs fell in and its valuable dressed stones were recycled into other buildings or used in making limestone for mortar in a nearby kiln. Living as I do near the empire’s military boundary on Hadrian’s Wall, that part of the story is familiar.

The finds museum is small but has some fabulous items on display in glass cases, including jewellery, tools, ceramics and an altarpiece. Particularly liked this tiny copper alloy figure of a deity, which would have been part of ritual practice.

A collection of spindle whorls. Rods with weights used for twisting wool into  yarn. A large part of Roman women’s work would involve clothes making for their families.

The villa’s clay tiles were most likely made in Cirencester where they were laid out on the ground to cool straight from the kiln. Two on display here present accidental indentation, one of a human hand and the other an ox’s hoof.

An outdoor feature I loved were the mini-meadows, literally garden rooms, developed in some of the partially excavated spaces in the north range. Alkaline loving meadow plants thrive here in the thin soil and mortar. These include oregano and marjoram, Mediterranean herbs first introduced by the Romans.

Best of all we came across some snails. No ordinary molluscs but large, edible snails (Helix pomatia) originally brought to this country by the Romans and still very much at home here, as they hibernate in the walls. Apparently the site also supports a remarkable number of bat species, including the rare barbastelle.

A great place to visit on a summer’s day, and the interpretive staff we met were particularly well informed. The National Trust has been the site’s custodian since 1924. More at: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/gloucestershire-cotswolds/chedworth-roman-villa

We marked the first of July with some much needed exercise on a circular stroll nearby, along a bridleway through fields by the forest’s conifer crowded edge, returning home by footpath and single track lanes. 

Moody westerly weather gave us great variety of view over the high land, set off with constant shifts of light and changes in temperature. There are a lot of cattle out on summer grazing now but luckily we only had one field of cows with calves at foot to navigate. Not having a dog with us helped. Utilising hazel walking sticks a welcome assurance too in such circumstances.

The winding low water burn, emerging from the forest, carves a shallow valley for itself and at this time of year has meadow grasses aplenty with patches of yellow flowering Lady’s bedstraw and hawkweed in its banks.

One plant seen in amongst the predominant clover and buttercups of the grazed fields is self heal. As the name suggests it has a long tradition of use in herbal medicine. Found in shorter swards that have not been chemically treated this low lying creeping plant is adaptable to longer grass too. It has the prettiest of small violet flowers. (At home I leave clumps of the nectar rich flower unmown in the lawn areas, and rejoice to see the bees visit).

A tractor and cutter was laying a crop of grass for  silage as a flock of seed seeking finches followed in its wake, with a scattering of corvids working the newly exposed turf for worms.  This being a bridle path a jump for horses embedded in the stone wall makes perfect sense. At the next field an exultation of skylarks treated us to their etheral singing. Like John Clare we ‘listen to its song, and smile and fancy’.  

Attempts to follow an OS map marked footpath convinced us it’s never, or rarely used.  We passed an abandoned footbridge over a stream and wonder if the path originally went that way. Instead we’ve to make our way uphill to peer down through the gorge’s leaf canopy to find where the track should drop again.

A fallen ash blocked our passage and necessitated some nifty leg work over a barbed wire fence and a scramble back down the steep bank to where woodland gave way to field again. To our relief he footbridge we sought suddenly revealed itself. That in turn brought us up to the narrow lane and more easeful sauntering along its quiet lengths to join the wider road for home.

The generous verges and drainage ditches here are largely untroubled by man or beast so remain home to a rich variety of plants. Some I spotted were hedge bedstraw and burdock, silverweed and vetches, with a mass of Meadowsweet just starting to break into fluffed up creamy bloom.

Followed the weak winged but restless progress of a number of ringlet butterflies and finally catch a picture of one resting on yarrow.

Pleasantly surprised to spy a dozen or more common spotted orchids, their beautiful pinky white flowers peeping out between the grasses. Even more pleased to have one (for now) back home growing in the patch of roadside meadow by the yard gate. Fingers crossed it spreads is seed for next year.

Sign of the times. A supplementary official notice needed to remind scramble bike riders and 4×4 off road drivers that public footpaths are not BOATS (Byways Open to All Traffic)

On the higher and drier stretch of the road home the vegetation is coarser and dominant umbilifers are in the process of change over. The cow parsley now well over and seeding freely as the stouter hogweed, with its irritant hairy stems, beaks into flower.

Our front garden wall boasts more biting stonecrop this year than ever.  Wonderful splashes of yellow emanating from the gaps between grey stone.

Busie old fool, unruly Sunne,/Why dost thou thus,/Through windows, and through curtaines, call on us?/Must to thy motions lovers seasons run? From: The Sunne Rising (Donne’s poem is lettered on the side of Prospect Cottage)

Unique is a much over used word. Applied to Dungeness though it is spot on. The outing here was aided and abetted by a good old friend of ours who lives up on the Sussex Downs and had visited many times before. He also had wheels so no need to get the bus from our base in Rye over the county border to this corner of Kent.

Often referred to as England’s only desert Dungeness is one of the largest shingle banks in Europe, a result of coastal longshore drift over the centuries. This triangular bulwark defines and protects Romney Marsh behind it. The etymology of ‘Dungeness’ makes the association between the two topographies clear as it means ‘head of the marsh with manured pasture’ in Old English. The marsh has long since been drained to become fertile farmland where native Romney sheep and Sussex Red cattle graze, which we had admired when crossing it by rail on the line to Rye from Ashford.

Both a national nature reserve and SSSI, Dungeness today is home to 600 different types of plant, an astonishing third of the total found in the UK as a whole. We were thrilled to see plants that are rarities elsewhere thriving here.

