Holloway

[puddleshark]

'Holloway' comes from the Anglo-Saxon 'hol weg', and refers to a sunken path that has been grooved into the earth over the centuries by the passage of feet, wheels and weather...

'The Old Ways' Robert Macfarlane

Dorset is full of sunken ways, paths worn deep into the chalk and the sandstone by centuries of use, but the most spectacular of the sunken ways are the West Dorset holloways.






Blackbirds flutter up in the corner of your vision, like animated fragments of shadow.



I followed the holloway known as Hell Lane. The upper reaches of the track pass through a deep dark gorge in the sandstone, where wrens trill from hidden crannies behind the ivy.






In the underworld, the tree roots are above your head.

The lower reaches of Hell Lane are always an adventure. It is more of a stream than a track, even during the driest spring on record. It's not as overgrown as it used to be - in the past I've had to fight my way through curtains of brambles - but it's still a scramble in places, round quagmires and deep ruts.




It may be rough going, but on a hot summer's day it is blessedly green and cool and damp.

At the bottom of the hill, Hell Lane gives up all pretense of being a path and becomes a proper stream.


But it's a very shallow stream. You can walk it dryshod if you have faith in the waterproofing of your boots.

Comments

[puddleshark]

LOL

It really is quite an adventure, following that track. You can never be entirely sure where or when you will emerge... 😊

[full_metal_ox]

I’m also reminded of the one effective horror sequence in the 1967 movie The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism(1): a carriage ride through a dark forest track where the tree branches are festooned with human limbs.

(1) A very loose German adaptation of “The Pit and the Pendulum”, with top billing given Sir Christopher Lee as an Uberwaldian Count drawn and quartered for (and guilty of) Mad Black Magic and sadistic serial murder; his devoted servant has survived as the equivalent of a sapient fierce corpse and schemes to reassemble his boss to revive in similar condition; toward that end, he kidnaps virgin girls and torments them into a peak state of fear to heighten their sacrificial energy.

This cool premise is almost entirely fumbled in the execution, with an unlikable ostensible hero and heroine and an Idiot Plot full of internal inconsistencies (ROT-13 for spoilers):

Jurarire jr’er fhccbfrq gb or—naq gur zbivr vf inthr ba gung cbvag—vg’f orsber gur vairagvba bs nhqvberpbeqvat; ubj qbrf gur ureb erpbtavmr gur urebvar—jubz ur’f bayl rire pbeerfcbaqrq jvgu—ol ure cvnab cynlvat?

Qrns-zhgr crbcyr ner vcfb snpgb va pnubbgf jvgu gur onq thlf?

Jung gur uryy xvaq bs Qbpgbe *Fnqvfz*, univat frg uvf pyvznpgvp gbegher qrivpr va zbgvba (frr? Gur jevgref unq gur Cbr pbagrag ylvat nebhaq fbzrjurer), cebprrqf gb jnaqre bss va qvfgenpgvba?

Gur pyvznpgvp frdhrapr unf gur urebvar orvat ureqrq guebhtu n tnhagyrg bs FCVQREF!!! naq FANXRF!!!! naq IHYGHERF!!!!, BU ZL! (naq jung ner gubfr cbbe oveqf qbvat va na haqretebhaq qhatrba, naljnl?) jvgu gur trareny nve bs fbzr oenggl xvq fubivat ehoore abirygvrf va gur ivrjre'f snpr.

Zl Ivrjvat Pbzcnavba naq V cebzcgyl qhoorq vg “Pbhag Erthyn'f Oybbql Fghcvq Unhagrq Nggenpgvba”.