Lindow Moss

 Location: Wilmslow, Cheshire

If you want to know what a liminal place was for the ancient Celtic people of this land, look no further than Lindow Moss, in Cheshire.

Located next to the well-healed commuter town of Wilmslow, where the 1% of Greater Manchester live, not a lot of the original moss is left.

However if you visit Lindow Common, on the outskirts of the town, preferably in the early morning, when the dog walkers are thinner on the ground, and ideally when a mist still hangs over the waters of the mere, you get some idea of what it was like here two thousand years ago. Seeing your reflection in the black water, the Otherworld of Celtic myth, a place of light and shadow, joy and terror, that lurks just beneath or below our world, can seem very real.

Most of the rest of the moss has now been drained, allowing the peat that has built up over the centuries to be dig up and used as an extremely unsustainable form of compost. In 1984 it was peat cutters who found the person who makes this area famous: Lindow Man, or, as the locals called him, Pete Marsh.

What they actually found first was the head of a woman. The police used the discovery to prompt a Mr Reyn-Bardt to confess to the murder of his wife in 1960, but it turned out the body was much more interesting, being nearly 2000 years old.

The next year the even better preserved body of Lindow Man was found. A healthy young man, who had done no hard labour prior to his death, he was naked and died either by strangulation by a  leather cord, a blow to the head, drowning, or possibly all three. He also had traces of mistletoe in his stomach, a plant sacred to the Druids. His 'triple death' mirrors that recorded in Celtic myth, and coupled with the liminal place in which he was found, suggests human sacrifice. We can't be sure, and don't know if he was genuinely posh, or just given a year or so of living like king in exchange for being given a ritual death.

Radio carbon dating places his death in approximately the first century AD, right about the time that the Romans were conquering this part of the known world. Could Lindow Man have been an offering to the Gods, asking them to turn back the seemingly unstoppable legions with their suspiciously straight roads?

When I first came to this area it was also to stop something. As anyone who visits the place will immediately notice, we are right next to Manchester airport here. In 1997 protesters were occupying land nearby to stop the construction of a second runway, living in primitive camps. I, like the notorious human mole Swampy, was busy digging myself into the clay soil, with the aim of making it more difficult for us to be evicted, and hoping I would not be sacrificing myself in the process.

In the end we were all removed by the forces of law and order, and just before the construction crews moved in, archaeologists were allowed to explore the area. Underneath our camp they found the remains of a bronze age village.

Did the people of this village know Pete Marsh, I wonder? And if so, what did they do when they
realised their magic had not worked? Did they continue to visit this liminal place, and to worship the old gods, or did their faith come to an end?

I didn't stop Manchester Airport's second trunway either, but I still visit the moss. On one day in April 2010 my faith was rewarded though. An Icelandic volcano had grounded flights, and I walked across the moss to an airport that was as silent as the woods I passed through. For a little while I could pretend we'd won. 

So this is a very special liminal place for me, one that links this world to the Otherworld, the present to the Celtic past and my life as it is now to the more carefree days of my youth.

Incidentally, ignore the grid reference for the location of the find given on Wikipedia, in the guide book and the various press releases. The actual spot is just off Moor Lane. Peat cutting has now finished here, so nobody knows if there are more bodies waiting to be discovered, including the unfortunately Mrs Reyn-Bardt.

Isles of Brexit

Four years ago Danny's Boyle's Isles of Wonder opened the 2012 London Olympics.

Everyone said the show would not be as extravagant or spectacular as Beijing in 2008. It wasn't.

The press also uniformly said it would be embarrassingly awful. It wasn't.

Instead the director of Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire delivered a show that was quirky, creative, amusing, touching and progressive.

After Bradley Wiggins rang the great bell, the Industrial Revolution literally burst out of England's Green and Pleasant Land to the sound of a thousand drummers. It brought with it a new industrial working class, the Suffragettes, the horrors of  Great War and immigration on the Empire Windrush, until the fifth Olympic ring rose out of the smoke, seemingly forged in the sweat and blood of two hundred years of history. It was an immensely powerful moment.

James Bond and a stunt double made the arrival of the Her Majesty interesting, for a change, in a section that is worth watching again if only for the look on Daniel Craig's face when he appears to be wondering what the hell is going on. A choir of deaf children sung God Save the Queen, then, to the theme tune of The Exorcist and narration by J K Rowling, a host of villains from children's fiction appeared to threaten the staff and patients of the NHS. Mary Poppins drops in to rescue everyone, and then it was Mr Bean helping the London Philharmonic play Vangelis' theme tune to Chariots of Fire.

Next  we had a medley of pop and rock hits from the sixties to the noughties, complete with pogoing
punks, twisted firestarters and all, as a background to a story of multi-racial romance during a night out on the town, which in turn was just a prelude to introducing to the world Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the internet, and then gave it away for free.

