LE5

This morning I started the seventh year of fixed point photography on the Chailey Common nature reserve. I take photographs twice a year at each of nearly 40 fixed points, first in early January and then in early August. The photographs are used by the county council in monitoring the heathland restoration. This is point LE5 which happens to be the most northerly of the fixed points on Lane End Common. It is also at precisely zero degrees zero minutes longitude. The foreground was cleared of hundreds of birch saplings last winter revealing (admittedly not very well in this light) a medieval landscape of ridge and furrow.  The trees in the distance conceal an ancient trackway that was once the main route north from Lewes via the Pack Horse Way and Red Ghyll to cross the river Ouse (half a mile beyond the trees) and on to East Grinstead