Twyford Down
ted with the Blurb print on demand service
il: chisholm.m.i@gmail.com : https://idiotic-hat.blogspot.com/ page: https://mike-chisholm-photo.squarespace.com/
way of association, but in the 1990s it was the scene of prolonged protests and their violent suppression by the police and private "security". The cause was the proposal to excavate an enormous passage through the ancient chalk landscape adjacent to Winchester, in order to accommodate the M3 motorway. It was a big deal at the time, all over the news, and saw the beginnings of an environmental movement in Britain committed to direct action. It also saw a curious alliance between the local landed gentry and camped-out nomadic 'crusties'. It's ancient history now: the digging got dug, regardless, and the motorway has been bypassing Winchester for decades. But above the cutting Twyford Down survives, permanently separated from neighbouring St. Catherine's Hill by this uncrossable river of traffic where there once was a shoulder of chalky downland. For me, it became a place to take weekend walks, and I have recently begun to collate and edit the many photographs I have taken there. It is still a magical place, an elevated plateau bearing a patchwork of flinty ploughed fields, chalk downland grazed by cattle and sheep, and at its southern end a golf course, a place where the presence of the motorway and nearby Winchester fade away into insignificance, and you can hear the songs of rival larks rising ever higher above you. Mike Chisholm 2025
l mn TMwi ky ef oCrhdi sDh oo w