A Little Shire Mystery.

There’s something odd going on in the little wood at the top of the lane, the one you have to walk through to get to the field where Sam and Ange keep their sheep.

Two circles have been created. The first is about twenty feet in diameter, with slices of tree trunk laid evenly around the perimeter as seats. In the middle is a fire pit made with regular pieces of heavy timber held in place by pegs. It’s too well made to have been built by some local itinerant needing a fire to sit by at night, and I’m not aware of any local itinerants anyway. The ashes in the pit have no fallen leaves on them, so I assume the fire that made them was recent.

I found the second one even more interesting. The ‘circle’ is less precise, and made with small tree branches to form a boundary. It’s about ten feet in diameter, and in the middle is what appears to be a model Iron Age village. There are several ‘shelters’ or ‘dwellings,’ having wooden pegs as corner posts and sheets of tree bark for roofs, and in the centre is a larger ‘hall’ made entirely out of similar sheets of tree bark.

I’ve never seen the like of it the Shire, and I’m wondering whether it’s the work of kids from the local school. I think I’ll go and ask tomorrow.