Kelston Roundhill and Roundhill Barn

The local council B&NES, the National Trust, Cotswold Preservation and others have come together to bid for Heritage Lottery funds to maintain and improve the landscape and skyline around the World Heritage City. It’s a prodigious amount of work to bid; B&NES project manager Sarah Jackson submitted a highly detailed document of over 400 pages.

And there is a lot of expertise to take on board and aspects that require expert consideration. There is much to be learned from those involved, and a huge amount that could be done. But at the end of the day it’s a landscape. It’s prized for its rural quality. What matters is the art and emotion it evokes, and the stories that are told around it.

Fingers crossed for the bid.

Welcome to the Bathscape bid group, who held a project meeting in the Old Barn.

Something plays our perimeter fence
through the darkness of this hill,
Caught in the hours before first light
A sharp note rises still.

The wind steps through the palisade
sending ash amidst the trees
to choreograph the fires we made,
our hope, spent smoke, on tattered breeze;

for somewhere out there still asleep,
exhaling hard and slow,
an army of leather and harness,
will awake in dawn’s first glow.

But that wind in the fence sounds like the song
that my father used to play,
of a land where night falls silently,
and morning lasts all day.

Tomorrow brings much that needs repair
to rise now makes no sense.
but I need to know that it’s only the wind,
that is tugging and teasing our fence.

by Jon Hamp. 2016

Hear Jon Hamp live at the Old Barn at the Three Cane Whale gig 7 July:

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:

• Kingswood year 5 school visit 7 June
• Three Cane Whale live at the Old Barn for Kelston Records 7 July
• “Magnificent Meadows” wildflower day 14 July (free – book in advance)
• Kelston picnic & celidgh SAT 6 AUG (note corrected date; all welcome; notify us in advance)
• Quaker day of quiet 3 September
• Second Kelston Records concert 15 Sept tbc

If you want to join one of the open events or enquire about using the Old Barn email kelstonroundhill@gmail.com.

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!).

Photo: Tim Graham        

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.

• You can hear Jon Hamp read this in his Kelston Roundhill trilogy on the new live Three Cane Whale recording now on sale from  Kelston Records (CD, download) – described as “a fabulous release” by Verity Sharpe in this BBC Radio 3 Record Review.

Click on the pic to see Owain Jones’ photos from the Bath Spa Uni environmental humanities kick off day. Cheers Owain!