Wiltshire’s first formation
of 2002 has arrived.
After a hellish struggle
through a saturated field of Rape-Seed, near Beckhampton, Wiltshire, we came
across the formation, laid out high on the slopes of Cannings Down, very
close to the a spot where, in 2000, a large and impressive
eleven fold
design had appeared in a field of wheat.
This new arrival spans some
135ft at its widest and consists of a large standing circle of the 5ft high
rape-seed, which itself is sitting within a laid circular area. The circle
of standing crop is positioned to one edge of the larger downed circle
containing it, leaving a path five feet wide around one half of the glyph,
kind of eclipse style. The whole formation has a celestial look and feel,
which is added to by the presence of two or three (approx) 30ft diameter
grapeshot’s, both close to the main body of the formation.
All the laid areas are
quite neat and tidy, at a glance, with most of the plants neatly swept to
the floor and laying very flat. Large proportions of the downed crop is
quite badly broken or kinked leaving us with the impression that a number of
people had visited the glyph before us. Once a formation in such a delicate
medium has had visitors our ability to make any realistic judgements about
the validity of the event becomes very difficult indeed. That said, this
simple formation does look good from the A361 –Devizes--Beckhampton road and
is well worth the effort to see, at least from this vantage point.
Set within its huge yellow
canvas this first local formation of the year has a surreal appeal about
it.
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