Our green and pleasant land.
21st August 2007
From the misery of the floods to the spectre of foot and mouth, there has been little to celebrate this summer. But, this wet summer has made the trees thicker in leaf and the grasslands greener than anyone can remember.

The countryside is producing stunning scenery the length and breadth of the land. The trees, with their tall canopies of leaf, flag the courses of hedgerow in the field patchwork. The sound of the wind in the trees, the rushing beck, the sheep’s bleat, cows groaning, these make up the mental and audible landscape of our county.

Farthing Lane runs from the village, impassable to vehicles, grasped by the roots of trees, dripping with ferns and brambles. This was the very route trodden by the parishioners of Lyneham centuries ago to and fro Dauntsey Park. Landscape on this course takes the shape with the help of mankind. It changes slowly.

The flood waters and three months of above average rainfall, have dampened the soils of the land, but fortunately have receded to produce the green and pleasant landscapes that surely inspired many landscape artist and followers.

Wiltshire is looking particularly wonderful this year. If you have a dry summer, like the record breaking summer of 2003, the landscape looks sun-bleached and scorched, but everything is fresher four years later. There's a real mixture of colours, it's absolutely stunning.

Ramblers have been able to leave their Wellington boots behind now, the weather we have seen this earlier year has really brought out a tremendous degree of verdance, we have seldom seen the county looking so lush and green.

Andy Humm, a landscape photographer, is being kept busy with the full range of colours continually bursting through his image finder. But, then, he has been busy all year because of the unseasonal weather we have enjoyed. The flowers have been seriously intense this year, all the way through, whether you are talking about bluebells, yellow rapeseed painted fields, primroses or foxgloves - there seem to have been more of them than we have ever seen before.

The time of year things are appearing is a bit peculiar. We witness butterflies in midwinter and foxgloves in spring. When these things become obvious, they demand to be celebrated and captured.

However, we should not take it all for granted, we shouldn't have to rely on the weather to ensure that rural Wiltshire remains beautiful. It's under huge pressure from all sorts of directions, most of them to do with development. However beautiful the clothes the countryside is wearing, if you hack off its limbs, it will be mutilated.