The Portals of Pigbush Lane

The Portals of Pigbush Lane

- as told from childhood memories and wild imaginings belonging to Clare, as the Story-Weaver

Come sit beside me, dearest—the kettle’s just begun to murmur. I’ve a tale to weave for you tonight, spun from the tangle of memory and moss, stitched through with the threads of a childhood half-wild and wholly enchanted. It’s a true story—or as true as any can be when told through the eyes of a feral child who believed trees whispered her name and that the world beyond the hedgerow was just a little more alive than most adults cared to admit.

This isn’t mere nostalgia; it’s recollection with muddy knees and soggy hems. The old woods I’ll take you to were real enough—still mapped today by the Woodland Trust—but to me they were another realm entirely. A kingdom of leaf and loam, where folklore wove through every branch and the rules of the ordinary world politely waited at the fringes.

So, pour your tea, love. There’s room on the hearthrug—Buffy Belladonna can budge a smidge, don't mind her—and lean in close. For the story I’m about to tell is enchanted: the secret path at the end of Pigbush Lane, the crooked sheds of the dairy farmer who always pretended not to see, and the forest that waited beyond—a world thick with cow-parsley, rowan magic, and the soft hum of something ancient remembering itself.

Now then—are you ready to go wandering?

When I was a child, Pigbush Lane was my wardrobe to Narnia. The beginning of the lane marked my school bus collection point. I spent many an early morning sitting on the sign to the lane coated in drizzle and waiting for the bus to chug into sight. The lane itself was little more than a narrow green corridor, its verges thick with buttery primrose and cowslip—pale lanterns and golden bells that were cheery even at dusk—but it led, inevitably, to the old forest.

First, however, came the trial of the dairy sheds. They stood like crooked sentinels at the lane’s end—lean-to roofs of industrious corrugated tin, walls of cinderblock and cement. I would pause there, the smell of silage and warm milk rising in the air, heart thudding with the delicious dread of doing something not quite permitted. The farmer, was usually somewhere about—bent over a pail, mending a gate latch, or pretending not to see me. I knew he knew. Everyone did. The game between us was wordless and ancient as the lane itself. He’d lift an eyebrow as I skulked past, my satchel bumping against my knees, and I’d affect an air of innocent purpose—as though small girls regularly set out alone toward the edge of myth. He never stopped me, though he might cough meaningfully or mutter something about “fairies taking cheeky ones.” It was tacit permission wrapped in rustic disapproval, and it thrilled me beyond measure.

Passing through his watch was part of the unnamed gauntlet, a ritual of daring before I could cross into the unknown realm beyond. The very act of slipping past the farmer and his dairy sheds, with his adult supervision behind me and the smell of cow-breath in the air, felt like a spell being cast: the threshold between the human world and the one that waited, hushed, just beyond the last lichen-crusted fence-post.

Once through, the air itself changed—grew cooler, damper, touched with leaf-mold and the rich iron scent of something unnamed. The path narrowed into a green throat of fern and the iconic crimson-and-white spotted fly agaric, and my heart, which had raced at the thrill of trespass, slowed to match the older rhythm of the trees. I would pause, listening: a blackbird’s mellow fluting song, the creak of branches, the farmer’s distant whistle carried away on wind. Then the forest gathered me in—its hush closing like water over a pebble—and I was gone from the known world entirely.

Before I slipped too far under its spell, my grandmother’s voice would come to me—clear as church-bells peeling shrill through morning mist: “If you go wandering, bring me back a rowan twig—but only one that’s fallen.”

Every errand she gave me was half a lesson, half a charm, and all adventure. She never sent me out for eggs or milk like ordinary grandmothers; mine dealt in the currency of tasks that meant something. Each one a small quest—a ritual disguised as mischief. And I, her willing apprentice, took to my missions with solemn delight, armed with a worn satchel, a pocketful of daring, and the unshakable conviction that the woods were not merely alive but attentive—that every fern and fungi had eyes, and every rustle might be a greeting or a warning, depending on my manners.

So I’d go, slipping deeper beneath the vaulted canopy, scanning for the tell-tale sweep of feathery leaves. The forest grew dimmer as I went, though it wasn’t quite dark—more as though the light had thickened into honey, slow and golden-green. When I found her—Rowan standing guard at the edge of a clearing—I always stopped a moment to pay respect. She was no towering royalty like omnipotent Oak, but a graceful sentinel, all whisper and quicksilver. If the wind caught her leaves, they flashed like a warning drawn with a smile: mind yourself, child; tread soft; go on. And somewhere between those silken leaves and my grandmother’s lilting wisdom, I began to understand that Rowan was not just a tree but a threshold—the shimmer between what is seen and what is felt.

Each fallen twig I found was a small revelation: resting in moss, soft with lichen, or half-buried in damp earth, as though the forest itself had chosen the one meant for me. I would lift it gently, mindful not to take more than was offered, and tuck it into my satchel. In those moments, I felt the air shifted—birds fell quiet, the moss sighed, and something vast and benevolent inclined its head in approval.

