The meadows at Pudsham have moved through time, and the lives it witnessed have passed from it. But the treasure it still retains tell us much. The walls, the stones, the plants, the landscape itself have much to say. There were lives lived hereabout. The Bronze Age was warm and the moor peopled, round houses and fields. And though the folk have gone, the landscape remains. The plants of this meadow, well known to those who came before as food and medicine, as a changing scene through the seasons. Nature was a resource utterly depended upon, their connection with it one we have gradually and imperceptibly lost.

At the beginning of summer, I walk back up Elliot’s Hill from the road, the lane gradually narrowing to where the tarmac breaks up underfoot. I pass up the tree-shadowed track and come to ‘Sylvia’s Field’.

By the gate I see Plantain, its sleek, ribbed leaves pressed close to the ground. I imagine a Bronze Age farmer going before with her flock of sheep, gathering herbs in the hot day, the dew low in the grass. She kneels as the sun rises to sheen the layers of tendril and leaf, the filigree stamens on a bramble flower: interwoven pagan decorations.

Plantain, widespread in Sylvia's Field, was known as Lus-an-Lease, plant of the enclosure or ham according to Grigson, the first coloniser of opened ground as the wild wood was cleared (assarted). It was revered as a vulnerary, a wound-healer, sovereign against the bite of the adder. Good also for love divination: In June place the flower head wrapped with dock leaf under a stone. If, by the next day the anthers still flourish love will find you. 

The Anglo-Saxons knew this commonplace herb as Weybroed or bread of the path. It has a pleasant tang, somewhere between field mushroom and apple.

I walk through the sedges and grasses as through a medieval painting, rank wild mint in the sward crushed underfoot releasing its heady soothing scent. My farmer would have smelt it too, I see her now leading her sheep down to the stream by the willow carr, brushing the velvety leaves with her fingertips.

She crouches in the coolness cutting the soft stem with a stone knife. Taking care not to bruise the tender herb as she folds it in her leather pouch. I kneel and gather the mint, place it in my hip pouch. Like her perhaps, I learned the names of wild plants from my mother. Wild mint eases digestion and soothes the mind: 'The savour of water mint rejoiceth the heart of man' wrote Gerard in 1633, 'for which cause the folk strew it in their chambers and where feasts and banquets are made.'

I make my way along a fox path through hummocks and tangles to the goat willow tree. She walks with her stave, her tunic rustling the sedge, through the south gate onto Elliot’s Hill. Lifts, clicks the hasp behind her and vanishes. I sit under my cool willow to write.

Lesser Skullcap skulks in a murky puddle by the east gate the Farmer passed through. Among the sedges it is hard to see its fragile pink flowers. Named after the leather skull cap worn by the Romans, it is a powerful tonic to counter nervous excitability.

The flock left to fold in the field is drawn to the glittering stream where tall green dagger leaves of Yellow Iris spring up. One gold flower rises up like a chalice held against the azure sky; curvilinear petals glancing in the wind catching light like fire flame on metal. The Celts associated Iris with the mystical land of the Faerie and was given to mariners as protection against treacherous waters. It’s Devonian name was ‘Dragon Flower’

Once used to increase the flow of blood and a stimulate the heart, Foxglove's poison pink flowers have fallen over the wall at Pudsham meadow and lie in the lane. The plant has turned its power inward now and grows its dark seeds secretly. Underground time pods: they may last years. How long do the old beliefs last? Once foxes wore the gloves, a cunning magic for stealth, paws not heard by poultry or men. In some places Foxgloves were called Bee-catchers because young bees lose themselves in the deep bells and fall into drunkenness. I have seen this.

Pudsham has moved though time, and I step back through time here. Time unfolds like the pages of an ancient book. These plants are old, like our stories, like us. The old names, amusing and poignant give insight into days gone by. Oral, vernacular lore reveal the lives of the ancients and reflect our own concerns, human concerns. A human-chain, interwoven with the chain of nature. The details are in books, but out here on Dartmoor with its tangible atmosphere it is easy to conjure the old ways, to see with your own eyes the mornings of the Bronze Age, touch the plants that succoured the folk of yore.

But it is summer 2025. As I finish this under the willow tree, I wonder is it me gaining understanding of this land or is it the land and its fierce beauty coming to know me, suffusing my heart with peace, cleansing the superfluities of more modern sensibility.