Nectar rich beauties such as vipers bugloss, sea kale, mouse eared hawkweed, horned yellow poppies (above), sea pea etc freely colonising beach and roadsides.

An Anglo-Swedish scientific programme has recently re-established a population of short-haired bumblebees here, where they were last logged in the UK back in 1988 and officially declared extinct in 2000. They need species rich grassland to survive and Dungeness has no shortage of food plants.

We watched a kestrel hovering in the clear blue sky above as our friend recalled seeing harbour porpoises hunting through channels between shingle banks exposed at low tide.

We called in at an artisan weaver’s studio then watched a tractor delivering a trailer full of produce to a roadside shack doing a brisk trade in fresh fish and shellfish. Our lunch destination though was a local landmark, the Pilot Inn.

We duly sampled ‘the best fish & chips in England’ outside the bustling hostelry, watching the world go by while guarding our grub from a raiding party of starlings. The engine wreckage of WW2 planes and memorials to killed aircrews stand poignantly nearby.

Across the way men were rebuilding and extending one of the original shacks. Many of these simple dwellings were converted railway carriages and goods waggons occupied from the 1920’s by workers from London seeking an affordable rudimentary home by the sea. These days such places are snapped up by the well healed seeking a get away in what remains the most remote and least populated part of south east England. We saw one place – a cool black wood cube with swish interiors and panoramic windows – reportedly being rented out for £1700 a week.

What attracted Kim & I here initially was Prospect Cottage (Above). Built in 1900, and the former home of a local fishing family it was bought by film maker and gay rights activist Derek Jarman. A beloved home from 1986 to his death in 1994, it was made famous by his writing.

The iconic garden the artist created, intermingling native plants with found and organic objects in a seemingly boundless state, has been influential on garden design ever since. After a national fundraising campaign Prospect Cottage was acquired by a charitable trust and is now managed as an artists retreat, although I expect getting any privacy or peace here in the height of summer to work would be problematic.

We circled and explored the garden with the remaining art forms time and tide had gifted its famous occupant. A lot of the original sculptures are elsewhere for safekeeping as they would surely have been nicked by now, as there are no defining fences, hedges, walls or other formal boundaries hereabouts.

Dungeness itself is a formal entity in being an estate. It extends to 468 acres (190 hectares) and contains some 100 homes on 99 year leases, although only around a third are occupied all year round. It’s not hard to imagine this as a bleak exposed place to live in winter, that would make or break the will to be a seriously committed resident. For many years a family owned and run business, in 2015 the estate was put up for sale and was bought by the French energy giant EDF for a sum in excess of £1.5 million. This is no lucrative development opportunity as Dungeness is highly protected, but as the buyer also happens to be the area’s biggest employer it makes business sense.

Britain’s nuclear power stations are all situated on our coasts because they need huge amounts of water to cool the reactors. EDF own and run Dungeness power station, the dominant landmark that defines the ness’s western horizon. Built in stages from 1965, andgenerating electricity by 1983, it was due to close in 2018 but is now scheduled to remain operational ‘til 2028. The company had previously been paying up to £100,000 per annum to the estate to move shingle from the other (eastern) side of the ness to stabilise and reinforce the sea defences on its western flank.

This special environment being only an hour and a half’s drive from London makes it a magnet for visual artists and has featured on a host of album covers, music videos and dramas, like this 1981 offering from Pink Floyd. The cost of running the estate is partly met by issuing filming rights, currently £1500 a day for commercial film or photography or £300 for students.

It can be hard work walking over the shingle. We took our time though, to absorb the sights and sounds of the great gravelly bank as we followed its coastal crest westwards. In the old days locals attached short planks to their feet to gain easier traction. These days orange plastic mats ease passage for pedestrians to reach the shore.

Fishing boats are hauled up the strand by winches and their gear secured in boxes by the boats or in tar coated wooden huts, some of which are liberally decorated with a collection of signs. Incidental art works in the spirit of the place.

Wind, rain, waves and salt laden air take a terrible toll of wood and metal. Abandoned boats and collapsed winches, even a rusted out bulldozer punctuate the steep sided bank. As it recedes inland the shingle rises and falls in gentle swells, colonised with more vegetation the further back it goes.  

Our constant way marker was the former lighthouse. There have been seven buildings on the ness since 1615 and this one, now a museum, opened in 1904. The white buildings are former lighthouse keepers cottages.

Sadly time and logistics did not allow us to incorporate a return trip on the UK’s smallest (15” gauge) regular passenger steam train line, all 13.5 miles of it. The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, operational from 1927, is a major tourist draw today and just hearing and seeing the immaculately preserved engines steam and whistle their way through the landscape was a pure delight.

They’re not obvious to find and when you do discover them they’re not  really accessible. As befits former military sites they don’t render up secrets willingly. I’m talking about the acoustic mirrors or ‘listening ears’ now protected from incursion – except on special open days – by a moat. Extensive extraction of  gravel in recent years has created a wildlife lake and the three experimental concrete structures are marooned on an island where they sit, like ancient monoliths, peeping skywards over trees towards France some 30 miles away.  

Built between the wars on what was then Ministry of Defence land the 200ft long wall and two circular dishes equipped with microphones were designed to pick up the sounds of approaching enemy aircraft. An early warning system that was soon to be made redundant by the invention of Radar in 1938.

The waters here were remarkably clear, green weeds waving from the depths beyond its cool shore. Resting from the heat on the escarpment I saw a great crested grebe dive and swim to catch a small fish before resurfacing. Elsewhere mallards and their ducklings sailed in and out of reed beds. Shags, goldeneye and coots were out there on the lake too, with swallows slicing the air above them.

