Tim Graham writes:
The view from last night, a balmy 18 degrees at sunset. There was a couple up there on the bench with glasses & a bottle of red watching the sun set.
That’s on top of an engagement last year and a wedding last weekend. Perhaps the land is more fertile than we realised…
We just had a first wedding this weekend, and we’ve got some more events coming up:
If you want to join one of the open events or enquire about using the Old Barn email kelstonroundhill@gmail.com.
Nothing at night seems familiar,
the night jars fill my heart,
in a darkness unimagined
the questions slowly start.
Nothing at night seems familiar,
the stars are cast under a spell,
if this land could speak in this empty night,
what stories might it tell?
Nothing at night seems familiar,
My plough is broken and lost,
I search for sweet Cassiopeia,
drowned on the seas that we crossed.
Nothing at night seems familiar,
but by day, these shells at my feet,
are the same that I saw through the vineyard,
where the roads to the mountain meet.
But nothing at night is familiar.
Mired in this damp earth
I stand on the dust of kings long past
and I calculate their worth.
by Jon Hamp, 2016
Tim Graham emailed to share two more photos. One is of the Roundhill bathed in rose light floating above a cityscape at dusk – below.
I’ll use the second – a nightscape – to illustrate Jon Hamp’s latest poem (see post below).
Photographers are welcome to share Roundhill photos, and you can see more of Tim’s work, on the Kelston Roundhill Flickr group he started. (Suggest just keep them backed up, given the uncertainties around Yahoo!).
Lay me down gently,
Lay me down slow,
Lay me down here
By the late fire’s glow.Lay me down softly
and ease my sight,
down to the river
This one last night.I brought you no victories
Though you made me your King.
Now small talk of triumph
Seems a meaningless thing.No conquests,
No concubines,
No palace, no gold.
Just this hill and these fields,
Just this night and this cold
that comes up from the waters
far off to the west.So lay me down softly
At the hill’s gentle crest.
Jon Hamp
May 2016
With thanks to Martin Palmer whose research prompted thought about those buried, long ago, on or near the hill.
Click on the pic to see Owain Jones’ photos from the Bath Spa Uni environmental humanities kick off day. Cheers Owain!
Bath Spa’s brand new centre for environmental humanities held its kick-off workshop in the Old Barn on Kelston Roundhill yesterday. Led by Prof Kate Rigby, it’s the first such centre in the UK.
They’re a distinguished and diverse group of academics: geographers, writers, philosophers, poets, educators and more. Some people shared a keen sense of loss of long-associated landscapes – a depopulated island, an eroded coastline, a compulsorily developed farm.
They’re fun to hang out with: they’re interested in everything – reptiles, politics, capitalism, planning, theology – they take photos, like good food and bake cakes. We sat around on pallets, talked a lot, walked up the hill, warmed food on the wood-burner. At midday the group invited in Graham Padfield, founder of the Bath Soft Cheese company who provided delicious cheese for lunch.
Graham Padfield tells the assembled academics about the laborious tasks involved in running a dairy farm.
When students at the UK’s finest liberal arts establishment Bath Spa University look out dreamily to distant horizons here’s what they see:
Newton Park campus by Capability Brown. Photo of Kelston Roundhill by Prof Owain Jones
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Kelston Roundhill and Roundhill Barn 