Journal

Greetings on the Winter Solstice. In our second ‘way’ we explore the importance of understanding our position on the surface of the Earth. Using the primary compass points, the major solar stations of the Sun and the pole star, as we harness our general sense of bearing and orientation within the wider landscape.

What is it about certain places in the landscape, that once we’ve been there, they resonate so strongly within us, that even after we’ve left, it can still feel like a part of us is still there, left behind? What enlivens and animates this space, and how does our role as intentional observer within a relational field define us as a foci of power?

With the release of the Netflix film ‘The Dig’ later this month, we are reminded just how much our understanding has evolved since Basil Brown’s excavations in 1939 led to the discovery of Sutton Hoo. We now know that the landscape around Sutton Hoo was an open one, with the mounds standing uninterrupted for more than seven kilometres to the East.

Tomorrow marks the astronomical summer solstice, the day when the sun burns brightest. Whilst we may be familiar with the idea of the summer solstice being celebrated because it is the longest day, evidence indicates that its celebration formed part of a complex interaction of astronomy, society and ritual – it was far more than simply a mechanism that acted as a farmers calendar.

Well amongst the most trying of times, this covid-era lockdown is bringing some shards of light. With our once a day walk in the woods and fields there’s plenty of time to research and reflect.

During the years of 1732 to 1734, John Kirby, a Suffolk land surveyor and topographer, journeyed throughout the County of Suffolk surveying the roads and recording the details which he subsequently published in 1735 as a book titled The Suffolk Traveller: or, Journey through Suffolk.

On the eve of a new orbit around our Sun, we look forward to greeting 2020 with you. We’d like to thank you for your support and signpost some of the wonderful hidden mysteries in our landscape that we will be endeavouring to explore and investigate in the year ahead.

Tomorrow is the astronomical Winter Solstice, an auspicious liminal moment in time. The long daylight hours of midsummer, a time for human activities enjoying life and holidays are remembered.

The references to Leiston Harrow, the Procession Rayles and Leiston Gallows all appear in a survey conducted on the 24th April 1620 when a perambulation of the boundary of the manor was conducted by a court under the supervision of the Right Noble George, Marquis of Bucks.

It’s taken us over 10 years of researching the cosmological connections between the Anglo-Saxons and the Suffolk landscape around the Sandlings in order that we could get anywhere near something close to what has become A Ritual Landscape Considered: Cosmography and Anglo Saxon Ship Burials.