Earlier in 2020, just before the UK was ravaged by the COVID-19 virus, I undertook a day long walk through the woods of Wiltshire’s Great Ridge and the Wylye Valley below. A few days ago I returned to take photographs of a lone oak or beech tree that I had spotted during my walk, standing sentry alone on the slopes of an unnamed “bottom” in the near distance.

Great Ridge is steeped in history. Its woods sit on a ridge at about 600-700 feet and form part of a network of ancient trackways that once led from the Kentish coast all the way to the Bristol Channel. The Romans used the trackway to access lead mines in the Mendip Hills and it was used as a droveway for driving cattle to and from market, but it was an ancient trackway long before this.

I wrote a blog about my walk for Hidden Wiltshire, which you can find by clicking the link below. The image here is one of my lone tree that I took when I returned last week.