Beyond that still planes were coming in and out of Lydd airport (AKA London Ashford Airport). Controversially the former RAF base is earmarked for runway extension to take bigger, heavier commercial traffic. Beyond that, and dating from 2008, stretches the largest onshore wind farm in the south of England, generating 60 megawatts of electricity for the grid.

Nukes, planes and turbines exist cheek by jowl at Dungeness with an incredible richness of flora and fauna. A treat for curious creatives or lovers of life on the edge, providing us with one of the most fascinating and rewarding of walks yet.

The moon is even more spectacular. The sunset turns the seashore into a rosy mirror, with streaks of pink cloud. Then the moon comes, and casts a silvery path across the waves, a shimmering carpet for the stars. Dungeness, Dungeness, your beauty is the best, forget the hills and valleys. (From: Derek Jarman’s Garden)

The word paradise is derived from the ancient Persian – ‘A green place’. Paradise haunts gardens, and some gardens are paradises….Christopher Lloyd’s Great Dixter (for one). It’s shaggy. If a garden isn’t shaggy, forget it. (Derek Jarman)

We are always on the borderline of what it’s most sensible to attempt. Such gardening may be silly, but on the other hand, it can be the most exciting. (Christopher Lloyd)

First it was Covid then the uncertainty caused by rolling rail strikes but third time around we finally made it to Rye in East Sussex this month. The trip was spurred by a wedding present of free entry to one of the UK’s most famous and best loved gardens, Great Dixter.

We arrived on the south coast from Northumberland by rail and the next day caught the regular service bus to the pretty village of Northiam. The subtle range of old red brick and white painted clapperboard houses put Kim in mind of Quebec’s eastern townships from where her mother’s family hailed and where she spent many a happy summer vacation.

Our way took us under some of the magnificent great oaks this corner of England is famous for. Trees that once provided the timber to build naval and merchant ships as well as local farms and manors, including the one we were about to discover.

Great Dixter was the family home of the famous gardener and gardening writer Christopher Lloyd OBE (1921-2006). His father Nathaniel was a retired wealthy businessman with a love of the arts and craft movement. In 1910 he bought the C15^th farmhouse with its oak framed great hall (the largest of its kind in England) and commissioned Sir Edwin Lutyens to design a complimentary wing in brick and tile. At the same time a derelict Tudor timber house at nearby Beneden was bought for £75, dismantled and re-erected to form a further part of the enlarged home.

The garden plan was initially sketched out by Lutyens and implemented to the designs of George Thorold who, working closely with the Lloyds, converted yards, hedges and fields into a series of interlinked garden rooms bound by the existing great barn, stables and oast house. It was Nathaniel’s wife Daisy (1881-1972) who oversaw the planting and evolved its development under the influence of leading practitioners like William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll. Christopher (Christo) was the Lloyd’s sixth and youngest child and he spent an idyllic childhood immersed in the bucolic world his loving parents had created for the family at Great Dixter. His mother Daisy supported and encouraged him in his stewardship of the gardens up to her death in 1972.

After leaving for university, then war service and further study in ornamental horticulture Christopher finally returned home in 1954 and started a nursery and began experimenting in the gardens. In so doing he pioneered the dense mixed flower border using colour, foliage and structure, in contrast to the purely herbaceous formal border that was then the norm.

He loved using seed raised annuals, prizing them for their vibrancy and vigour, and would eventually grub up the rose garden to replace it with an exotic one, another influential step.

Christopher Lloyd was as an eminently readable writer and his horticultural leadership role at Great Dixter is carried on today by Fergus Garrett, head gardener since 1993, under the auspices of a charitable trust. The two men had become firm friends, generating a creative synergy, ensuring it continues to be a place of experimentation and change.

The nursery, cafe and shop are clearly thriving businesses. Young gardeners from around the world study here and thousands visit every year to be inspired or challenged by what they find. Us included.

I confess to that floral bathing in the tall yew topiary bound Orchard, High and Peacock Gardens felt more combative than contemplative for my taste. After a while it all began to loose distinctiveness and become simply a glorious abstract blur. A sense of being on the outside as opposed to being drawn in was probably accentuated by the exuberance of growth and sheer numbers of fellow visitors.

Being a lover of garden ponds I appreciated getting a view of the farm’s former horse pond but would have liked to got nearer to it than we were able to from the approach road.

What I did love though was the escape offered in meandering along mown paths through the peripheral orchid rich meadows. Fine views too of the house afloat on its surrounding sea of trees shrubs, topiary and flowers.

Found myself captivated by the bold contrasts of stone paths, low wooden outbuildings, sculptural forms and slim beds of swirling foxgloves that define the topiary lawn quadrant between the great barn and plant nursery. Perhaps the sense of potential outdoor theatre setting it evoked was the key to that feeling.

Great Dixter has a stated mission to further unlock the ecological potential of its ornamental gardens. A 2017 audit identified 2000 species within the estate. That tally included 270 types of moth, 148 species of spider and the rare Mining Bee.

Resting from our wanderings in the heat we sat on a shaded bench, watching the birds flying backwards and forwards from their nests under the eaves of the grand house. That and the simple pleasure of following meadow brown or gatekeeper butterflies weaving their erratic courses through the meadow flowers in this, one of the most quintessential of English garden sanctuaries.  

Caveats notwithstanding I was very glad we’d visited Great Dixter to understand its unfolding history and inspirational legacy. One that continues, as all great gardens do, to find renewed meaning in our own time.

