Those men with strimmers that I spotted a couple of days ago did return to manage the vegetation on Brack Mound, the principal view from my study window here in Lewes in the UK.  It had not been cut since February 2009 and it was in danger of turning into a forest up there.

They cut dashing figures silhouetted up there against the overcast November sky…

… but the bad weather didn’t put them off even though it is hard work cutting through the undergrowth on such a steep incline.

Soon they had got down to the area just above my garden so I had a grandstand view of the proceedings….

…as did the local trouble-maker a long-haired and bed-tempered tom cat who believes fervently that this place belongs to him.

The men soon became a regular feature and the work of cutting everything down to ground level proceeded through the rain, wind and darkening skies….

…with the man active with the strimmer harnessed to his mate at the top of the hill.

Cutting it now is better than waiting until February because the plants will have longer to grow back to a moderate size in time for Spring.

A job well done lads, see you next year, I hope.

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There were signs of life up on Brack Mound yesterday morning when a man in a hard hat appeared on the summit with a strimmer. Regular readers will know that this ancient man-made fortification and probable burial mound is the view out of my study window here in Lewes in Southern England.

The site is owned by the venerable Sussex Archaeological Society, a neighbour I suppose you could say. This year I missed the annual show when two men harness themselves together and cut the precipitous hill sides down to the ground ready for it to regrow again in time for Spring.

So the mound has become a wild and lively place with more birds than usual and no doubt hordes of small furry things which are part of the staple diet of our neighbourhood’s cats. I often watch my feline friends prowling viciously through the undergrowth. Brack Mound also encourages bees, butterflies and a wide variety of beetles and spiders too. It has been a privilege to be able to live so closely to Nature here right in the middle of town.

I don’t know if this sighting is an early sign that the Society is going to cut the mound or not this year. Maybe, as he only cut the top, there is going to be a dig. It would be wonderful if they could find some grisly remains up there or maybe more evidence of what really went on up there well over a thousand years ago. On a grey November day it is not difficult to imagine sinister goings on in olden days – there was even something quite macabre about that man up there working in splendid isolation.

He might return today so I shall keep you posted with the latest exciting drama from these parts.

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Brack Mound is mostly man-made and is certainly one thousand years old if not a lot older. It has always spoken to me of a wilder world than I generally encounter on the streets of Lewes, the small country town where I live.

Until this year the custodians of the mound, the Sussex Archaeological Society, have sent two men with chain saw to keep down the growth so that we, the mound’s immediate neighbours are not over-grown by its energetic attempts to return to Nature, the bad god Pan or whoever you think is behind such surges of life.

Maybe it is an economy measure or maybe Pan swallowed up those men with saws but, this year, the mound has been left undisturbed and the natural world is fighting back.

I know that the taming process will have to return but, until it does, I feel like celebrating the increase in bird song, interesting butterflies and a variety of insects that I have not seen here before.

Later on today my own person with a saw is arriving to cut back the growth around my perimeter wall and a part of me, the non-horticultural part, feels guilty about this. I would feel worse about betraying Pan if I wasn’t really welcoming Apollo the sun god back into my life.

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