There was more: a spectacular modern dance to an acappella version of Abide with Me, the Arctic Monkey's, flying bicycles, David Beckham and a starting attractive female footballer on a boat, Paul McCartney and the amazing 204 piece Olympic Torch. Somewhere along the way some athletes came in too, but I went to get some supper at that point.

London had welcomed the world to the biggest party of the year. With the help of 9000 volunteers we had celebrated being the nation that had given the world an industrial revolution, a musical revolution and an information revolution. We had shown we were at peace with our history, comfortable with diversity and proud of our health service, our popular music and our children's stories.

The lad from Lancashire had pulled it off. Giles Coren, who had filed a scathing review before the ceremony had even opened, quickly had to have it pulled as he loved the show so much. The press, who 24 hours before had been predicting disaster, where ecstatic.

Everyone was happy.

Or almost everyone. Conservative MP Aidan Burley, a man who likes to attend Nazi-themes parties, called it "leftie multicultural crap", but he was a lonely voice on Twitter that night.

Fast forward four years and though, and that summer evening seems like it took place in a different country.

Events like these move to a different rhythm to the electoral cycles. Just as New Labour inherited the Tory's Millennium Dome, an empty shed which they filled with an exhibition designed by a committee, so it was the ConDems that inherited the event that Labour had brought to London. They tried to remove the NHS section and replace it with fighting Hitler, but Boyle stood his ground. Boris's intervention gave the Olympics a White Elephant of a stadium and erased the affordable houses. Finally infamous private security company G4S cocked up big style and the army had to be brought in to provide security.

Corporate failure and gentrification affected the rest of the country too as austerity began to bite. Twelve months earlier social decay had made a rare entry into the news as the country had been convulsed by riots. But the show still went on.

When it all ended, with an almost equally amazing steampunk and Druidic paralympic closing ceremony, spending £9 billion pounds playing games in east London didn't seem quite as mad as it had done a month or so earlier.

But whatever the benefits to the nation were, they have been totally swallowed by the austerity that followed. At the top level English sport is doing well, but at the bottom our schools are home to some of the least fit, and least happy, children in the world. The NHS is in crisis.

Then there was Brexit. Outside of London, it appeared, a majority of people would prefer to wallow in hubris of lost imperial glory rather than have an immigrant for a neighbour.

Why the nation took collective leave of its senses and voted out is question that is still being debated, but as depressed newspeople went around the country recording the verbal diarrhoea of Brexiters one message came out crystal clear: this was a vote against 'leftie multicultural crap'.

Poor old Danny Boyle. He had pulled off a blinder, an artistic event that will be remembered when the sporting triumphs are forgotten, but alas neither art, nor sport, can really change the world.

Progress will continue, I hope, but England has left the party.

Watch the ceremony in full here.

Top Ten Things To Do Whilst You're In England

Hadrians Wall and Win Sill (Rod Edwards)

Dear visitor to our shores,

Our country doesn't always come across terribly well to outsiders.

We've carried on invading people long after everyone else dropped out of the Empire building game, and if we don't send our tanks our football fans can be just as unwelcome abroad. At home we neglect our elderly but protect our Bankers.

Oh dear.

2012 London Olympics (wikicommons)

But there is another side to England, the polyglot country of Celt and Vikings and Anglo-Saxon and Norman and many, many others, that had trial by jury and habeas corpus before the Middle Ages were done, that killed its King one hundred and fifty years before the French Revolution, that voluntarily abandoned slavery, that welcomed refugee Jews and Huguenots and revolutionary Russians, that spent the accumulated fortune of a century on defeating fascism and then celebrated by founding the Welfare State and giving away the largest Empire the world has ever seen, which faced down the spectre of racial conflict and instead opted for tolerance and diversity and which, when it welcomed the world to the 2012 Olympics, decided to showcase the National Health Service and rock music.

So please come and see us some time.

But whilst you're here, what should you do? Here are my suggestions.

1. See what we've stolen off you

Lord Elgin's chess set

Before you all came to see us, we came to see you. Unfortunately some of these early tourists came away from your countries with a little bit more than just memories.

The Elgin Marbles are the most famous, but there's a lot more. Fortunately, not only can you can see most of this stuff for free whilst you're here, but we've also built some pretty impressive museums to house it all in.

The Natural History Museum is the most impressive building. You almost expect Professor Challenger to come marching up the stairs with the Pterodactyl he's just caught in the Lost World. The British Museum must be next best, with its new dome making an interesting blend of classical and modern.

Natural History Museum by Raymond Choo, My Shot

Of course, not all the stuff on show is loot. From dinosaur skeletons to Roman remains, a lot is genuinely ours. You can see the Sutton Hoo treasure in the British Museum or - even better in my opinion - see some of it where it was found in Suffolk.

It's also not just ancient junk. In Manchester you can look at a replica of the 1966 World Cup in the Manchester in the National Football Museum, pretend to be Eric Cantona at Old Trafford or learn about the Peterloo Massacre in the People's History Museum.

