Six Hills

A few more pictures from a recent visit to Six Hills Romano British burial mounds in Stevenage. The intimidating growl of accelerating traffic, the glassy perfection of air conditioned offices, and nosey, onlooking flats, highlight how the once expansive Six Hills Common has become a squeezed, grassed island of prehistory.

Today, this ground still serves as a living heirloom, for the grassland that cloaks the Six Hills is ancient too, like a floral shroud gently draped over the deceased.

Delicate wildflowers and rare grasses return, season after season, as they have done for centuries. The proximity of these pastoral relics to the ancient monuments have protected them from the disturbance of the plough. Mallows and yarrows waver above speedwells and stitchworts. Their very names ripple on the warming breeze, like a bucolic hymn to the golden, halcyon days of summer: Harebell, Bird’s Foot Trefoil, Pignut, Mouse Ear Hawkweed, Dove’s Foot Cranesbill, Meadow Fox Tail - a half remembered spell uttered to bring a forgotten world to life.