16/12/2025
My poem about Ward Hill has been sung to musical accompaniment here; I think the singer's voice is beautiful.
Ward Hill.
Above Port Erroll stands Ward Hill, exposed.
We soon forget. The Hill remembers more;
When sister Norway’s shelf fell in the sea,
The silence after tidal wave’s great roar.
Yet further back in time, advancing weight
Of mile deep ice, a frozen tombstone’s sprawl.
Then melting trickle streams, eventual retreat.
This bastion of cliff and rock saw Danes;
For just one day it hears the fighting cries,
Briefly the sea foam turns a little pink.
Then peace, a pasture where goats graze and chew,
A writer looks far out to sea and dreams,
A mill for corn along the Watter’s Mou’,
The golf course on the Hill, as if had never been.
Bare hill, and barer still its concrete blocks
And oblong squares of roofless worn red bricks;
A Cold War castle’s radar vigilance,
Assured destruction’s early warning drill,
Here stood a radio mast’s high-tech surveillance.
Warheads remain but not the Cold War chill;
Long gone the garrison encamped upon the Hill.
And all around the eastern side’s hard edge,
The rushing sound of swelling wind and wave,
Relentless beat that takes its rolling time;
Booms hard and loud or easing to a sough
But ceaseless ever, a wayward, reeling knock
That’s spelling out in chant what’s coming down;
The waves are but an echo from the stars’ dark place.
Tu. 12/5/20.
Ward Hill Circular Walk from Castle Woods to Port Erroll Harbour All images used on this website are subject to copyright Introduction to Ward Hill and Its Setting Ward Hill, a locally significant landmark rising gently behind Port Erroll Harbour in Cruden Bay, Aberdeenshire, offers sweeping views o...