And there's plenty more to see. Just don't ask if you can take any of it back home with you.

2. Eat fish and chips on the beach

Fish and Chips in Staithes, North Yorkshire (AH McKay)

We English are more famous for our sense of humour than our food. However, I did know a foreign lady once who was very fond of the traditional offal dishes I prepared for her. She enjoyed my kidneys in red wine and oxtail in beer, but her favourite was my Tongue in Cider.

Oh dear, a double entendre appears to have inserted itself into this blog. If I find another I'll whip it out...

Okay, maybe we should forget the jokes as well and stick to what we know; bland food.

Fish and chips is a product of the Industrial Revolution, when railways allowed fresh fish to be brought to the big cities and Working Class people could afford to eat out for the first time. Once the

Fish and chip in Hunstanton, 1973

Trade Unions had managed to get the employers to agree to Bank Holidays the same trains took the workers to the seaside. Where better to enjoy your fish and chips?

Now looking at the seas off these islands you could be forgiven for thinking that the fish isn't likely to be very fresh even when it's alive, but don't worry, once it's been deep fried and drowned in vinegar you won't notice. Preferably it should be cooked in beef dripping, but that's rare outside of Yorkshire, and then served with mushy peas, although they are often confused for avocado dip in these more cosmopolitan times.

Abroad the beach may mean sun, sand and sex, but in cold, wet and repressed England it means fish and chips. As I said, it's best when we stick to what we know.

3. Drink a pint warm beer

Real ale at the Guy Fawkes Inn, York, North Yorkshire

The English drunk is not a pretty sight.

Whilst the ritual of knocking back as much as you can in the last ten minutes before the bar shuts at eleven is mostly a thing of the past, I would strenuously recommend you avoid the sort of places where that sort of behaviour still goes on. You can usually spot these places by the trendy music and trendier clientèle.

Instead head off to somewhere a little more rustic. Our milds and bitters may be a bit of an acquired taste, but there is real art in some of those ales. Watch out for the Big Brand nitro-keg ales that are a poor substitute for the real thing and go for the ones with the weird names by companies you've never heard of.

And don't worry if you're a lady, women drink pints as well now.

4. Walk in the hills

Kinder Scout, Derbyshire (M Porter)

Look at a map of England and you will see that half of the country is north of the Humber estuary. This may come as a surprise to many people, including the BBC and most of our politicians.

This forgotten half of the country is mainly famous for grim cities with great football teams, but in reality most of it is hills. We really can't pass them off as mountains, not to people who know the Peloponnese or the Pyrenees or the Alps, but they aren't bad. The Lake District is the really pretty bit, but that makes it busy and some of the 'hills' can be hard work to climb.

High Cup Nick, Cumbria (M Porter)

Running up the centre of the country are the Pennines, which includes some of the most the most gob-smacking beautiful - and peaceful - countryside in England.

The Pennine Way runs from Kinder Scout above Glossop, famous for the Mass Trespass that opened up the hills to ordinary folk, over Black Hill towards the Yorkshire Dales and lovely Malham Cove, ascends Pen y Ghent and on to Cauldron Snout and High Cup Nick before coming up against Win Sill.

This a ridge running the width of the country that provides fine views towards Scotland. Some Italian visitors a couple of thousand years ago adorned it with a long wall and some attendant forts, which makes walking it even more interesting. Kevin Costner even called by once.

The weather up here can be foul, but it can also be divine, and being England it is never too cold, or too warm, for a walk.

5. Attend a ritual at a stone circle

2014 Summer Solstice at Stonehenge (Paul Townsend)

Wild nature is all very well, but the urge to adorn it is only human.

Given that England is a country where the idea of cafes that open after 6PM is still a novelty, it may seem strange to claim we were ever amongst the more civilised nations in Europe, but four thousand years ago we might have been. Before even the Egyptians were building pyramids, we were constructing giant astronomical temples in the landscape.

Handfasting at Avebury (Wikicommons)

Everyone has heard of Stonehenge, but this is just one of over one thousand stone circles that once covered these islands. Most are now gone, but a hundred or so still stand. What's more, thanks to a revival of Paganism over the last few decades, they are mostly still in use. I've even helped to add a new one myself.

Modern Druidism has its origins in eighteenth century Welsh nationalism. These days though it's open to all and part of a Druid ritual actually made it into the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Paralympics.

Along with Wicca - the only religion England has ever given the world - these modern Pagans can often be seen in stone circles taking part in rituals either public or private. Contrary to rumours, we tend to keep our clothes on.

Mostly.

Avebury Stone Circle at night copyright (Mystical Crafts & Gifts)

Since the national disgrace that was the visitors centre has now been replaced it's worth visiting Stonehenge again. To get the authentic experience you need to go on one of the Quarter Days when the stones are opened up for giant Pagan party. Midsummer is the big one, although midwinter is the celebration the stones were actually built for. The days when these gatherings ended with a charge by the riot police are thankfully long gone and it's a party atmosphere now.

