‘Not that I could sell it,’ he shouted over the Nissan Technical’s engine as he gunned it up the flinty trail to Whiteway Head. ‘It’s been in the family for, oh . . . months.’

Dominic groaned – this was obviously an old joke.

‘You’re not a farming family then?’ said Beverley.

‘Oh, it’s a long sad history of farmers. It’s just that I’m the first one to own the land I farm,’ he said. ‘My uncle was a tenant, but my father ran off to London where he made a pile in property. Then I came back and bought the land.’

‘He lied to me when we met,’ said Dominic. ‘Said he was a stockbroker.’

‘People have such extraordinary prejudices,’ said Victor airily.

We’d come up the slope before sunset to give Victor a bit of daylight to drive back down in. Whiteway Head, I saw, was a saddle between the high points of the ridge to east and west. It was the logical place to cross if you didn’t want to schlepp around either end. There was also a clear route of descent on the escarpment side, although I personally wouldn’t want to carry a sack of salt down that slope.

We’d brought sandwiches from Dominic’s mum’s and bottles of water, so we had an impromptu picnic, picking a site at the top of the ridge that gave us a good view across the valley.

The sky overhead was the same hot blue it had been since I arrived in Herefordshire, but to the west the sun was hidden behind a huge bank of grey and blue clouds that were piling up on the horizon.

‘The Brecon Beacons,’ said Victor. ‘The Met Office are issuing a severe weather warning. Could cause some flooding downstream of the Lugg.’

I looked at Beverley, who shrugged.

‘Who knows?’ she said. ‘It’s not my part of the world.’

The last of the sunlight seemed to leak out from under the clouds to wash over the valley below. I could just see the A4110 as it crossed the Lugg – a typical Roman straight line aimed at what Dominic identified as Wigmore. Imposing themselves on the landscape – they’d always called it that on Time Team. Especially the beardy Iron and Bronze Age specialists – The Romans imposed themselves on the landscape. Or, I thought, they wanted to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible.

Dominic pointed out Leinthall Earls and the white angular scar of the limestone quarry that spread up the hillside behind it. Fields covered the bottom of the valley with silvery stands of conifers on the higher slopes. To the north-east I saw the last red of the sun flash off the copper dome at the top of Hugh Oswald’s tower. I wondered if the bees were still out and about, or whether they’d retreated to that vast hive under the dome.