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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/22/country-diary-wenlock-edge-elusive-tower-trees
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| Version 3 | Version 4 |
|---|---|
| Country diary: a curious tower sends me over the edge | Country diary: a curious tower sends me over the edge |
| (5 days later) | |
| Wenlock Edge, Shropshire It couldn’t be the power-station chimney, it was in the wrong place. And it was too late in the year to be a stack of hay | Wenlock Edge, Shropshire It couldn’t be the power-station chimney, it was in the wrong place. And it was too late in the year to be a stack of hay |
| Paul Evans | Paul Evans |
| Wed 22 Nov 2017 05.30 GMT | Wed 22 Nov 2017 05.30 GMT |
| Last modified on Wed 14 Feb 2018 17.05 GMT | |
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| As the match-flare of a November afternoon dimmed in the trees, I caught a glimpse of a tower. Peering through hazel branches I could make out a tall structure that looked like the power-station chimney – except that was north and this was west. It could have been a stack of hay bales, but harvest was over long ago. | As the match-flare of a November afternoon dimmed in the trees, I caught a glimpse of a tower. Peering through hazel branches I could make out a tall structure that looked like the power-station chimney – except that was north and this was west. It could have been a stack of hay bales, but harvest was over long ago. |
| Curious to discover what I had seen, I wandered down the wooded bank, losing the long view, crossed the road and went through the gate on to a green lane, now used only by dog-walkers, sheep and an occasional tractor, but once the thoroughfare over the Edge to a hamlet on common land below. | Curious to discover what I had seen, I wandered down the wooded bank, losing the long view, crossed the road and went through the gate on to a green lane, now used only by dog-walkers, sheep and an occasional tractor, but once the thoroughfare over the Edge to a hamlet on common land below. |
| Up the rise I had seen earlier was a hedge about seven feet (two metres) tall, but no tower. There was a tree: a sweet chestnut about 20 years old. All its leaves had fallen; its bark marked with smudges of grey lichen like a potter’s thumbprints; its branches scratchy dark against the sky – violet to the south, cold blue to the north, with a scud of grey clouds. I walked to the end of the hedge, where the downslope began, marked by a holly tree. It was about 10 feet tall, flail-sided and male, still holding a few small white flowers, but it was not a tower. | Up the rise I had seen earlier was a hedge about seven feet (two metres) tall, but no tower. There was a tree: a sweet chestnut about 20 years old. All its leaves had fallen; its bark marked with smudges of grey lichen like a potter’s thumbprints; its branches scratchy dark against the sky – violet to the south, cold blue to the north, with a scud of grey clouds. I walked to the end of the hedge, where the downslope began, marked by a holly tree. It was about 10 feet tall, flail-sided and male, still holding a few small white flowers, but it was not a tower. |
| I turned back around the other side of the hedge, once the boundary of the green lane. By five o’clock, the light had gone; the hedge held a faint orange illumination from bark lichens and a weft of bryony berries; its dark was full of the wing prrrrs and tzeeps of settling yellowhammers. Across the fields the woooo of a tawny owl eased from mobbing jay anxiety into night-time. Something in the wood let loose a treeful of wood pigeons, all clatter and whistle. A dog barked. There was no tower. | I turned back around the other side of the hedge, once the boundary of the green lane. By five o’clock, the light had gone; the hedge held a faint orange illumination from bark lichens and a weft of bryony berries; its dark was full of the wing prrrrs and tzeeps of settling yellowhammers. Across the fields the woooo of a tawny owl eased from mobbing jay anxiety into night-time. Something in the wood let loose a treeful of wood pigeons, all clatter and whistle. A dog barked. There was no tower. |
| I walked back the way I had come, down the fields, across the road and up through trees to the point where I had looked across to the rise. When I reached it, I peered through hazel branches and there against the skyglow was the silhouette of a tower. That can’t be right, can it? | I walked back the way I had come, down the fields, across the road and up through trees to the point where I had looked across to the rise. When I reached it, I peered through hazel branches and there against the skyglow was the silhouette of a tower. That can’t be right, can it? |
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