No fanfare or trumpets, don't blink, and a mysterious street horse

11 September 2025

Welcome to issue 5 of Tales from the Chase, a weekly newsletter for Cranborne Chase. Local events. Odd tales. Mildly strange goings-on. All delivered by email, free, and occasionally unhinged (in a charming way). Was this email forwarded to you? You can sign up for free by clicking below!

September’s arrived with its usual flair and dare we say a bit of much needed rain. Maybe you're braving the first jumper of the season, or simply enjoying the golden light on your favourite evening walk. Whatever, we hope this week brings a little spark of something good.

We also hope you enjoy this week's stories, updates, and wonders to keep you curious.

No events this week, we’re a little light on time thanks to being away on holiday, but we’ll be back with plenty to share soon!

Featured this week:

• an update on the aplogy to Ebble
• the first of a series on the Beasts of the Chase, starting with the hare
• Hubert's guide to the delights of Berwick St John
• as usual, sprinkled with quirks, curios, and charmingly strange goings-on.

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Ebble update

Recap: After publishing Hubert’s first guide, in which he somehow managed to insult the goddess of a local river, I received a letter from her. Slightly eerie, vaguely menacing, and absolutely not the sort of post you ignore. In need of damage control, I consulted a local folklorist about how one apologises to a supernatural water entity. Ritual duly performed. Fingers crossed she accepts.

Wondering whether I'd been forgiven yet, I went back to the spot where I’d left the apology. The stone was gone. As were the leaves, but then they could easily have blown away.

My first thought: someone had taken it. Maybe they thought it was litter. Maybe they thought it was a fossil. Or maybe they simply couldn’t resist the urge to interfere with something they didn’t understand, which, to be fair, is a common human pastime.

I looked at the water. I saw a glint, not far out. My stone, sorry-side up.

So the river had decided to keep it. Maybe not out of sentimentality, but more in the way you keep a paperweight someone gave you as a gift, just in case they visit and ask about it. I was kind of reassured, but needed to check with the authority.

Up at the top of Win Green, Isla Cobb was holding court with the wind and a shawl that could double as a tent.

“I made the apology,” I said as I sat on the bench beside her.

She nodded slowly, in that deliberate way you do when you’re about to say something that sounds wise but ultimately boils down to “Good for you, dear.”

“Well done,” she said.

I asked how I might know if Ebble had accepted it. I wasn’t expecting fanfare or trumpets, but something subtle. A nice postcard, maybe. A receipt.

I showed her the photo I’d taken of the stone under water, looking very poetic.

She squinted at it, tapped her walking stick on the bench like she was blessing it, and said, “Ah. That’s a great sign. She's taken it.”

Then her voice dropped, as if she was about to tell me the punchline of a very old, very dodgy joke. I've learnt that conversation with Isla often drifts toward ominous foreshadowing.

“Word is, Hubert’s been visited.”

Of course. Hubert.

“Visited by ducks. Trout in the sink. Water pooling in the bedroom. Nothing deadly. Yet.”

That “yet” hovered in the air like fog with a grudge.

"People think ignoring a river is like ignoring a cat. It isn’t. A cat might knock over your mug. A river will quietly bide its time and then rearrange your entire property.”

“You, though, you've done well. Done the right thing”.

Well that's a relief. But Hubert clearly needs to do something. I was starting to think he needed an intervention. Nothing drastic. Just a gentle chat, and perhaps another letter from Ebble, this time delivered by an annoyed kingfisher in a tiny waistcoat.

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​The Brown Hare: A Dash of the Dramatic

Possibly imported by the Romans, the brown hare has settled comfortably into British life and now graces our countryside as if it owns the place, often popping up in the farmland, grassy meadows, and woodland edges typical of much of the Chase.

Unlike their digging-obsessed cousin, the rabbit, brown hares don't do burrows. Instead, they lounge in shallow scrapes in bare ground called forms. Disturb one, and it’ll erupt like a rocket, zigzagging wildly across the landscape like it’s late for something important.

Spring is when the hare drama peaks. They “box” each other in open fields, a behaviour that looks like a full-on brawl but is usually just a female telling a male (or two) he’s/they're being a bit much. Romance, hare-style.

If all goes well (for them), she can produce three to four litters a year, with two to four leverets each time.

Hare tales

In English folklore, they’re often tied to witches, either as familiars or shapeshifters slipping into the form of a hare to evade detection. Going further back, Celtic legends cast the hare as a creature of magic and the Otherworld, a symbol of fertility, moonlight, and mystical transformation.

