Good evening Charles. I think your comment is most relevant. Such signposts are a delight to encounter, and you are right to wish to find them looking free from grime. I often wish I had a cloth and bucket in the car when I drive past particularly mucky examples!

Hello Diane. I’m pleased you enjoyed reading about Lacy’s Caves and Benson’s Chairs. The Eden passes through such beautiful countryside, but the stretch by the caves is particularly lovely.

That was so interesting your article on Lacey caves , I was brought up on a farm very close to the caves but on the same side of the eden as Benson’s chairs and visited and played there many many times while I was growing up but I never knew the history of the caves , it is as you said private property. My father rented his small farm from the owners of eden lacy house , it is all holiday cottages now , a beautiful place to grow up .

Hello Tom. You may be ‘younger’ than Great Britain but there are still some great landscapes to explore in the US. And there’s more history being created every day. Central Park is a wonderful resource in a busy, busy city.

TOM

Hello Ruth. I think I can help. I will email you in the next few days. Pleased you enjoyed the story of the caves.

I noticed what you said about digging out the caves, how it could have been work-creation for returning soldiers. Do you often come across such references? I ask because I’m interested in Laurence Sterne’s Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim reproducing aspects of the Siege of Namur in Uncle Toby’s bowling green (possibly as therapy for the wounded Uncle Toby). I have an inkling that reproducing ramparts etc as garden features was quite fashionable around mid-eighteenth century. Ages ago, but I can’t trace where, I remember reading of the same sort of work as you’ve mentioned, landscaping being carried out by former soldiers, because they were, a) good with trenching tools and b) in need of work. Have you read of such things, if so, would you be so kind as to tell me where?

Hello Gwyn. How kind of you to say so. I will have a light heart and a beam from ear to ear all day.