The College burn rises at the foot of the Cheviot itself, the highest point of the range of hills named after it that straddle the border of Scotland and England. Likely word origin here is a pairing of ‘col’ for cold or collar as in a gorge + ‘letch’ slow moving stream in marshy ground.

The College valley is at the centre of a 12,000 acre upland estate that has passed through a succession of wealthy owners down the centuries. The last, Sir James Knott MP (1855-1934) was a Newcastle born shipping and coal magnate. He created a trust with a board of directors that cares for the estate today. (www.knott-trust.co.uk) They work closely with the Northumberland National Park, within which the valley and hills sit, to secure its natural capital and enhance public access.

Vehicular access to the valley is via a single track road which attracts a licensed daily toll of £12 but like the vast majority of visitors we parked (for free) at the NNP Hethpool site and walked from there. This is the point where the narrow valley emerges from steep enfolding hills, many of whom boast iron age hill forts on their lofty summits. Thanks to funding from the national park a series of signposts opens up permissive paths to those hills for the more adventurous rambler.

The road up from Kirknewton to the farming hamlet of Hethpool led us through the cooling shades of a lovely fellside sessile oak wood. This was planted more than 200 years ago with the noble aim of providing wood for the Royal Navy to help replace oaks felled in the rush to build more ships for the extensive sea war against Napoleon. The estate’s then owner was Admiral Lord Collingwood, a proud son of Northumberland and naval hero, who had acquired it through his wife Sarah. It was she who started planting acorns at this spot to honour his memory, ‘enriching and fertilising that which would otherwise have been barren’.

Within just a few decades steam and iron would replace wood and sail so the need for oak as a shipbuilding material fell sharply away. On top of that the Collingwood oaks never grew tall and straight enough to provide the right quality of timber needed. The much greater environmental gain over time would be nature’s, and the woods today are greatly valued for that alone as oak trees support more wildlife than any other native tree.

The early part of our leisurely amble up the vale took us past modern day forestry in action and we paused to admire a harvester hard at work on precipitous slopes, its driver skilfully taking out and stripping tree trunks before loading them on piles for later collection by timber trucks.

Previous clearances had enabled masses of foxgloves to flower in between fresh leaved shrubs hiding stumps of sitka spruce. Before leaving the sparkling College burn, on a corner where the access road bridged it, we came across a young deciduous wood thriving where once a block of featureless softwoods had stood. Oak, hazel and alder planted in the spirit of that original Collingwood oak wood.

We enjoyed a picnic lunch overlooking the handsome former farmhouse at Trowupburn. After this current long spell of warm dry weather the water levels were low in the burns we passed. Consequently the pools held restless shoals of young brown trout and I watched them with interest. As children living on the edge of Dartmoor looking out for brown trout with a view to tickling them ashore from the bank was a particular pleasure.

None of that activity today though and I was wakened from my reverie to re-join my companions going uphill through flocks of ewes and lambs over into the next valley of Elsdonburn, eventually to join St. Cuthbert’s Way that would take us back to where we started.

What other breed of sheep would you expect to see here on these hills but Cheviot? Today there are only two tenant farms operating in the valley where once there would have been dozens, with single story cottages clustered round them to accommodate the shepherds. The combined flocks today amount to some 2,500 sheep and the lambs are highly prized as breeding stock as well as for the quality of their meat. Recognised as a hardy sheep since 1372 the breed is indigenous to the Cheviots either side of the border. The wool, which was once the base for the Border Tweed industry and could pay the tenants’ farm rent, has now declined to only marginal importance. But it still commands the best price, compared to other breeds, from the British Wool Board. It is chiefly used in the Harris tweed and carpet industries.

Intrigued to come across a lone Wych elm among the blossoming hawthorns between track and burn…A rare survivor of Dutch elm disease. Perhaps the remote location saved it from succumbing to the deadly pathogen that all but obliterated the once common elm from our land in the last century.

We saw a couple of stells (sheep shelters) on fellsides. One had a small cast iron Dutch barn nearby. The dry stone walls are the size and shape of a circus ring allowing the animals to find shelter from whichever way the wind blows snow or rain. From the Victorian era onwards the cattle and sheep stayed up here all year round so such places were essential to survival but these days they are taken off to lower pastures in winter. Conservation wise that fits with the older pattern of summer grazing (shielings) where the stock feed on the coarser grasses which would otherwise swamp the more delicate vascular alpine grasses and flowers. These rare plants can now once again start to thrive in the highest area of 5,500 acres, around the Cheviot itself. Approximately half that area is an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest)

We descended gradually on the track following the Elsdon burn, past intake fields and under a fine avenue of trees to Hethpool’s impressive row of arts and crafts style workers cottages and gardens. A great walk of less than four miles, a wonderful taster that demands a return to discover more of this distinctive land.  

Sculpture Gardens and Falls

The Western Isles, sitting in the transatlantic gulf stream, can boast some unusually verdant coastal gardens within their sheltered nooks and crannies. We discovered two such special places on the coast of Mull. Both with sculptural forms and clever landscaping at their heart, which added to the attractiveness.

Colonel James Macleod of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police spent a very agreeable time on holiday in the 1870’s as a guest of the Calgary Castle estate on Mull’s north west coast. On returning home the Colonel, who was also a lawyer and politician, re-named a new fort in Alberta after this corner of the old country he’d left as a child. We visited on a distinctly damp day but that didn’t prevent us soaking in the atmosphere as well as the remorseless drizzle.

This corner of the island was once widely farmed and highly populated but a series of C19th clearances put an end to that. It remains a distinctly beautiful and singular landscape though. A mix of ancient and recent woodlands overlooking sweeps of protected machair grasslands behind a white shell beach, sheltered from the worst of weathers by imposing headlands of dark igneous rock.

