The Chalk Downs

In 2022, I walked along part of the Ridgeway with my father. The Ridgeway is an ancient chalk path that runs along the hills and valleys of the chalk downs in parts of the South West of England. It is imagined to be part of prehistoric tracks that trace the chalky landscape, such as the Icknield Way. It is littered with Neolithic sites like Long Barrows, stone circles, hillforts and burial mounds.

Dad and I made a two-day walk along the Ridgeway that connected sites important to us. Grandpa is buried overlooking the path, and my Dad grew up between farms on either side of the chalky ridge. There are enduring sites like stones, memorials, signposts, tracks, quarries, mounds and white figures drawn into hillsides. These historic monuments are scattered through a well-manicured and non-wild landscape that has been farmed for centuries.

As we walked, I grappled with ideas of belonging- I saw the landscape differently to Dad, and the Neolithic sites were as foreign to us as tourists; we didn’t know who made them or what they meant. I collected recordings while we walked, documenting the sounds of pre-summer, hayfever and hiking. I was interested in how we mark a landscape and how it marks us. Dad showed me a ‘pre-historic stone circle’ marked on the ordinance survey map, chuckling because he knows for a fact that it was created by two brothers that worked on the farm in the seventees. It was interesting to see how history is layered by memory, reshuffling and the stories we tell and don’t tell.