Country Diary: Somerset

I was up on Coker Ridge, one of a number of east-west ridges south of Yeovil and near the Dorset border that are separated by shallow valleys where streams like Coker flow and the hamstone villages of East and West Coker lie. TS Eliot traced his ancestry to Andrew Eliot, who was baptized in East Coker church in 1627 and emigrated to America in 1660. His poem, East Coker, pictures the light falling "across an open field, leaving the dark lane / shuttered in branches, dark in the afternoon".

I was being guided by a skilled observer of flora and fauna in Hardington Moor, a reserve where the rare unspoilt sward of the meadows, bordered by established hedges on a clay-rich soil, is managed only by a late cut for hay in July, followed by grazing. It seemed fair to suppose that these meadows are not much changed from those trodden by Andrew Eliot.

We walked a path at the edge of a field on the southward slopes and took in the view across to Hardington Mandeville, golden stone buildings against a spring green background, and then looked down to the slope at our feet, speckled yellow with cowslips. My guide was interested in some white forget-me-nots and noted the common spotted and green-winged orchids, as well as the cuckoo flower or lady's smock. There were dog violets hiding in the shadows. Blackthorn was abundant in the hedges, but there was no leaf yet on the ash trees, a little on some of the twisted oaks, and a specially delicate green young growth on the elm. A crab apple tree in the hedgerow showed a lace-like pattern of white flowers and pinkish buds. We heard blackbirds singing lustily, a green woodpecker, and the chiffchaff celebrating its seasonal arrival for an English spring.