The Beechwoods – ‘The Wild Places’

Beechwoods 160615-30The opening chapter of Robert Macfarlane’s The Wild Places is titled ‘Beechwood.  He starts:

The wind was rising, so I went to the wood.  It lies south of the city, a mile from my home: a narrow nameless fragment of beechwood topping a shallow hill.  I walked there, following streets to the city’s fringe, and then field edge paths through hedgerows of hawthorn and hazel.

Rooks haggled in the air above the threes.  The sky was a bright cold blue, fading to milk at its edges.  From a quarter of a mile away, I could hear the noise of the wood in the wind: a soft marine roar.  It was the immense compound noise of friction – of leaf fretting on leaf, and branch rubbing on branch.

I’m going to re-read the chapter the next time I’m there.  My only quibble with this evocative introduction is the word ‘nameless’.  As a child taken there and visiting it now, it was and is singular, definite and precise, ‘The Beechwoods’, as befits its uniqueness.

This entry was posted in Film, The Beechwoods. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Please do this simple sum to prove you are real! *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.