We had a great lunch at the café/studio complex – Calgary Art in Nature – situated in a handsome converted farm complex tucked away in a narrow wooded valley. Afterwards we explored the sculpture trail through its grounds, encountering art works in metal and wood, plus a distinctive self-contained eco holiday let on the hillside. (https://www.calgary.co.uk/art/art-in-nature/ )

A large shady deep pond at the rear of the former farmhouse holds stream water that once powered a saw mill operational up to seventy years ago and whose scant remains of pillar and pit we picked out in deep greenery by a gravel track.

Interesting to find refugee Spanish bluebells and three cornered leeks in close company under a mixed canopy of oak, beech, sycamore and scots pine. Both are invasive plants originating from Mediterranean countries. The bluebells are toxic but the leeks (Allium triquetrum) as the name implies are edible and much favoured by foragers. The triangular title references a cross section of its stem.

Later we motored down to amble the wide sweep of deserted beach, parking by a charmingly idiosyncratic ice cream shop – Robin’s Boat – sadly not open for business today. We’d like to return when it is open and the sun is shining.

Lip na Cloiche is a garden and nursery set on a precipitous south facing hillside, surrounding the owner’s house, and overlooking Loch Tuath and the isle of Ulva. (www.lipnacloice.co.uk) Owner gardener Lucy Mackenzie Panizzon – whose bustling lean form we caught unloading deliveries on arrival – created her eccentric arboreal wonder over a decade and, of course, it is still a work in progress. Unsurprisingly, lots of articles have been penned for gardening magazines about Lip na Cloiche, and some of these were displayed at the gate.

The fine rain had continued most of the time driving from Calgary, hugging the coast for much of the way. Consequently even more care needed in ascending the narrow footpaths through luxuriant dazzling vegetation. The tumbling burn that defines the garden’s western field boundary was awash with damp loving perenniels, shrubs and trees. Zig-zagging upwards along the narrow paths was experienced as a positively Amazonian experience.

Lots of found objects encountered as we turned each corner; rusted metal boxes, ceramic tiles, driftwood, farm and garden implements, glass balls etc added greatly to the garden’s charm and playfulness.

In gaining the dizzy heights of the garden’s ultimate viewpoint the terraced strips became an imagined equivalent of the Andes.

The steep winding descent brought us to a cottage garden, greenhouse and stores by the resident owners cheerful blue and white house, with its front porch display of locally produced cards and crafts.

Two long display tables in the former drive were filled with home grown hardy nursery plants in pots. 25% of takings go to local charities. The honesty box for payments has had to be seasonally adjusted to fit residential requirements….

After leaving the gardens we stopped to admire the area’s most striking natural wonder, a gift from the mountain behind to the sea loch in front. Appropriately this was our third port of call that day and the rain had only served to swell its tumbling volume.

The name Ears Fors Waterfall is tautological as all three words are synonymous. Eas is Gaelic, Fors Norwegian (Viking) and the third English. The dramatic drops of white water materialise in three distinctive stages too….Wonderful happenstance!

Headline acts apart, we had a great range of other natural history engagements round and about the Isle of Mull with our well informed local guide Andrew. He pointed out a large seabird with a heavy bill and stout neck, sitting low in the water, cormorant like, coasting along the shallow shores for food. Great Northern Divers, immigrants from the frozen north extending their winter break, sometimes stay on to breed here. Kim knows these birds from her upbringing in Canada where they’re populous and known there as Common Loons.

We stopped to watch the behaviour of a group of Oyster Catchers on a pebble beach and Andrew explained that they make a scrape in which to lay eggs and not a nest as that would draw unwelcome attention. The 2-3 mottled eggs laid are lost in the mass of pebbles to all but the parents and are more likely to be crushed by accident than taken deliberately. Both birds take it in turn to incubate and patrol, distracting attention when potential predators are watching – like us!

There aren’t enough oysters about to let those waders live up to their name. One creature that does predate oysters is the common whelk. These common sea snails (also known as periwinkles in Scotland) are carnivorous and like nothing better than applying their auger like tentacle to drill a tiny hole in the shells of mussels and oysters, allowing them to slowly extract and consume the occupants. Continuing on our motorised ramble we passed small encampments of traveller families, hired by landowners to harvest whelks along the shore. We saw by the caravans netted sacks of molluscs stacked ready for export to the mainland. Come back in a few weeks when the season’s over and you’d never know people had ever pitched there, Andrew pointed out. Whelking being a long tradition on Mull it has engendered a mutually respectful relationship, he added.

Earlier in the day we’d passed Inverlussa, a sheltered tree lined bay, its waters scored by parallel lines denoting the infrastructure securing vertical ropes on which cultivated mussels cluster and grow. This sustainable continuous farming system, originally pioneered in New Zealand, was successfully introduced here in 2006. Andrew informed us the greatest peril this family owned business faces is not predatory whelks but the insatiable attentions of eider ducks that have to be deflected every day from gorging on their harvest below the waves. Britain’s heaviest and fastest resident duck living in large flocks around our northern seacoasts, they can dive as far down as 30 metres in search of food.

There was one endangered creature I wanted to see but had no luck in finding. Andrew pointed out fragments of a ‘ghost road’ running parallel to the current route (which opened 1967) connecting Craignure and Fionnophort. That ancient winding track, with remnants of bridges over burns and stretches of embankment, has been slowly absorbed by nature back into itself. We turned off by a ruined building to rest where the old road’s tattered tarmac peeped through a mosaic of turf and flowers.

