There is something at once very English about this
woodland and yet it also speaks to the afar.
There are two forts, Eagle's Eye and Birchwood, and
as many lean-tos, Camp Pine and Bracken Den, built
from woodland detritus forming modest stockades and
shelters. Constructed to provide cover for warring forces
in BB fights, they now permanently evoke the sense of
place and shelter. They are escapes, however rustic,
from, however magisterial, the solitude of wilderness.
One fort is overgrown, reinforcing, symbolically, the
destiny of remoteness; it is a brilliant garden expression
of what can too often in life be a human condition. This
fort is a cautionary tale in vertical twigs and encroaching
nature.
HYLAND
