Or is it the Avon?
It's a joy to catch the first bright weekend in April. Timing is everything. Rainy days have their place, for their colours, the cool and having a path to yourself. But it's hard to rival a fresh and breezy spring weekend: the sun deciding to show itself generously for the first time in the year, the clouds suddenly dispossessed and hurrying across a half-empty sky
Would you spend those luminous two days pondering on the last journey of the dead? Well, maybe you would if you were walking the final stretch of the Sarsen Way, passing close to Stonehenge and other ancient circles. Why? Because this is precisely the subject which preoccupied the builders of these prehistoric structures as they went about their heavy work: the journey from the living world they knew to the unknown places beyond. They, as much as any people in human history, speculated about the point of their existence and made efforts to ease the passage of their loved ones towards what was to follow.
In a minute we'll get to the link between the Styx and the Avon, relentless and swelling after all the rain. But first, the Sarsen Way.
This little-known combination of ancient paths and by-ways takes you from the Ridgeway down to Salisbury, passing over the heights of Adam's Grave and through the earth wall of Wansdyke (see previous post), then following the winding course of the Avon to Salisbury. Don't confuse the Avon here with the other Avon rivers, which are many. Some call this one the Salisbury Avon.
The Avon at Salisbury
In April this Avon valley is painted with green woods and yellow fields of rape. There are lambs leaping about, grass snakes relishing the flooded watermeadows and new ferns unfurling themselves under the trees. The path is white in places, like the Ridgeway, the thin covering of earth and grass scraped away by countless Vibram-soled boots to reveal the chalk beneath. Here and there, muddy puddles block the route.
A succession of rickety wooden bridges and tarmac roads takes you back and forth across the river. The walking, after the uplands around Adam's Grave, is easy and flat. You will lose count of the thatched cottages and puzzle, perhaps, over the number of thatched walls. We decided these pleasing walls must be of cob, with the thatch added to protect them and prevent the structures from disintegrating into a porridgy heaps of chalk and silt.
Thatched walls. And cottages...
A last section, long and straight, takes you out of the cut of the valley to arrive at the Iron Age hill fort, Roman settlement and medieval castle of Old Sarum.
Old Sarum, overlooking Salisbury
Now, what about the Styx, that mythical river of classical times that brought you to the underworld? The Styx was in your way - you had to pay the boatman, Charon, to take you across - but it was also the route to your post-death existence in Hades. A few days ago, looking into the depths of the Avon, churning and ballooning with excess water, there was something grey and Styx-like in its depths. Unlike the clear chalk streams higher up, the river in April seemed impenetrable and mysterious.
How did the late Stone Age and Bronze Age people of southern England view this river? If you walk the Sarsen Way you are in a special position to understand. Although you pass stones and barrows, the path avoids the great sites: Woodhenge, Durrington Walls and Stonehenge itself. You can take a detour and visit them but the route itself, especially in its later stages, follows the Avon. You have time to think about what this river represented to those who lived here between four and five thousand years ago and the many, even then, who travelled great distances to visit.
Some archaeologists now believe that there is a reason why Woodhenge was built from living wood, quite apart from the fact that wood was easier to work with. The wood represented something. Durrington Walls had timber circles as well, and was a very large settlement with many hundreds of homes. It was a place for the living, and perhaps also a staging post. And Stonehenge? It was a place fashioned out of cold stone, a place for the dead, a place for them to begin whatever their second existence had in store for them.
In his approachable book, "Stonehenge", the archaeologist, Francis Pryor, lays out this theory in an engaging way. He explains how the Avon might have been viewed as a link between the world of the living and the world of the dead. When someone died, the family might begin the process of dealing with the bereavement with ceremonies at Durrington or Woodhenge, then transport the body down the river, around its intricate curls, to a convenient disembarking point closer to the dramatic portals of Stonehenge. Maybe here they lingered over a final farewell, a wealthier family indulging in an elaborate burial close to the stones for their lost loved one. It made no difference that the river route was circuitous and lengthy. That made the journey even more of a ritual.
Norman doorway
The Sarsen Way takes you past some more recent, but still very old sights. One is the Norman church of St Andrew in Great Durnford. It crouches like an unintended relic that has survived by keeping its head down. Its walls are patched, its wooden porches crooked, its gravestones tilted at wild angles. It is a survivor, in fact, being one of the few medieval churches to escape the attentions of Victorian restorers and rebuilders. You can savour its Norman doors, its old font, and 14th Century pews, all left as they were.
St Andrew, Great Durnford, from the 12th Century
How does the walk end? We explored the ramparts and castle of Old Sarum (£7.20 to enter) and ate our lunch on one of the remaining stone walls, before descending the final couple of miles into Salisbury to sit in the choir stalls at the Cathedral and listen to Evensong.
Closing in on Salisbury, the Cathedral spire showing the way
Since I wrote this, Cicerone have sent me their new guide to the Sarsen Way (see below), which is a very handy companion and nicely slim to chuck in your day pack. It has the typical Cicerone section by section breakdown of the route, so you can complete it in bite-sized chunks or as concentrated walk of a few days, whatever suits. I particularly like the fact that they've included the Cranborne Droves Way, carrying on South West of Salisbury, which is your next challenge if you are aiming to walk on and joun the Wessex Ridgeway and reach the sea at Lyme.
Credit: "Stonehenge: The Story of a Sacred Landscape" by Francis Pryor
Newly published!! "Walking the Sarsen Way" by Steve Davison, from Cicerone Guides
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