Melbury Hill, nr. Win Green, 15 Nov 2021 13:30

This isn't a scene you'd typically find in the New Forest. Although silver birch trees are scattered throughout the forest, they are rarely seen in such dense and expansive stands. This particular stand of birch trees is located just over the county boundary in Dorset, at Win Green in Cranborne Chase, close to Shaftesbury, the friendliest town in the country, famous for its quaint cobbled street, Gold Hill, the location of the iconic Ridley-Scott Hovis bread advert of the 1970s, voted Britain’s favourite advert of all time.

But why was the Hovis bread advert, assumed by so many to be quintessentially northern, filmed here in deepest Dorset? Well, it turns out that the location choice isn’t as incongruous as it seems with Shaftesbury lying just 30 miles west of what was once Hovis’s giant art-deco Solent Mill in Southampton Docks. Further confirmation that the scene really is more Win Green than Wigan Pier lies with the narrator’s accent which, in the original 1970s version, is unquestionably more Dorset cream than Durham coal. Perhaps the real error in the advert’s attribution myth lies in little more than the flat-capped northernness implied by the gritty lighting and Ashington Colliery Brass Band's rendition of the Largo from Dvorak's New World Symphony.

Well, this might not be Gold Hill, but it certainly is a golden hill, bathed in the warm light of the afternoon sun filtering through the late autumn foliage. The birches, with silver and black trunks stretching skyward contrasting the profusion of autumn colour flowing through their canopy and blanketing the underlying hillside, create a softly rustling haven of tranquillity in this silent crook of just one of the folds of the rolling chalk downs that define this landscape.

But this day was not tranquil. As we walked through the woods, the sharp crack of shockingly close gunfire echoed around the valley. Again and again, panicked birds shrieked and rattled skyward, shattering the peace and tranquillity. A pheasant shoot was in full swing in the fields above, the sound of shotguns echoing, deafening, disconcerting as camo-clothed marksmen crawled past in the undergrowth. But these were ‘gentlemen’ killers because, on seeing us one of them paused, politely doffed his Harris Tweed flat cap and greeted us with an aristocratic “good afternoon” formed from perfectly rounded plummy vowels, before turning, melting back into the undergrowth and resuming his murderous recreation.

It made for a disconcerting walk, the continuous backdrop of gunfire, panic and death creating an unsettling tension in what should have been a pocket of silence.

Photo details - iPhone 11 Pro 13mm f2.4 1/120sec, processed in Photos App iOS (cropping and basic light settings)