‘Don’t sit down too long my duck, you might be doing nothing,’ reads the inscription memorialising Barbara Joan Austin (4 July 1929–21 September 2004). I have no idea who Barbara was, but I often sit on her lonely bench in the middle of Otmoor.
Otmoor is an ancient watery landscape just a few miles north-east of Oxford. I am always surprised how few people know of it, although many will have travelled there in the pages of fiction. Lewis Carroll’s chess-board landscape in Through the Looking–Glass is said to have been inspired by it and it features in the work of John Buchan, R.D. Blackmore and Susan Hill. A strong and uncanny genius loci presides, like many places layered with contentious history.
The Romans put a road right through it, perhaps inspiring the government’s plans to shaft it with the M40 in the 1980s.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in