It is a measure of the times that a trip to the tip was the highlight of my day off last week. A collection of broken mugs and glasses, bits of unusable equipment from an iPod docker to a hedge trimmer, and four years' worth of printer cartridges, all went into the appropriate bins and skips. Actually this is an exaggeration: it was the subsequent walk over Witley Common and Rodborough Heath that was the highlight, even more than disposing of my trash.
I usually like walking to look at something, even if that something isn't especially spectacular. This time it was a tunnel under the A3 that I'd never walked through before - what a characteristically 1960s texturing pattern in the concrete, I thought to myself - and (intake of breath) a Trig pillar. It wasn't easy to locate. I made my way towards the high ground in the wood where the pillar should have been, found the Rodborough Borehole pumping station and was nonplussed at the disappearance of the footpath. It took a few moments to discern what was not so much a path as a slight gap in the bracken leading steeply up the hill, and that was indeed where my destination awaited. The 'path' stopped there, and it had presumably been made solely by the feet of Trig pillar enthusiasts toiling to the hilltop to view the object (yes, there are such things).
I am not a Trig pillar devotee but I can see why people get captured by these features (a bit like holy wells): there are not quite 16,000 of them remaining scattered around the UK, relics of the great Ordnance Survey mapping exercise of the 1930s onwards which resulted in the country being so accurately measured. Their brooding charisma is possibly only enhanced by their obsolescence; this one doesn't even have a view, the wood having grown up around it since it was actually used.
The sun was so low as I returned that only the very tops of the birch trees remained lit by it.
Witley Common was famously occupied by Canadian troops in both World Wars, and their presence is still remembered:
Even a short stroll can reveal delights - you just have to be alive to the possibility.
I thought trig pillars were still used, although obviously I never considered how! It always lifts my spirits to see one. There is always some satisfaction to be gained from the fact that one can sometimes match the map to the territory.
ReplyDeleteI think there are *elements* of the system which are still used, but not the trig. pillars. As you can see nobody could use this one! I agree, there's something very solid and reliable about them, even if they don't fulfil their original function any more.
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