If you prefer your ancient relics free and open to everyone all year round then nearby Avebury is the biggest stone circle in the country and the rituals there are smaller and more spontaneous. For a more spiritual experience though, head away from where the crowds are. A visit to smaller circle on the moors under a full moon is a profound experience.

6. Visit a romantic castle

Bamburgh Castle alias Le Joyous Gard

In 1066 some less welcome foreign tourists dropped by in England. They killed our King, wiped out a significant proportion of the population and nicked all the best land. And the damn thing is they've still got most of it, but that's another story.

However the upside of these skivers coming over here and opting for an easy life living off the backs of ordinary, hard working families is that they had to build some really quite wonderful castles in order to stop the common people lynching them.

Or rather they made the common people build them some wonderful castles.

Alnwick Castle alias Hogwarts

In due a course efforts were made to tame the excesses of this psychopathic 1% and so chivalry was born. Rather like the good folk to try to make evil corporations do the right thing, the effort was mostly worthless, although there were some fine exceptions.

Sir Thomas Malory's Le Mort D'Arthur  is probably the finest testament to Chivalry. You have to flick through to the good bits, and most of the stories were nicked off the Welsh, but there is some decent stuff in there, and once you are in true Romantic mode you can view these castles as they really aren't.

Knights of the Damned (M Porter)

The finest castle in England, as far as Malory was concerned, was Sir Lancelot's Joyeus Garde. This was almost certainly based on Bamburgh castle in Northumbria which Malory besieged during one of
our less-than-romantic civil wars. As it's built on the beach and looks out over the Abbey of Lindesfarne, castles don't come much more romantic than this.

But whilst all our great castles are wonderful when it is just you and your imagination, to get the authentic sight, sound and unfortunately smell of the Age of Chivalry, you need to go to a re-enactment. Whether it is a noble joust or a massive brawl, we do these things quite well now and a really big event is a spectacle not to missed.

7. Picnic in the grounds of a stately home

Chatsworth House

Fast forward a few hundred and the aristos still live a life of comfort and ease whilst the workers toiled in the factories to pay for it all. However by 1913 the proles are getting a bit restless and the only reason we don't have a Class War was that we had a World War instead.

The legacy of this era is some of the finest domestic architecture in Europe and, thanks to a century of Death Duties, most of it is open to the public. The houses can be magnificent, but sometimes the grounds are in are even more spectacular. Under the guidance of landscape architects like 'Capability' Brown and Joseph Paxton, armies of labourers demolished peasant hovels, levelled hills and planted trees with the aim of creating "nature perfected".

To enjoy them just pack the cucumber sandwiches and the champaign, or the Scotch eggs and cider, or the pie and the bottle of ale or....well, you get the idea. As long as you don't forget the umbrella and the mac.

8. Watch a cricket match

Cricket at Ashford-on-the-Water (Mick Garratt)

Another reasons given for why we never had that revolution is that the aristocrats did at least play games with peasants they were oppressing.

When it comes to international sports we English invented most of them, although in the spirit of true sportsmanship we now let other people win.

The most English of sports is surely cricket. With the white clothes, rituals and traditional use of willow, cork and leather I'd love to claim that this is some legacy of the ancient druids, but the truth is the game was probably invented by the French.

Test Match cricket is clearly the top of the tree, County Cricket is for the serious fan only and 20/20 Cricket is for people who would really rather be watching football, but village cricket is for the Romantic. Here's one misty eyed description of village cricket, from a court judgement of all places:

In summertime village cricket is the delight of everyone. Nearly every village has its own cricket field where the young men play and the old men watch. In the village of Lintz in County Durham they have their own ground, where they have played these last 70 years. They tend it well. The wicket area is well rolled and mown. The outfield is kept short. It has a good club house for the players and seats for the onlookers. The village team play there on Saturdays and Sundays. They belong to a league, competing with the neighbouring villages. On other evenings after work they practise while the light lasts.

Dad takes a catch (M Porter)

This was the late Lord Denning, a poetic judge, but also a part of the Establishment. He kept the Birmingham Six in prison, even though he knew they were innocent, as to let them go would make the system look bad. The Establishment has always liked cricket.

A game of subtlety that requires patience and concentration to enjoy, cricket also lasts long enough to have a picnic and get gloriously drunk, although maybe not quite long enough for you to learn all its fiendishly complexities.

However the best games of cricket are those you play with your family, perhaps after your picnic or on the beach before you eat your fish and chips.

9. Go to a music festival

Metallica Glastonbury 2014 (BBC)

But if cricket is a bit dull for you, then perhaps music is more your thing. The days when we could claim English music ruled the world ended with the demise of Britpop, if not the Beatles, but our festivals are still pretty good.

Your modern music festival has its origins in the USA with Monterey, although the Beaulieu Jazz Festivals that started in the mid-fifties blazed a bit of a trail.

