Combe Gibbet

This must be the bleakest place on earth! The sky is always dark here and the wind cuts deep and cold - it is a wild, dramatic place and it has a history to it. There has been a gibbet here since 1676: local labourer, George Broomham, and his mistress, Dorothy, were convicted of the murders of George's wife and son whom they bludgeoned to death with cudgels. They were caught and executed and it was decreed that they should be 'hanged in chaynes' near the scene of the murder, it was said that they could be seen from several counties.

This is the highest point in Berkshire, though it is right on the Wiltshire border and the downs are called the Wessex Downs. Climbing to the top of Inkpen Hill to see the gibbet was part of an extended and circuitous walk in preparation for traversing the Tramuntana Mountains in northern Mallorca later this year. Not quite the incline of the Spanish mountains here but it's the closest I'll get in this part of England. Expect more blips of not steep enough hills as the weeks go on...

Meanwhile, back in India...