Banburyshire Rambles Photo-Journal

The route from Lower to Upper Boddington follows one of the possible tracks of the ancient Jurassic Way – where the smooth line of ‘The Irondowns’ is broken by the low valley of Highfurlong Brook. This is already the route of the Oxford Canal and the Victorian railway; now it is to be joined by HS2, albeit on a very different scale of engineering.

This is a break in the chain of the hills; a flat pass that spans from the valley of the River Cherwell, over a series of low ridges, into the River Itchen and the River Leam. This has always been a route for travel since prehistory. in that sense, HS2 is just joining the crowd, pressed into this space by the topography of the surrounding hills.

Unfortunately that also means that from where HS2 leaves its cutting at Appletree, until it passes out of sight beyond the last ridge at Wormleighton, HS2 passes through the centre of a natural amphitheatre created by the surrounding hills.

For that same reason, ever since I first started to walk out this far from Banbury in the 1980s, it’s always had a very special value; the ridges slowly rising northward to Edgehill, Burton Dassett, or Marston Hill, with their 60-mile views to The Clee Hills, The Clent Hills, or the high hills of Leicestershire. And as the M40 corridor becomes busier, I have strayed more often to this relatively secluded area to escape the noise and traffic nearer the town.

Though The Chilterns have gotten far more attention, the hills around here have their own unique value that has not been recognised in the debate over HS2. The impact of HS2 in this location is a perfect example of that failure to value the natural landscape; and the fact that abstract economic values are systematically inflated by the business and political lobby because the natural landscape is not valued as an intrinsic asset ‘held in common’ by thousands of people.