At Belas Knap

Belas Knap Long Barrow, Cleeve Hill, Gloucestershire

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Today, as we approach the silent mound,
it seems to arch its well-mown turfy back
above the tombs that past explorers found,
four chambers, and a central limestone stack.
Along its sides, four portals watch the wold,
and at its head a fifth, an extra orb,
is flanked by horns to transport phantoms through
to spirit life, where trees are clad in gold
and in their shade the earth-gods gladly daub
the grasses with an ever-greening hue.

Come night, we hear such strange and spectral cries…
they haunt an owl, who shudders though he wield
his hunting claws; the moonlit silver skies
cast eerie flickers over all the field.
Crrr-ack! A fire ignites atop the knoll
and from the woods vast swathes of shapes emerge
to circle and to leap the ghosts of flames;
we see a ram, a stocky mare and foal,
a chortling boar, and feel a sudden surge
beneath the earth, a rhythm to the games.

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Published on The HyperTexts, February 2026

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I’ve been aware of Belas Knap since 1987, having moved with my family from Godalming (Surrey) to Winchcombe in Gloucestershire shortly before Christmas 1986. I’m pretty sure a walk around the long barrow was one of the first outings we made from our new home. I hadn’t seen anything like it before and I found it rather magical. Later I came to recognise that feeling of magic as connected with my sense of a spirit world.

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Over the years, as my illness progressed, I became unable to visit the site. I still felt its presence, however, and when I was appointed Poet-in-Residence of Happenstance Border Morris group, in 2014 for three years, I was happy to revisit the site in my imagination, to compose something of a local interest poem. Recently I revised the poem, and the above is the result!

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Next: Waltz of the Winter Aconites