This has become an adder breeding site said our guide, which piqued my interest. Though still widespread in the highlands the common European viper or adder (Vipera berus) is the UK ’s only venomous snake. Rarely found on the western Isles, with Mull proving a notable exception. The snake uses its venomous bite to kill rodents, lizards and nestlings while any hurt afforded humans is nearly always accidental, extremely infrequent and rarely fatal. ‘Nadder’ derives from the old English word for ‘Serpent’ but the ‘N’ eventually got dropped. Ironically it worked the other way round with newts when the ‘Ewt’ gained the ‘N’ the adder lost!

It’s been many years since I’ve seen that tell tale zig-zag pattern on the back of this reptile, a creature that loves to bask in the sun. As kids we used to frighten each other silly running through the summer bracken on Dartmoor, laughing and yelling the ‘vipee’ll get ee!’ The poor shy creatures would have vanished in an instant if they’d sensed our presence in any way, and there’s the rub. Recent scientific research has shown that vipera berus is in severe danger of being confined to just a few protected sites by 2032 if the present rate of decline continues. Crows and buzzards are the snake’s main predators while disturbance from dogs and people alongside mechanical mowing can severely disrupt their breeding processes. https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/reptiles/facts-about-adders/

In looking out for any sign of an adder adder I got absorbed by the small flowers. Marsh Lousewort, also known as red rattle, is a semi-parasitic living off the roots of trees and grasses which allows it to thrive in poor soils like the ones here and is an important food source for bees. (Its cousin, yellow rattle is a keystone plant in establishing and maintaining a traditional meadow) Lousewort has been used for centuries as a medicinal herb. It contains several active compounds, including flavonoids, alkaloids, and essential oils, that have anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and antispasmodic properties.

Another plant found here by the old road, which I looked up later, was the Common Butterwort whose pretty blue flowers appear from May to July. Like Common Lousewort it is well adapted to survive in nutrient poor acidic soils, in this case by trapping insects in the sticky whorl of leaves at its base, which then curl shut allowing the plant to absorb them. The old rural knowledge had it that rubbing the juices of these leaves into the udders of cows would protect against evil and bad butter, hence the common name. As we reassembled and climbed back into the mini-bus to continue our tour I wondered if the former inhabitants of the nearby ruined steading had ever followed that practice.

The big show to attract many visitors to Mull in the 21^st century has highlighted the profiles of its three star turns; otters, white tailed eagles and golden eagles. The RSPB reckon that some 160 jobs on the island are dependent on bird watching alone. The glorious triumvirate were not the main driver for our visit but the delightful encounters we had with them provided some truly unforgettable moments.

It takes constant low level attention to drive properly along Mull’s single lane roads so it repays letting someone else take the wheel. When that companion has intimate local knowledge of both territory and creatures that inhabit it then it’s well worth the relatively modest cost involved to secure their services. Andrew Tomison is one of those people. The former salmon fisheries scientist also hosted five other folk on our day out and we made for a convivial crew, taking turns to sit in different seats in his minibus to vary the views and Q&A’s. (https://wildlifeonmull.co.uk/) Pulling in to passing places or overtaking where required we cruised over mountain passes, through woods and forests and around sea lochs in the quest to view those leading players in action.  

One of my favourite books growing up was Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson. Charles Tunnicliffe’s brilliantly rendered illustrations perfectly complemented the drama of the dog otter’s ‘Joyful water life and death in the county of the two rivers’. I’d viewed sea otters at Monterey on a visit to California two decades ago but apart from animals in zoos or wildlife parks I had never seen a Eurasion Otter (Lutra lutra) in the wild, until now.

Mull has 300 miles of coastline and both inland water and sheltered sea lochs, making it the perfect environment to sustain a healthy population of otters. Much of the island’s network of narrow roads hugs the coastline, which is rich in kelp embedded on the ancient rock formations, the perfect intertidal hunting and resting environment for these extraordinary mammals as they move from inland freshwater hunting grounds to favoured seaside haunts. Thanks to their helpful human allies in the Mull Otter Group (www.mullottergroup.co.uk) motorists are reminded to look out for them crossing.

We saw the spotters before we saw the otters. Some dozen or so folk, standing stock still, hid behind bushes or sat on rocks, binoculars or long lensed cameras poised, focused on the shoreline some eighty yards distant. The minibus parked and we decanted quietly to swell the numbers. The phone camera cannot do justice to what I saw over the following half hour so here’s an image from a professional that will give a feel of it.

Cubs (usually two in number) stay with their mother for up to two years, learning all they need to know to survive. It was such a family threesome we were thrilled and privileged to see in action here. I think one of the reasons otters appeal so much to us is that they make killing look like fun. Whether in full acrobatic pursuit of fish and crabs underwater or rummaging through layers of wrack on shore to extract shellfish and other marine life hiding out there. The constant interactive playful nature of otters in this context is truly mesmerising. As indeed were the stiller moments we witnessed; eating, grooming, playing.

What a perfect set of evolutionary characteristics. Their webbed feet each have five clawed toes for gripping slippery prey securely. A predator’s set of 36 teeth within strong jaws, combining backward curved canines and sharp molars. Two layers of fur. A very fine dense inner layer within a waterproof guard layer of coarser hairs, constantly groomed to retain its water repellent and warming properties. The otter manages in that process of grooming to trap a thin layer of insulating air between each layer and can self regulate body temperature. We could see too that the family group in water had sleeked coats, which when back on land became instantly spikey, a sign of their good health.

