It seems hardly possible that it is almost a year since Stuart and I headed west and north on a research trip that took us, over the course of nine days, through Cheshire to Wales, up the west coast through Lancashire and Cumbria to Scotland then down the east coast, through Northumberland to Yorkshire. Nine days that took me weeks to write about for the blog, so much had we seen and discovered… nine days that formed the backbone of But ‘n Ben, the first book of Lands of Exile… and added thousands more photographs to the folders on my PC.
The picture above was one of those taken before a snowy dawn at Sandbach, where these crosses have watched the seasons turn for over a thousand years… except when they were broken and hidden during the darker periods of their history.
The sacred sites we have seen… and written about… this year have spanned millennia. As we approach the solstice and the turning of the year towards the light, I cannot help but wonder what the coming year will bring and what mysteries lie waiting in the landscape for us to discover our future in the ancient past.
France & Vincent 