Albion…

*

…And then we come across the church.

Cue mass excitement as we take in all the
Giants, which appear to sprout from every orifice…

The body of the church you see is an education in itself.

You probably already know about consecrated ground and unconsecrated ground.

It is the Inner and the Outer, pure and simple.

And this symbolism is carried into the structure of the building.

The gargoyles, the Sheila-na-Gigs, the Green Men, the Giants, the Dragons and the like, they are all on the outside of the church building.

They do not make it into the ‘ark’.

The inside is for all the saints and angels. Do you see? It is the same symbolism.

The Inner and the Outer.

*

…They do have something of the ‘otherworld’ about them these places.

Not so much Giant Hill itself perhaps although it may have been different had we gone into the Trendle.

It fact I am pretty damn sure it would have been different in the Trendle.

Wen was all for it… even with the helicopter buzzing us overhead. And her logic was very persuasive.

‘No unauthorised person beyond this point,’ said the sign.

‘But we are more authorised than anyone ever could be,’ said Wen.

It is difficult to disagree but then the village of Cerne Abbas is in itself quite otherworldly too.

I got exactly the same feel from it as when I first went to Glastonbury.

It felt like we had left England and gone abroad, perhaps to France…

‘Albion!’ smiles Wen, ‘The whole of these Blessed Isles used to feel like this…’

Excerpt – The Heart of Albion by Stuart France and Sue Vincent