The ideal British music festival aims for an atmosphere somewhere between Lord of the Rings and Woodstock, but thanks to our weather often ends up a cross between Waterworld and Passchendaele.

Glastonbury is the big one, although as everyone knows it isn't as good as it used to be and never was. Then there's Cambridge for the folkies, Donnington (alias Download) for the metal heads, Hawkfest for the ageing hippies, Beautiful Days, for those who remember Glasto as it used to be etc etc.

My favourite though takes place in a field in Oxfordshire the second weekend of August.

10.  Visit the neighbours

The Giants Causeway, Northern Ireland (Wikicommons)

England is not alone in the world, although some of its residents seem to think it is, and one of the best things about living here is our wonderful neighbours. They might not think it's so wonderful having us next door, but that's a different matter.

Wales is but a short drive from most of the country, Scotland a longer but much more interesting drive, and Ireland and Northern Ireland are only a short ferry journey away.

All are nations in their own right, except for Northern Ireland which hangs in a sort of legal limbo and so is known as 'The Province', and all are custodians of a Celtic heritage that used to be England's as well.

Bron-Yr-Aur, Machynlleth, Wales (M.Porter)

The scenery is amazing, the culture fantastic and you'll receive a really warm welcome, especially once they realise you're not English.

From Northern Ireland's Causeway Coast, where Led Zeppelin got the cover of Houses of the Holy, to the little cottage in Wales where Led Zeppelin recorded part of their third album, you'll find plenty to surprise and delight.

I haven't space to tell you everything about them unfortunately, and anyway this is a blog about England, my England, a place I love but not so much that I don't want to change it, and a place I hope you will visit soon.

Great Trees of England #4: King of Limbs

M Porter

As the Joshua Tree is in the USA, and the Porcupine Tree isn't real, I guess this is the only British tree with a rock album named after it.

Thom Yorke doesn't like the album being called 'experimental', but to my folk and metal attuned ears that's what it sounds like. A native of neighbouring Oxfordshire, he said he chose to name it after a tree over the border in Wiltshire as "environmental worries in my head have become this weird obsession."

King of Limbs is one of several 'significant' trees in the mighty Savernake forest. This wonderful place, on the edge of the almost equally wonderful town of Marlborough, is four and a half thousand acres of oak and beech forest. It is the only ancient woodland in England in which you can really lose yourself.

M Porter

There is history here. A Roman road crosses it, it is mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon document of 934AD, it was given away as war booty by William the Conqueror, Henry VIII met one of his father-in-law's here and in World War II it was an ammunition dump.

The forest is owned by the Earl of Cardigan, descendant of him of Light Brigade fame. In 1985 a convoy of New Age Travellers camped there before heading off the next day to their own Valley of Death in the Battle of the Beanfield.

This recent heritage sits lightly on the forest. Under the canopy of great trees I think of Roger Deacon's phrase that being in a forest is like being under the ocean, with the tops of the trees the surface. Immersed in this great inland sea of green it is just about possible to imagine a time when the trees really did stretch across this land from ocean to ocean.

Thanks to a smart little Forestry Commission run camp site you can stay virtually in the wood itself. If you are lucky to enjoy a clear night and a full moon then you can explore the forest by night and enter a truly magical world.

The sentinels of this night realm are the mighty oaks. All told there are close to a hundred important trees here. Indeed, it is thought that there is nowhere else in Europe you can find so many grand old veterans as in Savernake.

c. Zachariah Wildwood and Donald Twain.

According to local legend Merlin is buried next door in the grounds of Marlborough College. The Victorian designer and socialist William Morris was a pupil there and explored the woods in his spare time. Along with the other forests of his youth; Epping and the New Forest, the spirit of Savernake infused his writing.

In his later life, his socialist dreams in tatters and his marriage a sober ménage a trois with the Pre- Raphaelite painter and poet and Dante Gabrielle Rossetti, he escaped into a literary fantasy world. In The Wood Beyond The World the hero, betrayed by his wife, is haunted by the vision of beautiful woman who the hero eventually meets beyond a primeval forest.

M Porter

The quest for the King of Limbs is an enchanting walk across the length of the forest. On the way I
pass through the Arboretum and find myself rather incongruously standing next to a coastal redwood tree from California. I've campaigned to save these trees, but never expected to meet one in person.

Awesome though these foreigners are, they don't compare with the mighty oaks and beeches of the forest. The former outnumber the latter as they tend to fall over in storms. With wonderful names such as Spider Oak and Old Paunchy each old tree is a character in itself. To get to King of Limbs though I need to leave the broadleaf forest behind and enter the coniferous plantation that is the east of Savernak.

M Porter

Eventually the distintive profile of King of Limbs comes into sight through the fir trees. It is not the tallest or the largest tree in the forest, but it has the most dramatic profile, a great fan of limbs, and being set amongest short lived evergreens gives it the air of a venerable elder amongst juvenile trees. Like many of the older oaks it is also hollow, a place a to shelter from the English weather.

