It's taken forever but at last I've finished writing my blogs on the 360+ mile Great Chalk Way that I walked last spring & summer from Lyme Regis to Holme-next-the-Sea.
#GreatChalkWay #WessexRidgeway #CranborneDrovesWay #SarsenWay #Ridgeway #IcknieldWay #PeddarsWay
www.mywalks.uk/others/gcw
Chalk Vespers 1847 Mary Anning, Palaeontology pioneer, Vanishes from the Upper World. Her Spirit, with Cephalopod agility, Enters the chalk-pored Dorset Downs near Lyme, Harrowing the holloways of The Great Ridgeway, as it glances Stonehenge and Wayland Smithy waymarks. Crests the Chilterns at Ivinghoe Beacon, Grooving the ancient droves of Icknield Way, until it lopes into an Eleventh-hour chicane at Knettishall Heath. From where, Drawn by the timber-circled Seahenge lodestone, and Shadowing the progress of Penitents along Peddars Way, it Emerges at Holme. Following the setting sun to The Wash, Mary Anning’s spirit Nests itself in the dreams of one Henry L'Estrange Styleman Le Strange Who, sensing a gathering Apocalypse - Uncovering, Unfolding - Seeks to eclipse his north-winded Fishing village with a West-facing wise folly. Gothic-revival reverie bodied forth in Honeystone-Town, Hunstanton, Quarried and fashioned from the very Carrstone that edges out Albion in the Layer-Cake Cliffs, Where Solstice-sun illumination of Ancient barrows has since Become a nightly Vespers: Stratified slice of Earth’s Deep-Time testimonies Bathed in an Evening light that Sanctifies seventy-seven Million years of the Cretaceous. Man’s two-millennia Tenure as Crown of Creation: Guttering lantern glow that Cuts a Faltering path through the Gloaming. © Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025
Map of the Great Chalk Way network of long-distance paths, starting at Lyme Regis, Dorset in southwest England, and ending at Holme-next-the-Sea in Norfolk, East Anglia. Mary Anning's ghost/spirit follows this route in the poem.
©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2021 Layer-Cake Cliffs at Hunstanton, Norfolk, England.
🙏 @victoriaspires.bsky.social #PromptCombo #Rupture
#poem / #photography:
©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025/2021
#poetry #MaryAnning #Chalk #Ridgeway #WestCountry #Chilterns #EastAnglia #ScienceAndPoetry #GreatChalkWay #Hunstanton
Continuing my 362 mile coast to coast walk from Lyme Regis to Hunstanton following the #GreatChalkWay Less than 100 miles to go now! 😃 #fingerpostfriday #GreatChalkWayIn25
A trail in a day today. 17.5 miles from the start of the #CranborneDrovesWay at Win Green to Salisbury Cathedral. Very warm but thankfully it was downhill all day! 2 of the 6 trails comprising the #GreatChalkWay now complete. The #SarsenWay next #GreatChalkWayIn25
Tomorrow I'm embarking on my longest walking challenge ever - a 360+ mile coast to coast walk along a number of trails that comprise the #GreatChalkWay between Lyme Regis in Dorset & Holme-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. Read more here - mywalks.uk #GreatChalkWayIn2025
Being back on the #TheRidgeway again today got me excited about this year's forthcoming challenge to walk the #GreatChalkWay. Starting from Lyme Regis in Dorset & finishing at Holme-next-the-Sea in Norfolk, the total length is getting on for 400 miles @theridgewaynt.bsky.social
