The Devil's Stone, and Bere Regis Church

Images from yesterday's walk near Bere Regis and Shitterton.

First, the Devil's Stone, Black Hill. Apparently this is a Heathstone Monolith. It may have been used by the Romans as a marker close to a Roman Road on the summit of Black Hill. Not a spot to make a bargain with the Devil or to sell your soul at midnight in exchange for blues guitar prowess!

"Go Devil Go!" Ira Mae Littlejohn, 1947

Who knows what the following images represent? More anon.

Watercress beds and narrow gauge railway line formerly used for collecting watercress crop

(thanks to Jon Jenkins, well-informed walk leader)

St John the Baptist Church, Bere Regis

Fire hooks (without their long wooden shafts) used to remove thatch
 from burning roofs or "in the path of advancing flames"

"The iron hooks were used for pulling down the thatch on cottages when they caught fire.

 They date from the 17th century".

New thatch at Shitterton

Bere Regis, Church Interior

 

The edge of Woodbury Hill hillfort.

"The hillfort features in Thomas Hardy's Wessex novels, fictionalised using the name of "Greenhill". In Chapter 50 of Hardy's 1874 novel Far From the Madding Crowd, the hillfort is the setting for the South Wessex sheep fair. He describes the location as follows: "This yearly gathering was upon the summit of a hill which retained in good preservation the remains of an ancient earthwork, consisting of a huge rampart and entrenchment of an oval form encircling the top of the hill, though somewhat broken down here and there. To each of the two chief openings on opposite sides a winding road ascended, and the level green space of ten or fifteen acres enclosed by the bank was the site of the fair. A few permanent erections dotted the spot, but the majority of visitors patronized canvas alone for resting and feeding under during the time of their sojurn here." The fictional fair was based on a very large and long-running fair held at the hillfort, from medieval times onwards - this is further described on the Bere Regis village website. "  The Megalithic Portal

Finally, a strange variety of tree above Bere Regis!

Yes, it's an artificial tree erected and designed to disguise or hide some form of telecommunications mast.
Natural Dorset! I fear that wind turbines will prove more difficult to disguise.

Snowdrops, Church of the Holy Trinity, Turnerspuddle.