SEEKING SPRING
In pursuit
Waiting for spring to arrive can be torturous and in 1913 Edward Thomas – of Dymock Poet fame – was so sick of miserable, cold London that he set out for the southwest in a hurry to meet the new season. He cycled – but you could walk – to Somerset’s Quantock Hills, where he spotted the first bluebells and cowslips and ‘leapt over April and into May’. His tale, In Pursuit of Spring, was the ‘germ of the idea’ that sent writer Graham Hoyland on his journey a century later, but starting in the south and walking north with the season as it edges across Britain at two miles an hour – all detailed in his gorgeous book Walking Through Spring.
27 signs
First snowdrop, first swallow, first butterfly, first call of the cuckoo: some things just sing spring. In 1736, the naturalist Robert Marsham started recording 27 indicators like these, plus the flowering and leafing dates of trees, and the mating activity of frogs and toads, on his estate at Stratton Strawless in Norfolk. For 60 years he kept his detailed records – earning him the name the Father of Phenology (study of seasonal phenomena) – and his descendants kept records through to 1958, creating an extraordinary scientific record spanning over two centuries. The Woodland Trust keeps the phenological tradition going strong on their Nature’s Calendar site ( naturescalendar.woodlandtrust.org.uk) where people across the nation contribute sightings so you can chase the season’s progress across Britain, and add the springtime sights you see on your walks too.
Treasure hunt
Mad March hares are a classic sight of spring and in 1979 the hunt for one particular hare was an international obsession. This one was made from solid gold and buried somewhere in the British countryside by artist Kit Williams. He then hid clues to its location in the paintings of his storybook, Masquerade, and the fever began. Over half a million copies were sold in Britain alone; treasure hunters flew in from the USA; people started digging all over the nation, convinced they’d cracked it. The puzzle was fiendishly elaborate though and it was three years before it was solved by two physics teachers, Mike Barker and John Rousseau, who were sadly just pipped to the post by a cheat who’d been tipped off by Williams’ ex-girlfriend.
Solution spoiler! Lines on each picture run through eyes and fingers to letters in the border which spell Catherine’s Long Finger Over Shadows Earth Buried Yellow Amulet Midday Points The Hour In Light of Equinox Look You; the first letters of some of those words spell Close by Ampthill. Go to Ampthill Park and you’ll find a monument to Catherine of Aragon; where the tip of its shadow falls at noon on the equinox is the spot. The golden hare is long gone, but you may spot a real one on a walk at Ampthill – www.lfto.com/bonusroutes.