Where Eagles dare. A safe distance from man, that’s for sure. After centuries of being driven to extinction due to the shooting interests of the huge sporting estates across the highland and islands these magnificent birds are now firmly back in place as the island’s apex predators. The UK’s largest bird of prey, with a wingspan up to two metres, the white tailed or sea eagle can be found in greater numbers here than anywhere else in Britain. The outlawing of harmful agri-chemicals like DTT, tough new protective legislation and scientific re-introduction programmes from the 1980’s onwards have enabled both species to gradually reclaim their empires of air land and sea here in the Western Isles.

Andrew, ever the genial guide, was good in getting us to understand the differences between the species as we set up to view their various nesting sites from a safe distance with the aid of his binoculars and tripod mounted telescopes. The whites have broad wings and fanned tails compared to the golden’s narrower wings and longer tails. The hunting characteristics and styles he described were fascinating too. The sea eagle’s precise glide, grab and lift of fish to golden eagles, from their eyries on inland cliffs, who have learnt to hunt the red deer that are so numerous hereabouts. Working in tandem they fly low over the terrified animals in order to stampede them over the cliff. They can then feast on the broken bodies below at leisure. Carrion for both species is an important supplement to live catch as their daily average food requirement is around 250 grams. Regulations allow farmers to be compensated by the government for any proven predation of spring lambs.

At one inland site between mountains we viewed a white tailed eagle well hidden in an isolated stand of commercial conifer plantation on a precipitous hillside. Its fearsome yellow hooked beak was the principle feature to catch the viewers eye at a distance. The rest of the dense forest had been clear felled but, with the discovery of the nest, all mechanical forestry activity within one kilometre of the eyrie had, by law, to cease immediately until any chicks had fledged. Quite something to see the needs of nature aligned with those of tourism, placed equally in the scales with economic and cultural interests.

Ross of Mull. A few miles of single track winding south in wild country, passing isolated roofless dwellings. A stark reminder of centuries of depopulation here in the Western Isles, a trend only reversing in recent decades. Happily we were headed for a place that’s a great example of how traditional crafts and farming can be reinvented to meet the needs of our own age.

Ardalanish is a 1,500 acre hill farm. Its herd of 60-70 indigenous black coated Kyloe cattle (a third of which are breed cows) whose entire lives are spent outdoors grazing this beautiful but hard terrain. Highland cattle are highly valued by conservation bodies for their non selective foraging habits which are perfectly in tune with the environment, enhancing the flora and maintaining ecological balance.

The farm’s flock of 300 distinctive black horned Hebridean sheep likewise live their whole lives outdoors with little supplementary nourishment by way of silage or hay. Delighted to see these five lambs (above) on our visit . Stock is slaughtered locally, hung for flavour for between 3-4 weeks before being cut and vacuum packed by Mull’s community butcher and available to buy both at the wee farm shop as well as online. If we weren’t staying on for longer we’d have bought some beef or lamb to sample back home.

Ardalanish’s name though is best known as the home of contemporary weaving on the isle of Mull. The business was established in 1987 and the current co-owner, who we were talking to on arrival, had been here since 2004. The showroom in the barn is a wool lovers delight. Blankets, throws, shawls, wraps and scarves all woven on site alongside bags, purses, jackets and hats made elsewhere from their finished material. They also sell a range of tweeds for tailoring as clothing or soft furnishing.

With ear mufflers donned we were able to witness manufacturing in progress. I love that blended pungent aroma of wool, hot metal and oil that fills the air in a working weaving shed. One of their 1950’s electric powered Dobcross looms flew through its multi-part paces at speed, clanging and clicketing away under the sharp eye and deft hand of the accomplished weaver, who would sometimes stop to rethread or adjust settings. The cast iron looms weigh over two and a half tons and stand around six feet tall. Between 1860 and 1967 huge numbers of these iconic machines were manufactured and exported by Hutchinson, Hollingworth & Co from their mill twixt Saddleworth and Oldham. A wonderful exemplar of textile engineering born out of the Industrial revolution, embedded in England’s Pennines, and still going great guns in this and other UK heritage weaving centres.

The natural colours of the landscape and its flora and fauna are reflected in the entire product line. Subtle and resonant shades of black brown and grey from the the Hebrideans blended with imported Shetland and Manx Loaghtan wool.

Ardalanish uses natural dyes from plants as well. It was fascinating to peruse the line up of examples displayed in old sweet and provision jars in the farm yard. They range from woad for a full range of blues, madder root for shades of red and onions for yellows. Soakings of seaweed, daffodil and ladies bedstraw were also on display.

The spell was too great to resist. After trying on and sampling we bought a flat cap and scarf each, then sat out in the yard on a bench, backs to the wall, eating the shop’s very tasty home made bridies (pasties) and taking in the wonderful views. The farm has open trails over its land so we followed the obvious one down through the prize acreage of flat meadow grazed by the cattle, over the machair grassed dunes and down onto the huge sweep of shell sand, defined at the edges by impressive outcrops of ancient rock formations.

Out at sea a ship rode at anchor. Later told it was a maintenance vessel for the official authorities range of maritime fixtures, from lights to buoys. We strolled along the deserted strand, a clean smart breeze in our faces, with hardly a soul in sight, pausing to take in a fine view south of the Paps of Jura. It reminded us that the last time we’d gazed southwards towards those island mountains was on our honeymoon, from the isle of Colonsay, two summers since.

There can be few such small islands (all of 1 mile wide x 3 miles long) that pack so much variety into such a small space and have such a rich spiritual inheritance as Iona. Leaving the car behind at Fionnaphort after an hour’s drive across the Ross of Mull on single track roads was a welcome moment. Only the few hundred residents and essential delivery services are allowed to bring their vehicles over.

