from darkness to light

St Baldred’s Cradle, 28 July

Even as I write that title, it feels a little too dramatic, as if this post is going to have a subtext. Perhaps this also reflects where my head is right now as I’ve felt, over the last six days, a sense of light returning. But perhaps that’s for another post. Rather, this ‘darkness to light’ of the title is really quite literal as this walk starts in the shade of Links Wood in East Lothian, below the lush canopy of August leaves, with glimmers of sunlight filtering through to the paths below, and takes us to the expansive views from St Baldred’s Cradle, the headland that sits between Belhaven beach and John Muir Country Park to the east and Ravensheugh Sands (also known as Tyninghame beach) just to the west.

St Baldred’s Cradle is named after the Northumbrian monk St Baldred, who founded a monastery at nearby Tyninghame in the 8th century. We first did this walk in September 2019, and I say this as a memory popped up on Instagram the other day from five years ago - a photo of Harris and Bracken in The Barn at Williamstone Farm Steadings on the outskirts of North Berwick. We were staying there for a few days - a very kind gifted stay from the owners Steph and Ryan - and had decided to explore this walk as it was new to us at the time. We’d walked at Ravensheugh over the years, but had always headed straight to the beach - along Limetree Walk, taking a left through the woods, and arriving on Ravensheugh Sands. It’s an incredible beach and the lads always loved this walk, but still, I’m not sure why we hadn't taken this headland route before.

But we did on this bright, blue-skied September day back in 2019. I have photos of Richard sitting on some rocks with the lads beside him, looking out towards Bass Rock in the distance, and I’m pretty sure we both said: “Why have we never done this walk before?” Because while it’s only a slightly different route from the familiar one we’d taken for years, it gave us a very different perspective of this landscape and seascape.

Perhaps there’s a lesson there, right?

We’ve done this walk ever since. The first section guides you along a woodland path to this stretch of rocky shoreline that looks towards John Muir Country Park. If you enjoy photographing rocks as much as I do, this is an interesting shore - although you’d need to time this walk for low(ish) tide to appreciate it fully. It’s the route we often took with Harris and Bracken, but on this August day, with Raf, we turned back from the shore and followed another woodland path instead. Raf isn’t used to rock clambering (yet) and as he’s much smaller and lighter than the lads were, his speed - combined with a youthful lack of caution - might also mean that he’s more likely to injure himself. So we skipped the rock clambering and returned to the path below.

This route has changed since Storm Arwen swept across the UK back in November 2021. This woodland suffered significant damage, and while not on the scale of the neighbouring John Muir Country Park, which was devastated, many old trees were felled here by the intensity of the wind. The tall pines were the most vulnerable, and while there are areas like this, above, where there was no damage, there are other spots where it feels as if a giant hand has descended into the woodland and ripped the trees apart, leaving gaping, light-drenched holes of hanging and fallen trees. St Baldred’s Cradle took a direct hit, and the trees that once stood along the top of the headland, defiant against decades of storms, now lie on the ground, broken and uprooted.

I didn’t take many photos on this walk. I was mostly taking videos for Instagram stories, and as we were still walking Raf primarily on lead at this point, that’s also a factor in not pausing for as many photos. But this is the view to Bass Rock that I was referring to earlier. There’s something about this view for me. Perhaps it’s the skies here. Perhaps it’s the memories this place holds, even though we’ve only walked here for five years. We’ve seen this view in different seasons, and in very different weather conditions, and I never grow tired of this. This is always a place where I will pause, absorbing the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks below, taking in the layers of texture between the rocks and grasses and the delicate scattering of sea thrift in summer, and the brushstrokes of cloud as the light shifts constantly, with Bass Rock somehow grounding this whole scene.

St Baldred’s Cradle, East Lothian, 28 July 2024.

#stbaldredscradle #eastlothian #scotland