​​From Waterloo, I arrived at Godalming and headed south. I was en route to some rumoured stones that had been sourced somewhere in the distant country and brought to a private estate overlooking the surrounding areas of Hascombe.

 

The 42 bus would pass by me several times that day, taunting, as I walked along in the hot sun, stopping at the Church of St Edmund and dismissing myself after the silence in the chapel was disrupted by the harsh quality of one man’s mobile phone videos. I climbed the hill that later led me down into the green ravines and hillocks between Surrey’s wilder homes.

 

Hascombe Road was an absolute drag as it cut through the land at such a depth there was only enough room for small cars to pass. Standing on the shoulder proved too dangerous, so I lost some time diverting to roads at its left and right, and forced to lean over onto its leafy banks in order for trucks to get by.

 

As I walked, I thought about Wilkeson, the old mining town near the Prairie I grew up above and the present motivations of my wandering. What was I seeking? A version of the place I was born to, across the sea, with new faces? I didn’t know.

 

I took a break to enjoy a small meat pie and a full pint of coca-cola at the White Horse pub about 30 minutes up the hill from the stones. The salty beef and soda seemed extra flavourful at this point in the day, the way the frosted cans of lemonade that they sold from the vending machines at the old Enumclaw pool always felt. After a days swim, it was pure reward.

 

But at the the entrance of the estate, I was lucky to come across a man named James, busy gardening with his hair tied back. “Are you here to see the stones?”, he called out as I looked in confusion at the map on my phone. He lived in one of the estate's gate houses with a red trim facade. We talked a bit and he told me some of what he knew of the story, of how the circle came to be, and directed me up the slope where they were standing before a rising forest of conifers.

 

Eighteen stones, I counted, as tall as I was and two burned offerings at the site. With a few sheep below, it seemed idyllic, overlooking the hazy blue hills of the AONB. I spent an hour in the fading light, walking slowly in circles around the outer edge and other moments sitting still at the foot of its northeastern inclusion.

 

When I placed my hands to the stones' lichened faces, I felt a surge of warmth from inside them. The sun had been soaked up all day long and still remained there, even as the clouds began to diffuse, and the temperature in the surrounding area cooled. Nearby, a pair of butterflies flew up and down in helix formation, locked in a kind of playful pursuit...

 

James seemed to think it was funny that 30 years ago, the woman who owned the estate had created such a place, as though the old stones themselves, which had been carried in by close to 100 people, were not actually of the ancient British earth. But to me, they seemed to be quite alive, perhaps even more so than any registered neolithic circles, visited, but long forgotten.

 

I took the slow route back, fatigued from dodging cars on the main roads, and made it to the train at Godalming with a new blister on my heel. As night approached, I took one final moment to wonder about life in such a place with its curving village roads and the clammer of old pubs, where notes from accordion and flute music rang out.