It’s a brief ferry journey over the Sound to the Isle’s township of Baile Mor. We were greeted on landing by old friends who retired to live here permanently eight years ago. Not wanting to impose ourselves on them we’d booked a room at one of the two island hotels. A real bonus though in being hosted for excursions or supper at home, getting the inside stories while watching the world go by from the front garden of their home overlooking the sea. We also enjoyed conversations with fellow guests at the St Columba hotel. Many were North Americans on the ancestry trail, combining that with a visit to the iconic medieval abbey, adjacent museum and Augustinian nunnery founded by Ranald, Lord of the Isles, around 1200.

The latter was my favourite building, remarkably well preserved considering its disuse since the reformation, with an atmosphere all of its own. One roofless space leads on to another, from the former church into remains of cloisters, refectory and chapter house with stone benches around the walls. This all helps to create a lingering sense of the stern religious life led here by these aristocratic women and the female pilgrims they hosted.

Founded in AD 563 by Irish monks led by St Columba the abbey quickly established itself as the centre of Christian learning and practice in Scotland and, through the saint’s successors, went on into Northumbria at Lindisfarne and beyond. The tradition of pilgrimage to the island following Columba’s death in AD 597 saw many Scottish kings and nobles buried in the abbey’s precepts. In more recent times the late Labour Leader John Smith (1938-1994) was interred in the extension to the graveyard.

The Abbey’s impressive interior exudes a simple unadorned solemnity, lit and lifted by reflected sea light, original gothic segments merged with rebuilt fabric, intricate detail filling resonant spaces. Water ingress has been a major problem in recent times and repair work is continuing. We were fascinated by the damp loving ferns growing profusely from the mortar between blocks of wall stone.

There’s an original medieval wayside marker en route to the abbey (Maclean’s Cross) and another grander one (St Martin’s) by St Columba’s shrine at the Abbey’s main entrance. One of the very few places in the country where such  devotional monuments can still be seen in situ. The pilgrims paved path on which the series of guiding high crosses were situated, dates from the 700’s and is known as ‘The Street of the Dead’.

The Abbey Museum has a fantastic collection of ancient stone crosses and gravestone markers, cleverly lit and displayed for maximum visual impact. These effigies of warlords and clan chiefs carved in stone are powerful reminders of their status in life and need to be suitably presentable in death. Interesting too that nearly all monuments were carved elsewhere then transported by boat.

The abbey was restored in the early 20^th Century by the devout 8^th Duke of Argyll, Iona’s owner, who was later buried here with his wife in a side chapel. More major work was undertaken in the 1930s by members of what became known as the Iona Community, led by Rev. George MacLeod, a charismatic Glasgow cleric.

The arts & crafts style influenced cloisters and some of the interior rebuild dates from then. Since 1980 much of the island has been in the care of the National Trust for Scotland while the heritage religious structures fall under the auspices of Historic Scotland.

The local community founded and runs a heritage centre and café in the old schoolhouse. (The modern primary school is nearby) It’s a place echoing to the sound track of a rookery in the lush sheltered woods behind and ewes with their bleating lambs on the glebe meadow in front.

Our friends love the life here and are active in community affairs, despite some mobility issues. Fund raising for a new all purpose community centre, helping run the folk museum and organising or supporting a whole range of social activities. Housing is a big issue on all the Western Isles. Not enough of it and the extra costs of materials, transport and accommodation for builders all add greatly to costs. Yet the demand remains great. A small old house overlooking the quayside recently sold for £1 million.

Thrilled to catch the unmistakable call of the corncrake. This rare farmland bird – a member of the rail family and related to coots and moorhens – was once widespread and survives here thanks to the island’s low impact traditional farming practice which allows them to nest on the ground in peace.. Although we heard their trademark harsh rachet of a song we never once saw them. The birds had flown in from Mozambique the month before for their summer holiday, secreting themselves away in reedbeds, clumps of flag iris (a surprisingly profuse grower here) and other vegetation. Another African migrant and threatened species we did manage to see as well as hear was the cuckoo.

The Columba is run by a partnership of business people who are members of the Iona Community and a good portion of their bookings revolve around the needs of retreats and pilgrims, hence the quiet ease and comfort. Every room has a radio but no TV. Situated next to the Abbey grounds, it has no car park but runs an electric minibus pick up service to and from the quay. The entry to reception is via a grass track through the grounds with lovely panoramic views over the sound. The Argyll and the Columba hotels share extensive and well managed organic vegetable gardens open to the public to supply their respective kitchens.

Our friends arranged a walk over the hill to the wild coast facing the Atlantic, appropriately called ‘Bay at the Back of the Ocean’. On the way there we passed a lot of returning walkers. We’d earlier seen these passengers from a cruise ship, moored to the north, near the island of Staffa, arrive at the pier in batches. They were ferried in at high speed on ribs and we joked that these particular immigrants in small boats would be welcomed ashore as they had money to spend and didn’t intend staying longer than a few hours. More seriously we were informed that some cruise ships in the Hebrides have a greater population of passengers than Mull itself (3,000) and dealing with that kind of mass tourism is a major challenge to island communities not just here but the world over.

No inhabited Scottish island of any importance fails to boast a golf course and Iona is no exception. The windswept green gives way to more protected areas of rare machair grassland (sandy soil traditionally grazed by low levels of stock) currently awash with daisies and other tiny flowers. That in turn leads to wide white beaches of tiny pieces of crushed shell between dark rocky promontories.

Delighted to discover that Iona is a place where snails go on holiday. Abandoning their normal mud coloured shells for beach ready shades of blue and white that are more appropriate to this environment. And of course those shells will eventually contribute to the wonderful beach’s long term sustainability along with all the crustaceans.

Although only on Iona for a few days we already know we’ll be back to experience more of what this remarkable island has to offer.