Somewhere Not Quite Known

Some places have a feeling about them – “mystery” isn’t quite right, but there is a sense, even on the clearest day, that it’s impossible to see everything. The circuit of “the caves” around Langot Lane near Croxton in Staffordshire takes in several such places.

We were there on the winter solstice, and the sun was clear and bright. There was no frost, but the moisture in the air had not condensed into mist. From the first bend in the track we could see the Wrekin, violet against the sky, and other Shropshire hills receding into the distance.

“The caves” are nothing much in themselves – a few dents in the brow of a sandstone outcrop, surrounded by nettles and plastic rubbish. But for me as a child this walk always had a thrill because the very idea of a cave meant exploration, going under and out of the world, going back in time. Now I wonder who quarried the stone, and when – and how it could have been worth their while to hack by hand this track that goes nowhere once it has broken through the outcrop. Between the mosses and the sedimentary layers, it’s easy to spot pick marks, where the cliffs either side of this muddy, leafy lane were smoothed to sheer faces.

Sheer-ish. Tree roots strike deep into the rock, and trunks belly out overhead. Birch and beech bark both reflect the sun’s colours differently. Lesser roots have split the grain just behind the face, letting it crumble into the leaf litter and leaving a surface that powders to the touch. In and around the roots are rabbit runs, a network of paths leading to the network of burrows. As a child, I would sometimes see the tips of their ears among the undergrowth at the top of the cutting. Today, there’s a single raven passing in and out of vision between the bare trees. Every so often it flips upside down and emits its strange “cronk” call – perhaps displaying to an unseen mate. Ravens nest early.

If I were mythically minded, the appearance of “the dark-cloaked dismal raven/horny beaked” (from the Old English Battle of Brunanburgh) and then immediately “an old white horse galloped away in the meadow” (from TS Eliot’s Journey of the Magi) would have given this walk a decidedly portentous twist. As it was, it was quite eerie. But the horse had two companions, and the three of them danced  about in the strong wind, against a backdrop of land disappearing into cloud in the distance. Shortly afterwards we reached “the hermit’s cave”.

Did a hermit live under this knuckle of rock in the 1910s? Did he crawl out of his gritty bed each morning to see the great body of the oak on the quarried hillside above him? My grandad talked about him. Now the cave mouth is strung with defensive wire, except where a padlocked wooden door hangs suspended in the middle. A wren dips continuously in the bare trees all around.

Langot Lane was my grandad’s favourite place. The hills shield out the motorway noise, and traffic is infrequent. On the far side of a hedge, now leafless and almost transparent, the fields lead down through marsh grasses to the River Sow, not far from its source near Fairoak, which turns and eddies through the valley. Beyond that, trees hide the remains of glassworkers’ fires.

Every time I think back to this lane, it’s late summer, late afternoon, when the day’s heat is easing. My grandad’s Audi is in the layby by the cottage, and he’s in his blue coat and cap, cigar smoke flowing back over his shoulders. While he looks out over the scene, I’m aware of his mind delving into the great mine of ideas he had excavated for himself, and shaping what he’d found.

“Langot” is a strange name. It may come from the French “langue”, “tongue” referring to the shape of the valley. Pennyquart Farm up the road has a more definite story behind its name. Apparently, during a drought, estimated by the Croxton Well Dressing website to have been “about 150 years ago”, the well on that farm was the only one for miles that did not dry up. The avaricious farmer then charged his neighbours for the water they needed. Memory and myth both have a tendency towards simplicity, towards a single description to summarise the experience.

Not even a summary can be given of the thoughts and words of all the people who have every walked up the path behind the layby, and in walking have worn the earth down into a hollow way. It’s as though a shadow has been scooped in the hill. Branches, trunks and even roots overhang the walker’s head.

A single tree stands on its own where the path reaches ground level again. The view along the field is like looking between two green banners blowing in the wind. Glaciation left these billowing curves in the hills. Clear solstice sky enhanced the green.

A friend of my grandad’s cleared this field of bracken; his is the first death from cancer I remember hearing being discussed, though not understanding – beside this single tree whose licheny trunk leans back a little from the path as if not wanting to overhear.

The way back to the track cut through stone leads under trees that rise from old hedge banks. Badger setts sink down among the leaf litter and stones. Oaks not much bigger than seedlings jangle galls in the wind.

Back in the cutting, I spotted that walkers here before us had put white pebbles in one of the fissures in the rock face. There’s always something of the ritual about these markers – it’s a little bit more than simply “I was here”. Together, I and my daughter each added our own stones.  Then she ran on to catch up with her grandad, and hear more of his stories.