THE RUFUS STONE

APRIL 2000

High over Sarum the small plane flew. Below, the graceful cathedral with its soaring spire rested on the sweeping green lawns like a huge model. Beyond the cathedral precincts, the medieval city of Salisbury lay peacefully in the sun. Earlier that morning there had been an April shower, but now the sky was clear, a pale washed blue. A perfect day, thought Dottie Pride, to fly a reconnaissance mission. Not for the first time, she was grateful for the fact she worked in television.

Say what you like about her boss – and there were those who said John Grockleton was a brute – he was good about things like chartering planes. ‘He just wants to get on the right side of you,’ one of the cameramen had remarked. She couldn’t help that. The main thing was that she was in the Cessna now, and it was a beautiful morning.

From Sarum, the beautiful Avon valley continued due south through lush green meadows for over twenty miles until it reached the sheltered waters of Christchurch harbour. On its western side lay the rolling ridges of Dorset; to the east, the huge county of Hampshire with its ancient capital of Winchester and great port of Southampton. Dottie glanced at the map. There were only two small market towns on the Avon between here and the sea. Fordingbridge, eight miles south, and Ringwood, another five beyond that. A few miles below Ringwood, she noted, there was a place called Tyrrell’s Ford.

They had not even reached Fordingbridge before the plane banked and turned towards the south-east. They passed a low ridge, crested with oak trees.

And there it was below them; huge, magnificent, mysterious.

The New Forest.

It had been Grockleton’s idea to do a feature on the Forest. There had been controversy in the area recently: angry public meetings; local people starting fires. Television cameras had already been down there a few months before.

But it was another news item that had sparked off Grockleton’s interest. An historical surprise. A piece of ancient pageantry.

‘We’ll cover this at least,’ he had decided. ‘But there may be something larger here: a full feature, in depth. Have a look at it, Dottie. Take a few days. It’s a beautiful place.’

He really was trying to get on the right side of her, Dottie mused.

Perhaps there was something else in it for her boss, though. It had come out the day before.

‘Do you have any connections with the Forest?’ he had asked her.

‘Not that I know of, John,’ she replied. ‘Why, do you?’

‘Funnily enough, I do. My family was pretty big down there in the last century. There’s a whole wood named after us, I believe.’ He gave her a smile. ‘You might like to work that in, perhaps. If it fits, of course.’

‘Yes, John,’ she had said wryly. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

They flew over plantations and brown heather heath for ten miles. The terrain was wilder and barer than she had expected; but as they came to Lyndhurst, at the Forest centre, the landscape changed. Groves of oak, green glades, open lawns cropped by stocky little New Forest ponies; pretty thatched cottages with brick or whitewashed walls. This was the New Forest she knew from picture postcards. They followed the line of the old road that led south through the middle of the Forest. The oak woods were thick below them. In a glade, she caught sight of some deer. They passed over a village in a huge clearing, its open green lawns dotted with ponies. Brockenhurst. A small river appeared now, flowing south, through a lush valley with steep sides. Here and there she saw pleasant houses with paddocks and orchards. Prosperous. On a high knoll on the valley’s wooded eastern side, she saw a squat little parish church, obviously ancient. Boldre church. She should visit that.

A minute later they were over the harbour town on Lymington and its crowded marina. To the right, on the edge of some marshes, a sign on a large boathouse proclaimed: SEAGULL’S BOATYARD.

The English Channel lay a few miles away to the west. Beneath them was the pleasant stretch of the Solent water with the green slopes of the Isle of Wight beyond. As they flew eastwards now she looked from the map to the coastline.

‘There,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘That must be it.’

The pilot glanced across at her. ‘What?’

‘Througham.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘Nobody has. You will, though.’

‘Do you want to fly over Beaulieu?’

‘Of course.’ This would be the setting for the opening sequence. Far below them the lovely old abbey precincts lay tranquil in the sun. Behind, screened by trees, was the famous Motor Museum. They circled it once, then headed north again towards Lyndhurst.

They had just passed Lyndhurst and were flying northwest towards Sarum when Dottie asked the pilot to circle again. Peering down, it took her a few moments to locate her target; but there could be no mistaking it.

A single stone, set near the edge of a woodland glade. A couple of cars were parked in the little gravel car park nearby and she could see their occupants standing by the small monument.

‘The Rufus stone,’ she said.

‘Ah. I’ve heard of that,’ said the pilot.

Few of the hundreds of thousands who went to wander or camp in the New Forest each year failed to pay the curious site a visit. The stone marked the spot where, according to the nine-hundred-year-old tale, King William Rufus, the Norman king – called Rufus on account of his red hair – had been killed by an arrow in mysterious circumstances while hunting deer. After Stonehenge, it was probably the most famous standing stone in southern England.

‘Wasn’t there a tree there once?’ asked the pilot. ‘The arrow glanced off it and hit the king?’

‘That’s the story.’ Dottie saw another car make its way into the gravel car park. ‘Only it seems,’ she said, ‘that he wasn’t shot there at all.’