I'd also heard a local rumour that if you catch the eye of a hare you should never blink first.

Keen to find out more about the blink, I contacted Rufus Penn, a local folk ecologist.
He's a reclusive figure often seen wandering the Chase with his weather-beaten hat pulled low. Armed with a battered leather notebook and a keen eye for the subtle signs of nature, he’s been chronicling the lives of the local wildlife for uncounted years. We arranged to meet and go hare spotting, and he would tell me more about the blink. Here's what I found out.

The blink

We met in the Chase at dusk. Rufus soon spots a hare, which doesn't run but stops and stares at us. Forewarned, I avoid its gaze. Rufus stands motionless at the edge of the field, eyes fixed on the hare that sits perfectly still, its ears twitching almost imperceptibly.

"They'll tell you it's a foolish thing," he says, his voice barely above a whisper. "A simple staring contest with a common animal. And they'll laugh when you blink first, as if you've lost nothing more than a childish game. But they are wrong."

He straightens, a grim, weary look on his face, eyes fixed on the hare. "A hare is not just an animal. It’s a boundary-crosser. A creature of the liminal spaces between field and wood, day and night, this world and an older otherworld. It's eyes are older than the fields. When a hare looks at you, it does not simply see. It weighs you, quietly and carefully, as if deciding whether you belong in this world… or another."

"And when you blink, you show your human vulnerability. The hare doesn’t just win. It takes something. Not your soul, no. Nothing so grand or dramatic. It takes a piece of your luck.Or a memory you'll never quite be able to recall. You'll blink, and when your eyes open again, the world will be subtly different. Stranger. Thinner."

He shakes his head with a chuckle. "So, no. You should never blink first when a hare catches your eye. Not because you’ll lose a game. But because you'll lose a tiny part of yourself. And for all our modern science and our smart devices, there are some things a person can never get back."

The air felt heavy, with that particular kind of tension you feel just before something old stirs.

Then, without warning, Rufus blinked.

The hare twitched once, as if in satisfaction, then turned and rocketed silently off across the field, disappearing over a rise. Rufus exhaled, slowly.

"You're wondering what it took," he said, reading my face. "I won’t know until later". He gave a lopsided smile. "It’s never the same twice. The thing about wild magic, it’s deeply personal."

We walked back in silence as the last light drained from the sky. I kept thinking about what he'd said, about the world growing thinner. When I got home, I reached for my keys in the usual pocket, and they weren't there. I found them in another, where I never put them.

Maybe it was nothing. It wasn't me who blinked.

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A parish by parish tour of the Chase

Continuing our parish-by-parish pilgrimage through the Chase’s 108 parishes. Alphabetical order, of course; Hubert's in charge and he likes methodical.

We're in the B's: introducing Berwick St John.

berwick st john

Berwick St John is a fine stone built village at the head of the Ebble valley in the south of Wiltshire, with a population of over 400. There's a popular pub, The Talbot Inn, and beautiful countryside all around.

The parish extends south over the chalk escarpment and down to the Dorset boundary, and north to the ridge of the White Sheet Hill, all layered with a long history including ancient earthworks, tumuli and settlements.

Hubert's guide is below. All views expressed are Hubert's own, and not necessarily shared by Tales from the Chase. He may come across as quite grumpy but that's because he is. And he has a lot on his mind at the moment.

BERWICK ST JOHN

Ah, Berwick St John. The sort of place that wears tweed pyjamas and insists that jam goes before the cream because that’s how the colonel did it in 1953.

Looks like it’s been designed by someone who once saw an oil painting of a generic Dorset village in a dimly lit antique shop and said, “Yes, like that, but this is Wiltshire, so less.” Less what? Less colour, less joy, and absolutely no ambition.

Notable for: A horse in the street. It watched me. I glared back.

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Also notable: The Talbot Inn. Berwick St John's surprisingly competent rebuttal to the assumption that all rural pubs are just holding pens for dogs, damp bar mats, and deep-fried nostalgia. I wandered in lured by the scent of something actually being cooked rather than just gently reheated. Damn it. The food’s... actually rather good. Not innovative, mind you. Just someone in the kitchen knows both what a saucepan is and what to do with it. For a fleeting moment, you forget you're in a village where folk refer to wifi as “the devil’s net.”

Other features

St John the Baptist Church.
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Always a church. There's a theme here in the Chase villages. So yes, another church. Yes, I went in. Yes, I'm going to complain. And yes, that itself is a theme.

To me, the ubiquitous church is less a spiritual beacon and more a structural inevitability, a morphological constant. I struggle to find fresh disdain each time.