We are now on the edge of the forest and the real world of intensive mono-crops is starting to intrude. Just beyond the edge of the wood, in its own grounds, is Tottenham Court House, an "old country pile ... crumbling at the seams." where Radiohead recorded part of their album In Rainbows.

Perhaps Radiohead's music is not the first thing that comes to mind in Savernake Forest. Trad. instruments round the fire or the singing of distant harps would at first seem more appropriate,  but just as William Morris found an inspiration here that helped him transcend the ugliness of Victorian England and enter a proto-Middle Earth, the other-worldliness of these trees takes you to places in your imagination that you never expected to go, and that can include progressive indie rock.

Great Trees of England: #3 Major Oak

Why can't they just let the thing die?

Well, because it's a huge tourist attraction, one that draws visitors from all round the world to the centre of England. They overlook the decrepit, seventies visitors centre and head off into trees, imagining themselves back in Merrie England.

At the heart of what's left of Sherwood Forest is Major Oak, a geriatric old tree held up with scaffolding. You don't get many oak trees this large and this old still standing. Most fell over in the great storm of 1987 and, tragically, were subsequently chopped up and taken away. Tragic, because even a dead oak is still an amazing ecosystem. Major Oak, even if horizontal, would still be something amazing.

But surely even the most gullible tourist can't really believe that Robin Hood and Maid Marion really courted beneath its branches. This isn't a giant redwood, and even with the most optimistic dating the tree can't have been much more than an acorn when bad King John ruled the land.

Not that anyone really thought it did until relatively recently. It was originally 'The Major's oak', a reference to one Major Hayman Rooke, a Georgian antiquarian who went around cataloguing   significant oak trees and drew a picture of it. Tourists soon followed and before long the tree had an important role in the story of England's most famous outlaw.

However as well as having the wrong tree, they may even have been in the wrong part of the country. The first version of the story (c1420) has him in Cumbria and the next two in Barnsdale, Yorkshire. Medieval England was peppered with Robins and Hoods and the most promising candidates come from York and Northamptonshire, not Nottinghamshire. So the odds against the chap in green being a Notts Forest supporter look rather slim.

However there is hope. A 15th century manuscript in Lincoln Cathedral Library that mentions "Robyn hod in scherewood stod, Hodud and hathud, hosut and schod. Ffour and thuynti arowus he bar in hi hondus". This is pretty cryptic but translates as  "Robin Hood in Sherwood stood, Hooded and hatted, hosed and shod. Four and twenty arrows he bore In his hands", so here you have the man and his bow in the Sherwood Forest.

So there is a chance that the man himself was once here.

And even if he wasn't, other outlaws were. One Roger Godbeard, for example, had a price put on his head in 1270. It is not known if it was collected.

Sherwood Forest in those days was 95,000 acres and stretched from Nottingham to Worksop.

There is less of it now, but is still magical. The paths keep the visitors from trampling the undergrowth and so if you slip over the fence in the early morning or evening twilight you are in an unmistakably ancient forest.

And Major Oak itself is a majestic tree. Up close it turns out to be hollow and apparently made of plastic, a result of conservation measures. Someone skinny could even slip inside.

I don't try, lest I damage the most famous tree in England. Or rather trees for either by Nature, or the hand of Man, it is believed to be at least two trees welded together so thoroughly that you can't see the join. Similarly whether or not England's most famous outlaw really did walk these woods, and pass it by when it was a sapling, his legend has so completely fused with this place, and this tree, that they will forever be joined.

Protest Walks #2: Bluebells in Stanworth Valley

This is a five hour walk through Lancashire countryside that takes in a secret Holy Well, a tower celebrating a Victorian right to roam and the scene of Britain's first almost entirely aerial road protest.

The walk starts at the Roddlesworth Cafe and Information Centre Tockholes, Darwen, Lancashire, BB3 0PA. There is a public car park next to the Royal Arms pub and the number 223 bus runs between Blackburn and Tockholes four times a day.

The best map is the Ordnance Survey Explorer Map 287.

There is some climbing and, this being Lancashire, it can be a bit wet underfoot.

Actually, very wet.

1. Hollinshead Hall

Opposite the cafe is the Tockholes plantation, an area of broad leaf woodland that surrounds some reservoirs. Cross the road from the cafe and follow the path that descends into the trees. When it crosses a paved path turn left. About a mile and a half further on you come to the back of a car park that is now permanently shut. Continue on about 200 meters and you find yourself in the remains of the enigmatic Hollinshead Hall. 

This is now in ruins except for one building, the Well House.

Little is known about the origins of this hall, which dates from some time in the Middle Ages but was abandoned in the late nineteenth century and then demolished in the twentieth.

The Well House is kept locked today, but inside you can just about make out the sculptured lion's head out of which the water flows, flanked by two stone troughs. Above and behind the building is another stone trough, which is accessible.

