Patrick Barkham strolls through gorgeous Hampshire woodland, filled with the gentle hum of history and birdsong.
I was the only person to step off the train at West Dean. I was greeted by silence. Boxes of flowering geraniums reclined in the stillness of this small, rural station. It could have been 1926.
We were becalmed in early autumn, those days of peace before the storms arrive. Up the village street, limes whispered in the breeze. The absence of people was almost apocalyptic.
I took a track west, which wound between the large gardens of suburban houses and on to the fields. Well, one huge field of rye-grass, dried to a crisp by the long drought. At least green was now seeping back into the land.
A red kite circled and called. There was the distant drone of a light aircraft.
Across the big field, I entered the outskirts of Bentley Wood, a large complex of ancient coppice and plantation, famed for their butterflies. More than half all British species can be found here.
By early autumn, the only butterflies I saw were speckled woods and red admirals. Like the birds, the butterflies had finished their summer breeding business. Even the trees were resting now.
The silence was broken only by the perpetual dry scrabble of juvenile grey squirrels skipping through fallen leaves and circling the trunks of the trees.
I passed some blackberries and old hazel coppice beneath the taller trees. They were mature but not ancient, a legacy of the clear felling of the 1,700-acre wood after the Second World War by a timber merchant, who promptly went bust. The Forestry Commission acquired the land for a song in 1950 and replanted: beech on the chalk, Douglas fir, oak and Norway spruce as a nursery crop, with a bit of hemlock here and there.
By the early 1970s, the sunny gaps between the young trees made it a superlative site for butterflies and moths. Designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest for Lepidoptera, in 1983 it was bought by Lady Ann Colman, who lived locally and enjoyed riding here. She donated the wood to a charitable trust, the Friends of Bentley Wood, who today manage it for nature while also producing a sustainable crop of local timber.
A maze of paths led me into a large expanse of fields that was cleared for farming centuries ago. The pasture was the colour of straw; swallows flew low over a sweet little hay meadow. The public path was little-used here and required me to hurdle an electric fence and wobble over dilapidated stiles. Where the wood restarted, the footpath as marked on the map was completely blocked by fences, notices and the barking fury of a large dog, who guarded a former forester’s cottage.
I crept through the undergrowth to reach the ride in Barnridge Copse. It was a relief to enter the sanctuary of the tall trees again, big-dog fury receding behind me. Soon I was enveloped by silence again, except for the pitter-pitter of a wren on the forest floor.
A nuthatch gave its liquid call as I circled through the woods, enjoying the wide rides and sunny open clearings, which would have been butterfly heaven earlier in the year. I met a couple of dog-walkers but mostly it was oak, beech, the occasional soaring Douglas fir and more peace.
I was told there were goshawks in the wood – that hefty, murderous raptor known as the phantom of the forest because it is so rarely spotted.
Just as I was pondering my life of not seeing this bird, there was a flurry of wingbeats and a nervous warning call or three. A heartbeat. Then into the vacuum swept a muscular bird of prey, dashing across the far end of the clearing, speckled grey against the trees. Gone in two seconds. A goshawk.
I walked west from West Dean railway station, Hampshire, to reach the woods, which are full of permissive paths and rides for circuits of all sizes. I would recommend avoiding the little-used public footpath past Howe Farm
