Coralroot, a rare beauty among the old graves

North Wessex Downs, Hampshire Cow parsley and common vetch crowd around the carved words of grief and remembrance

My right hand, flushed with warmth after a day's walking, is refreshed at the touch of the stone gate post. Standing at the entrance of an abandoned church, I can see it has been worn marble-smooth by the hands of the long-vanished faithful. Centuries of their feet, too, have passed this way and carved a dip into the threshold of one of its ancient doorways.

Although they are faint and rubbed, I'm nonetheless able to trace the radiating spokes of the witches' marks that decorate the stone lintel. And above the squat and timbered tower a weathercock, long since rusted in place, cannot turn to greet me but instead shudders in the spring breeze.