‘We’ll go down this little track,’ Will said, and led the way down a track which was sticky with white creamy mud. Sea blew out and followed the cob as it skidded and slipped. The ground levelled off at the bottom and the mud gave way to white sand.

‘This is the Common,’ Will said.

It was a different kind of landscape entirely, but as familiar to me and as beloved as the Downland and parkland of my home. It was wild countryside, there were no hedges or fields or any sign of farming. As I listened I could hear the faint tinkle of a cow-bell or goat-bell. The busy village of Acre and the well-tended fields, away to the south, seemed miles away.

The hills were covered in heather, the fresh growth showing as a pale mist around the dead white flowers and grey of the old plants. All around us young fronds of ferns were growing leggy and short, necks curled up towards the sky. Over to my right there was a little coppice of silver birches, their trunks pale as paper.

‘Some of this has been enclosed, it is wonderful growing soil,’ Will said. ‘But most of it has been left as it always has been. A bit of a wilderness.’

He turned his horse’s head and Sea fell in beside the cob. The path was very wide, pure white sand, with a covering of black soil at the edges.

‘We keep this open for a firebreak,’ Will said.

‘It catches fire?’ I asked, bemused.

‘Sometimes in a very hot summer, but also we burn off the old heather and bracken so that it stays fit for grazing,’ he explained. ‘Even in the old days, when the Laceys ruled the land as they wished, it was always a right for the people of Acre to graze their own beasts up here. Cows mostly, but some people keep goats or sheep. Quite a few pigs, too.’

I nodded.

‘We’ll just go and look at the orchard, and then cut across the Common for home,’ he said. ‘Have I lost you yet?’

I screwed up my face to think. ‘No,’ I said. ‘The Downs curve around the village and we came down that path so that we were north of the village. I reckon it’s that way…’ I gestured with my left hand.

Will nodded. ‘You’ve a good sense of direction,’ he said. ‘But you would have that with the travelling you must have done.’