Country diary: literary tourists follow Sylvia Townsend Warner's path

East Chaldon, Dorset: Her diary records a happy morning when she and her lover, the poet Valentine Ackland, lay on top of a barrow listening to the windA row of round barrows stud a Dorset ridge - five of them, although tumbled gaps suggest there once were more. From the old chalk trackway, trails lead through shaggy grass to the top of each. To the north, charcoal and dun in the wintry light, stretches a broad swathe of heathland; to the south, gentle green hills enclose the village of East Chaldon.In the 1930s, the walk up to this bronze age site was a favourite with Sylvia Townsend Warner, her long career as a writer already launched. Her diary records a happy morning when she and her lover, the poet Valentine Ackland, lay on top of one of the barrows listening to the wind and discussing torpedoes. Today, there's no hint of things military, only a fly-past by two ravens whose cries sound more conversational than martial. Continue reading...