Last week I walked some of Britain’s oldest path, the Ridgeway, which runs across south central England. It’s literally a ridge, and would once have been a vitally important path when the valleys on either side might have been impenetrable marsh or forest.
I walked 56 miles in 4 days, starting in Avebury and ending in Goring.
Lots of amazing views of Britain’s brown and pleasant land. Red kites galore. And, early on Day 1, I even saw a brown hare, something I hadn’t seen for many decades. At one point it sprinted (should say galloped?) through a field alongside and past me, quite the sight, but I was so busy admiring it I didn’t get the video.
Lots of barrows and burial grounds. Lovely peaceful places. I was particularly taken with Wayland's Smithy
The path was pretty deserted - I only passed somebody every hour or so. Sometimes I went several hours without seeing anyone, excluding cyclists of which there were a few, especially towards Goring.
So lots of time to think, and one of the things I thought about at great length was what to do with my largest position, something I’ll have more on soon. Gold stocks look, by the way, as though the summer consolidation is over, and are starting to pick up. Here’s to another bonanza 12 months …. But back to the matter in hand.
Each evening I would walk down off the Ridgeway to one of the villages in the valley, then climb back up the hill the following morning. Lots of lovely churches and thatched cottages to be seen.
One of the many landmarks on the trip is the famous Uffington White Horse, carved into the downs some 3000 years ago in the late Bronze Age. With the underlying chalk, it is bright and white, and locals have maintained it all these years. It almost looks modern: minimalist and abstract with clean, stylized lines conveying sweeping movement.
But as I walked the mile or two up the hill that sunny morning, several things struck me. First, that the White Horse isn’t actually very visible from the valley below.
If its creators wanted people in the valley to see it, surely they would have carved it into the side of the hill. But they didn’t. They carved it right on the lip.
nor is visible from the Ridgeway just above. In fact, it’s not that visible from land at all and better seen from the air above.
That immediately made me think of the Nazca Lines in Peru (see vid below), those ancient figures carved into a plateau which too best appreciated from the air.
But that doesn’t quite work either. If the Uffington figure was intended to be viewed from above, why not put it on the plateau? (You can’t even see it from the Ridgeway itself) Why put it on the lip?
3,000 years ago, much of the valley below would have been wooded or marshy, as I say, making the figure even harder to see from below. So who was supposed to see it? And from where?
The final mystery of my day was this: is it actually a horse? Look at the head. Does that look like a horse to you?
It has whiskers. Horses don’t have whiskers. Cats do though.
Yours confused,
Dominic
PS Here is the white horse pictured from the air. You do not get this view from the land … and there’s no way that’s meant to be a horse. I’m sure Jason Arday has the answers,
In case you missed it, here is this week’s piece, the second part of my special report into the tidal wave of takeovers sweeping the UK at the moment as we sell ourselves off. One of these, WPP, moved 35% in two days.
In other news, here is my talk on gold from CPAC the other day. Nothing you don’t already know, but I was pleased with the talk.
And, finally, mining financier Simon Catt had me on his podcast, while I was walking the Ridgeway. Here it is on Spotify
And on Apple podcasts
Finally, finally, here’s a little two minute doc on the Nazca Lines which I narrated many moons ago - of some relevance to today’s piece. It’s not a bad place to spend a couple of minutes.
Until next time,
Dominic
If you live in a third world country such as the UK, I urge you to own gold or silver. The pound will be further devalued, as will the euro and dollar. The bullion dealer I use and recommend is The Pure Gold Company. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe. More here.
