Banburyshire Rambles Photo-Journal

From the ancient crossroads where ‘Banbury Lane’ crosses ‘The Portway’, rather than turn and head back into town, I carry on down the watershed ridge and on towards Halse and Brackley – crossing Sulgrave Hill. It’s an old landscape here, still retaining many of its hedges despite the encroachment of arable agriculture. A scene which would have changed little since the (very early) inclosure of the land here a couple of centuries ago.

To the west the land drains via the River Cherwell to the Thames estuary; to the east everything drains via the River Tove and the Great Ouse to The Wash. Likewise, here on this ridge the geology shifts too, from sandy ironstone to clayey limestone. Apart from the hiss of traffic on the rat-run between the M40 and the A43, all is quiet here – well, except for the cacophony of crows in the trees and songbirds in the thick boundary hedgerow.

Looking across one of the source of the River Tove towards where HS2 will cross buried within a cut-and-cover ‘green tunnel’, I'm wondering just how much this location will change. How much sound attenuation that cover will provide, and whether the passage of trains either side of that enclosure will have an impact here. Hopefully, not a lot; but we shall see.