This all suggests something important, but what?

The name of the hall may not come from the Hollinshead family, or it may be derived from the Old English haeligewielle meaning holy well, which then became Holy Head and hence Hollinshead. This is backed up by the 1845 book Mansions of England mentions the Well House and says it used to be called 'Thee Holy Spring'.


So we may have an Anglo-Saxon holy well, but that's not all. The building is inscribed with the coat of arms of the Radcliffe family, which used to own the land. The Radcliffe's were Catholics and if the well house dates to the 1680s, as it appears to, they may very well have been using it as secret baptistery.

On top of that the place is apparently haunted, although the time I spent the night here - admittedly in the back of a transit van and not the Well House - I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

Whatever you make of it, enjoy the peace of the woods around the halls, as it's likely to get a bit windy as we go on.

2. Jubilee Tower

Return to the closed car park and cross the road. On the other side, a few meters to your right, a large sign welcomes you to the West Pennine Moors. Follow the stone signs which show the way to Jubilee Tower, also known as Darwen Tower, which soon comes into sight in front of you, standing on Beacon Hill like a Victorian space rocket waiting for blast off.

The best time to do this bit of the walk is mid-August, when the heather is purple. I did it in May, when the wind was a tad more bracing.

The tower gets its name as it was completed for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, but it also marks a rare victory in the ancient battle for a Right to Roam.

In 1870 the local absentee land owner had closed the moor to people and turned it over to grouse. A local man, William Thomas Ashton, crossed the moor regularly to deliver coal, and whenever the gamekeepers blocked the path, he cleared it.

Eventually the matter ended up in court, where Ashton won.

The tower is open all year round, although you probably won't want to hang around too long at the top. From there you can see Kinder Scout, Blackpool Tower and on a good day the Isle of Man. However even on a bad day you should be able to see Winter Hill to the southeast. A fairly non-nondescript lump with radio transmitters on top, the hill was the scene of a less successful trespass in 1896.

3. Tockholes

Once you've finished pretending to Saruman in the tower leave Beacon Hill by taking the path north, following signs marked Witton Weavers Way. Once you leave the moor you take a left - but you can't see the sign until after you've passed it. The path then joins a concrete Water Board road. When it joins a tarmaced road keep right on the black stuff, eventually passing Earndale Reservoir on the left (pictured) and Sunnyhurst Woods on the right.

Once past the reservoir carry straight on and once you've gone up the hill turn right. You pass Belstone Stables on the right and the path becomes Weasel Lane, eventually emerging in Tockholes itself just opposite the United Reform Church.

If you've had enough your starting point is a mile down the road to the left.

If you're game to press on turn right and then left immediately after the church, going down Silk Hall. If you have a spare pound you could buy a snack or half a dozen eggs from Julie's Cake Box (pictured). At the end of the short road ignore the sign which suggests the path goes left and carry straight on across the field in front of you. Keep to the left of the wall and cross two styles.

When you reach a Chapels Lane turn right, passing the dramatic entrance to St Stephens Church. Unfortunately behind the fine gateway is a rather disappointing modern building.

Turn left after the church following the sign "Public Footpath" and at the end of the lane, where you appear to be in someone's garden, follow the sign "Rambler's Footpath".

This leads you out into a series of fields, linked by styles, and you should be heading towards the sound of traffic, still following the Witton Weavers Way.

Before you get there you you will find yourself in an area of woodland. I found myself in a field of bluebells, late thanks to snow in April (possibly caused by the premature melting of the Arctic ice) but still a very welcome sign that the season of Beltane was upon us.

On the other side of the woods though you cross a field and find a very different view; the westbound carriageway of the M65 motorway.

4. Canals, Railways and Motorways

Follow the path alongside the motorway, taking care to observe the interesting debris on its verges. When I was there these included plastic bags, fast food containers, a ring-binder file and what looked like a pair of trousers - an unusual thing to loose whilst heading towards Preston at 70mph.

In 1995, as part of the "biggest road building program since the Romans" the motorway was extended eastwards, with this bit being opened in 1997 by Jack Straw and a large contingent of police. One of the most deprived parts of the country received a major new transport link, and the 52,000 vehicles a day now fly through an area of

"Special Landscape Value".

When you reach the road, turn right and use the charmingly graffitied underpass to cross to the north side of the motorway. Mercifully, you are soon on a quiet country road again.  You pass an airgun range on the left. Ignore the Witton Weavers Way as it heads off right and stay on the road. You are looking for a footpath off on the left. It's hard to spot as it's signposted from a short road that joins on the left and is next to Stocklough House. If you get to some industrial units you've gone too far.