Berwick St John Country Fayre​
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The Country Fayre: a biennial explosion of agricultural nostalgia, diesel fumes, and soot. There's a dog show judged by people who take biscuit distribution very seriously, vintage tractors driven by men named Clive or Bill, plus beer, cider, cake, bunting and music. Raises money for local charities, and the next one's in 2026. Both utterly absurd and oddly noble. And weirdly endearing.

Berwick St John phone box book exchange

A once vital piece of 20th-century technology turned into a damp cupboard of forgotten guilt reads, unwanted gifts, and old cookbooks. One of the most iconic designs in British history housing a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey with a dubious stain and someone’s shopping list as a bookmark. A tomb of books, each one abandoned like a dream someone lost interest in. It’s like discovering Stonehenge has been converted into a vape kiosk.

Winkelbury camp, a hillfort presumably constructed by our ancestors as a way to say, “We are here, and we are slightly higher up than you.” A ring of heaped up earth built by people with far too much time on their hands. The views, admittedly, are stunning. If you like your beauty windswept and melancholic, and accompanied by the faint smell of sheep poo.

Ashcombe House

Once the rustic sanctuary of photographers, actors, film directors, and pop stars. Notably, Cecil Beaton called it home for a while. Later, during a period in which she was experimenting with the concept of tweed and rainy weekends, Madonna acquired the estate, alongside then-husband Guy Ritchie, who still owns it, presumably out of habit.

A word of caution: it’s private. Very private. The gates do not open. The security cameras do not blink. You are not invited. However, the Wessex Ridgeway does wander through the valley and on up to Win Green nearby. And therefore, so might you.

There's a rumour of an owl that hoots the lyrics from Ray of Light at walkers passing through the valley by moonlight. Even in daylight, if you listen closely, you can still hear the soft thrum of a celebrity ego echoing off the valley walls.

Rushmore Estate

A vast estate with a golf course, an independent school, large areas of woodland, and (like the Ashcombe estate) the eerie sense that it was designed as a playground for people who refer to hedges as "cover." Hosts shooting parties frequented by people who name their dogs after minor Shakespeare characters.

Win Green

At 277 metres, the highest point in the Chase. The parish boundary cuts right across the summit, so Berwick can only claim part of the hill, if you're interested in that kind of petty territorial nonsense.
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The summit beech clump lies just within Berwick’s bit, where you will be standing on what some call with utterly undeserved pomp "the very roof of Wiltshire". Don't tell Milk Hill in the North Wessex Downs, because, at 295 metres, that's higher. But maybe these people would call that the "very chimney pot of Wiltshire", or perhaps the "very weathervane".
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From this lofty position, on a rare day when Britain forgets how to be overcast or foggy, you can apparently see the Needles off the Isle of Wight to the south-east and the Quantock Hills in the north-west, assuming you squint hard enough.
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There is a car park near the top, courtesy of the National Trust; but this sits outside the Berwick parish boundary, so don't forget your passport.

Suggested itinerary

• Arrive late morning. Note how the air smells faintly of damp tweed. Think yourself lucky that the street horse is not around. Unless it is. If so, glare at it.
• Visit the Talbot Inn. Order food and a pint, and experience fleeting pleasure. Be careful. That feeling is not generally encouraged around here.
• Wander up to Winkelbury hillfort. Stunning panoramic views await you. There’s a spiritual majesty here, if your soul responds well to the smell of sheep and the voices in the wind that seem to whisper “You will die alone". Or was it "You will dial a loan?" Mystifying.
• Follow the Cranborne Droves Way along to Win Green. Stand by the beech clump, staring across counties, time zones, and the terrifying sense of your own insignificance. Is that a bird of prey circling above? Just waiting for you to meet your end?
• If there's time, drop down the Wessex Ridgeway path and pull faces and wave at the CCTV at Ashcombe. Leg it before the hired muscle arrives to explain, in great detail, just how unwelcome you are.
• Head back to the village and visit the phone box book exchange. Consider whether this has anything to do with dialling a loan. Or dying alone. Definitely mystifying.
• Leave, nursing the distinct feeling you've just agreed to something you didn't understand. Ignore the faint far-off clopping of hooves.

NEXT WEEK: BERWICK ST LEONARD

Prepare to be utterly underwhelmed.

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As ever, thank you for reading this newsletter. Keep yourself curious and your snacks crunchy.

And remember: never follow a walker off the path unless you’re prepared to become folklore.

Motto of the Week:

"Strigibus nihil occultum est."​
​(Nothing is hidden from the owls.)​
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