Gray Hill

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
Marcus Aurelius
A cooler day today so good for a walk, a suggestion I had from someone last Sunday, checking out Gray Hill in Wentwood. It’s been maybe 35 years since I’ve visited the area, so it will have changed – I know I have. Fairly straightforward drag up from the reservoir car park, although the last part was a steep and narrow path, not one I’d want to attempt in conditions other than this…bone dry. Views from the top, half an hour later, were glorious and clear, both bridges and across the channel to Somerset too. But the main interest today was finding the nearby stone circle. The hill is covered in bracken up to about five feet high so I wasn’t that optimistic, but Google Maps helped and I soon spotted one of the standing stones amongst the bracken, not part of the circle but it helped me find the others. The unusual feature at Gray Hill is that the stones are butted against each other, like a continuous wall. A useful feature as ione of the visible stones was a useful seat for a meditation. The photo shows a solitary stone nearby, just outside the circle, which is all but covered in bracken, so maybe a return visit over winter will be called for.
After a sometimes tricky, slippery descent – I won’t be back there in wet weather – I headed off to nearby Caerwent, because it was there. As I left the car park a deer crossed the road in front of me, followed very quickly by a young fawn, much darker in colour.  
Surprised me the extent of Roman remains still reasonably intact (walls and foundations) in the town which was founded about AD75, Venta Silurum. The Roman town wall is impressive, about 5m high in places. As I was hanging around the East Gate I fell into conversation with a builder (not the original builder) who gave me the low down on construction before prefabrication and modern practices took over, waxing lyrical about cut roof construction with purlins; ah, brings back memories of my early days in the building industry when I didn’t know my jack truss from my elbow.