Where our Ancestors Sleep and the Centurion Walks: Hambledon & Hod Hill

A hilly walk through ancient landscape, views, nature and history interwoven. Join Gwyn for this walk across two of the most storied hills in the Blackmore Vale: Hambledon Hill and Hod Hill, a mile apart above the River Stour, and between them the whole sweep of Britain's prehistory made legible in the earth. Hambledon Hill, a national nature reserve rises steeply ringed by Iron Age ramparts, yet its deepest layers are far older, and far stranger. Here, in the Neolithic, the dead were not simply buried. They were laid out to be cleansed by time and the elements until the flesh was gone; the long bones broken and defleshed, and carried back to be interred among their ancestors. A ritual in stages that honoured the dead. The earthworks the community raised, never ploughed in all the centuries since. Its Old English name, Hamelden, means the crooked or scarred hill. ...There is more! We have not started on the Civil War Clubmen who assembled here! Hod Hill, just to the north, is where the story turns. Here, a Roman fort was planted inside the northwest corner of the British hillfort around AD 43–50, then abandoned. It is the only ghost recorded on the two hills: a phantom Roman centurion said to walk the ground between them. The conqueror who never quite left, walking the hills the ancestors still keep. Please meet at Hod Hill Car Park what 3 words: ///firmer.hypnotist.trucks at 10am. We'll take a picnic lunch on the crest of Hambledon Hill, looking out across the Blackmore Vale (please bring food to share).