The river banks along the Cerne near Charlton Down are almost impenetrable with thick mid-summer vegetation, dominated by the pink flowers of Great Willow Herb and the invasive Himalayan Balsam, as the adjacent fields have been stripped bare and ploughed after the barley harvest.
The countryside around Charlton Down this April is a landscape of rolling hills covered by a brightly coloured patchwork of flowering oilseed rape fields contrasting with spring wheat, each patch separated from the next by boundaries of ancient field hedgerows and trees with branches just springing into life.
I’ve been recording the changes that come with season and weather as I walk along the Cerne Valley Trail in Dorset, England. The horse chestnut tree by the stile in these photographs is a convenient marker to illustrate the transition from bare branches of winter to full foliage in summer. Already, by September, the leaves are turning brown getting ready to fall. It is not only the tree that shows the changes but the ground cover vegetation, and the crops in the fields.
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 1 – A stile by an old horse chestnut tree on the Cerne Valley footpath near Charlton Down seen in fading evening light.
Everything looks different on a country walk seen in late evening light. Budding horse chestnut trees with fast-opening sticky buds and crumpled new leaves are silhouetted against the clear moonlit sky. White blackthorn blossoms in the hedgerows and rows of cut maize stubble reflect the last rays of the sun. Blue-green shoots of spring wheat can still be made out in the fields as the sun disappears; and trees by the stream retain a faint glow when the sun finally goes down. In the quiet of the dusk, the burbling of the river mingles with birdsong and the dark surface water riffles and eddies over beds of water crowfoot as it makes its way downstream.
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 2 – Opening sticky buds of a horse chestnut tree catching the last rays of sunlight along the Cerne valley Trail near Charlton Down.
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 3 – A patch of maize stubble glows in the last of the light in a field by the Cerne valley Trail near Charlton Down.
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 4 – A rural scene of a stile in a hedgerow leading from pasture to wheat field in the Dorset countryside
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 5 – View of spring wheat field and hedgerow at dusk in the English countryside
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 6 – Blackthorn blossoms in an English hedgerow glowing in the light of the evening sun
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 7 – Thin twigs of blackthorn with blossoms at the top of the hedgerow viewed against the night sky with rising moon.
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 8 – The details of a field of spring wheat can still be made out as the sun disappears below the horizon along the Cerne Valley Trail.
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 9 – The blue-green blades of new shoots of spring wheat can still be discerned in the fading light along the Cerne valley Trail.
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 10 – View of the River Cerne looking upstream just as the sun goes down. The tracery of branches in the tree bending over the river still retains a tinge of golden light from the setting sun.
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 11 – The surface texture of the water in the River Cerne at dusk seems dark and intense.
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 12 – The dark swirling waters of a the River Cerne at dusk seem to bubble and boil as they flow over Ranunculus beds.
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 13 – Dark swirling waters of a the River Cerne at dusk form small whirlpools and eddies as the flow hits the bends
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 14 – Bare branches of horse chestnut tree with leaf buds against an evening sky with the rising moon
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 15 – Folded horse chestnut leaves emerging from a sticky bud
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 16 – Leaves unfurling from a horse chestnut sticky bud.
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 17 – Bare branches of a horse chestnut tree with opening leaf buds silhouetted against the late evening sky
Evening Walk at Charlton Down 18 – Opening leaves on a horse chestnut tree viewed in silhouette against the clear sky at dusk along the Cerne Valley Trail near Charlton Down
A walk in very mixed January weather along muddy lanes, through arable countryside with freshly ploughed and green planted fields divided by clipped hedges. Rain and hail from dark clouded skies, and occasional shafts of sunlight, slant over low rolling hills trimmed by bare-branched trees. The local river full to the brim and flowing fast with turbulent waters, escaping into channels that once fed the old mill and water meadows. White fleeced sheep with pink noses feed near the old derelict barn.
