Belas Knapp

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The stories of this place, that once lay rich like pebbles on the shore, have long since been washed away by four times a thousand years of rain.
The silence is wrong.

A long deep note held for aeons can be sensed as it reaches the limits of its span: it is faded and thin, interwoven with the quavers of bird song and lulled by the waving stalks of long grass.

It’s a waiting place, humped on the hill, beyond the sight of those living in the town in the valley below that was once the ancient capital of Mercia.

It’s also a watching place; in the distance are the shadowy Welsh Hills from where enemies made their raids, from here their fires at night could be seen, and from here warning could be given.



It’s a place where you can stand beneath the swirl of the heavens in the night sky and be open to the whole universe and eternity; and it’s a place where you can crawl like a worm into its innards - if you dare - and feel the claustrophobic pressure of the mound weighing down upon your head, smell the cold damp earth and stones and feel atomised into particles of clay.
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