After this journey, once back home, I’d present the twig to my grandmother as though it were treasure. She would turn it over in her hands, nodding, as if confirming some secret communion between the child and the wild. Then she’d set it upon the mantel beside the others—each one a story, a promise, a charm—her eyes glinting through their grey cloudiness that wasn’t there the day before, like fox-fire. “See?” she’d say softly, “She gave you this one herself.” And I’d nod, knowing exactly whom she meant.

Now, our tale has only just been introduced.  There was our most venerable Oak, oldest and boldest of them all—broad-shouldered and indomitable, bark thick and deeply fissured like the hide of some ancient fantastical beast. The Woodland Trust calls oak the king of the forest, sacred to thunder gods and wise druids, symbol of endurance and strength.² Standing beneath him was like standing inside a cathedral built by patience alone; his canopy gathered the sky, his roots reached, I was certain, into the very bones of England. When the wind moved through his branches it sounded like the vastness of the sea—reminding me, as my grandmother said, that oak remembers the old world before the flood.

Onward I would journey, down where the earth grew damp and silver light pooled, alder kept council beside the stream. Her roots sank deep into waterlogged soil, weaving tight as braids to hold the banks together. The Woodland Trust notes that her timber grows stronger in water than air, and that her red sap once gave rise to tales of bleeding bark.³ Villagers said she guarded crossings and bridges, standing between realms. It was beside alder that found jellied frogspawn trembling in puddles beneath her roots, dragonflies hovering like flashing iridescent shards of stained glass. Unlike oak, alder hummed rather than commanded—a low note through the soles of one’s wellies that settled somewhere behind the ribs. I often hummed back, in case she was lonely, but of course she was far from lonely, she was connected to the whole terrestrial web.

Where the forest thinned and sunlight spilled in dapples, there waited silver birch, the forest’s laughter made manifest. Her trunk gleamed pale as moon-milk, bark peeling like parchment. The Woodland Trust calls her The Lady of the Woods⁴—tree of renewal and cleansing, first to return after fire. My grandmother said she “cleans the world so life can begin again.” I loved her best in spring, when her catkins hung like earring adornments and her heart-shaped leaves trembled at the faintest breeze. Touching her left a ghost of silver on my skin, as though she was marking me softly, claiming me as kin.

And then—always—we arrive back to where we began, Rowan, bright-eyed and watchful. She was the first and last of my forest teachers, the thread that stitched them all together. Her berries gleamed scarlet red like drops of blood and sunset, talismans against ill will. The Woodland Trust records her as the old “witchwood,” guardian of doors and hearths,⁵ while the Scottish Highlands tell how she bent her boughs to save the god Thor from drowning.⁶ Shepherds carved her into walking sticks to ward off fae tricksters, and English villagers tied red-threaded sprigs above their doors for luck.⁷ Once, in my woods, I found a rowan sapling growing impossibly from the crown of another tree—a flying rowan, the Woodland Trust calls them⁸—and to a child already convinced of magic, that was proof enough that the world was stitched with wonder.

Each tree taught its own lesson, and in their company, I learned that every forest is both teacher, guardian, and trickster—testing whether you can hear what isn’t said.

By the time I turned back toward Pigbush Lane, my heart beat slow and even, thrumming with the same ancient rhythm that moved through root and branch. The gauntlet was reversed now: the forest fading to field, the field to farm, and the farmer’s sheds reappearing like a re-entry into the mortal realm. If he saw me, he gave no sign—just a twitch at the corner of his mouth that might have been a smile, or might have been a warning not to push my luck.

Years later—decades, perhaps—I returned. Pigbush Lane had grown tamer, but in the quiet hollow where the hedges still leaned together, the air held its old hush. Beyond the fence, the woodland waited—smaller, but breathing still.

The oak bowed in recognition; alder whispered by her brook; birch shimmered pale as ever; and rowan—dear guardian—stood flame-bright at the edge, berries like tiny lanterns welcoming me home. I stood among them and felt, just for a heartbeat, the old pulse again—the breath of something vast and kind that once welcomed a muddy-booted child.

With deep reverence, my sourced material:

1. Woodland Trust, “Rowan — A-Z of British Trees”: folklore of red berries and household protection.
2. Woodland Trust, “Oak — A-Z of British Trees”: sacred to thunder gods; symbol of endurance.
3. Woodland Trust, “Alder — A-Z of British Trees”: red sap, strength in water, guardian of bridges.
4. Woodland Trust, “Silver Birch — A-Z of British Trees”: “Lady of the Woods,” tree of renewal.
5. Woodland Trust, “Rowan — A-Z of British Trees”: protective “witchwood” and red-thread lore.
6. Trees for Life, “Rowan Mythology and Folklore”: Norse tale of Thor saved by the rowan.
7. Woodland Trust, “Tree Folklore”: rowan sprigs tied with red thread above cottage doors.
8. Woodland Trust, “Flying Trees Blog”: self-seeded “flying rowans” growing atop other trees.

Further reading for curious minds. Much beloved books and wildly talented writers:

• Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees — Roger Deakin
• Gossip from the Forest: The Tangled Roots of Our Forests and Fairytales — Sara Maitland