As you walk though the wood you cross an old stone bridge that is one of the relics of an earlier transport system; the Blackburn to Chorley line of the Lancashire Union Railway. It closed to passengers in 1960, three years before the Beeching axe fell on other branch lines. By the time the M65 extension was built, British Rail itself was being broken up and privatised and the West Coast Mainline was in such a parlous state seasoned travelers were allegedly getting off Scotland to London trains at Preston and getting buses to Manchester, which usually overtook the frequently held up trains.

The path emerges from the trees next to the Leeds-Liverpool canal, another transport system, and one the dates back to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

Today, people who oppose new roads look back nostalgically to the heyday of the railways. But when the railway boom was at its height, early environmentalists like William Morris and John Ruskin looked back fondly to the days of the canal. In Morris's Utopian story, The News From Nowhere, goods moved on barges powered by a mysterious clean energy source.

Ruskin meanwhile railed against the Headstone Viaduct at Monsul Head, claiming "The valley is gone, and the Gods with it". Seeing as how this is now subject to a preservation order and one of the most photographed structures in Derbyshire, you wonder what he would have made of what happened to Stanworth Valley.

5. Stanworth Valley

Opposition to the motorway extension started almost as soon as it was announced, but protests stepped up a gear when veterans of the campaign against the M11 in London moved into Cinderpath Woods in May 1994. They were evicted, and after several other preliminary skirmishes the protesters ended up accumulating in Stanworth Valley for a new experiment in direct action - living without the ground.

The valley being low lying, and the Lancashire weather being somewhat inclement, the bottom of the valley rapidly became a 'quog'. So the protesters took to the trees.

Not only would they have to be physically removed from the trees before the road could be built, but after a well-wisher from Cheshire had had a letter delivered to the occupants of a Sweet Chestnut tree standing in the path of a the M11, inhabited trees were recognised as legal dwellings and so formal eviction proceedings had to be held before clearance work could start.

Hidden away from the world in the valley, with less support from the locals than at other protests, the inhabitants of the 40 odd (some very odd) tree houses were mostly in a world of their own. People could loose each other for days along the four miles or more of rope walkway linking the twigloos.

When evictions eventually started the Under-Sheriffs men quickly cleared the ground, but struggled to clear the trees. Until they learnt to cut walkways with knives on poles, this left the security guards living like Morlocks on the ground whilst the elevated protesters moved freely above them.

The Under-Sheriffs men moved in on May morning 1995, after a raucous and skyclad Beltane party by the protestors. Previous tree evictions had used raised platforms called cherry pickers, but for the first time contracted climbers were brought in. This was a move that would eventually see the Sheffield based team who did eviction work ostracised by the rest of the climbing community, but here in Lancashire the main problem they faced was how to deal with people who moved through the trees without harnesses and showered them with pasta and baked beans.

Eventually the inevitable happened and the last protestors was removed and the trees felled.

Two bridge sections each of 270 meters in length and weighing over a thousand tons each were manoeuvred into place a hundred feet above the valley.

AMEC appear to be quite proud of the work, and it's true that the direct destruction only extends 10 meters either side of the road and that wildlife is free to pass under the motorway - not an insignificant fact as one of the worst things about busy roads is the way they divide up eco-systems into tiny islands.

However directly under the span of the bridge no plants grow and litter has rained down from the carriageway above into the beautiful valley.
 
6. Back to Tockholes

The path picks up the Witton Weavers Way again, which turns left and passes under the motorway on the west side of the valley. A couple of hundred meters further on you turn left again at a style and descend into the valley. 

Away from the M65 it is a pleasant place once again. Amongst the bluebells I found the remains of a firepit. What camping in the lee of a six lane motorway would be like I don't know, but that aside this is a magical spot.

The path crosses the stream at a wooden bridge, and when you ascend again you can see Jubilee Tower in front of you again. Another old bridge
means you've again crossed the trackbed of the Lancashire Union Railway. Continue on to Bradley Farm and turn right in the farmyard, leaving by a farm track that heads due south, again following the Witton Weavers Way.

At a confusingly signposted junction turn right and then almost immediately left. Don't go down the slope. You follow the vaguely marked path across fields staying to the left of the fence. Cross the valley at the footbridge by Red Lea

Farm. On the other side it joins a paved road. You can either turn right on the road, which soon doubles back on itself, or take a shortcut by following the footpath in front of you, but it is a bit steep. 

When the path rejoins the road turn left and head towards Abbey Village. Arrive in the village just behind the Hare and Hounds pub and turn left towards the rake Brook Reservoir. Just after the water turn left, still following the Witton Weavers Way. When you get to the Roddlesworth Reservoir turn left again, even though this puts the Jubilee Tower on your right. However the path follows the edge of the reservoir
back round to the east and towards where you started from.

The Witton Weavers Way eventually exits left, but ignore it and carry straight on on the main path. there are two Roddlesworth Reservoirs, and just after the second one the path you are on is crossed by a footpath. this is where we began and if you turn left you find yourself back at the cafe where we began. 

They sell locally produced produced and fairtrade food and organic pies, so if you've made it this far please treat yourself.