Page 117 of Hope and Happiness in Bluebell Wood
‘All right, all right,’ Callum says, yielding a little. ‘Suppose I go along with your theory for a moment, and the Church might really own a large section of Bluebell Wood. You’re suggesting that old Mr Covey, and then subsequently his son, didn’t officially own the land that was sold to Colin Cuckoo for the development. They simply lived and worked on it using some sort of gentlemen’s agreement?’
I shrug. ‘It’s possible?’
‘Surely a solicitor would have copies of the original title deeds, though? All land belongs to someone; those sorts of documents don’t just go missing in the mists of time, do they?’
‘But what if they did?’ I ask. ‘What if over the years the land became occupied by different people who laid false claim to it, and then it just became known as their land? That would be impossible these days, but we’re talking a long time ago here, Callum. Stranger things have happened than a bit of misplaced land.’
‘It would be a miracle if the owner of the land your cottage stands on still owned vast swathes of land around here because a king supposedly gave it to a farmer hundreds of years ago. It’s not going to happen.’
‘But miracles do sometimes happen,’ I tell him quietly. ‘Andyouof all people should believe in them, Callum.’
Thirty-eight
Merlin and I walk along the footpath and down the hill, and as always when we come this way we pause for a few minutes to watch the work going on in the field.
There is still excavating taking place, but unlike a few months ago when the site had been full of bright yellow diggers and large industrial machinery, today it’s full of people digging up the earth in a much more careful and precise way.
As we had hoped it might be, both the fields and the surrounding area where the development had originally been planned had now been declared a site of historical interest. Several other ancient finds had been discovered on an initial scout of the area, and so the development had been paused, the diggers, trucks and machinery had moved out, and a bunch of friendly archaeologists had moved in to take their place.
And to both their and our delight, every day more interesting items were being unearthed – pieces of broken crockery and utensils that suggested this area may have indeed once been a Roman settlement. The fresh spring water that ran throughthe wood apparently backed up this idea, as the Romans would usually settle near a source of fresh water.
Since they’ve been here they’ve found rudimentary tools that had been used for building, small pieces of jewellery and various coins, including more gold to add to Robin’s original find, which had caused great excitement among both the archaeologists and the villagers, who often come to the field to watch what’s going on.
All in all, everyone was extremely pleased with the progress being made on the Bluebell Wood dig. Even Colin Cuckoo, who once he’d got over the fact his development had been put on hold had realised that he could benefit from everything that was being found on the dig, had been spotted once or twice watching what was being found on his land.
As I’d suspected, no one could be found to back up my theory that Colin had known this land was of historical interest, either before the work had begun to take place or during. And it was a constant source of annoyance to me that not only was he going to get away with it, but that he actually might benefit from this delay to his building plans.
Colin Cuckoo wasn’t my only source of frustration. Progress in other areas was currently at a standstill too.
After the excitement of finding the photos and hearing about the history of the land in and around Bluebell Wood, we’d been unable to find anything else that would back up my theory about the Church still owning some of the land.
Jonah had searched through the records at St Francis’s, Lonan had searched land registries and any other sources he could think of, and Callum and I had spoken to as many of the locals as we could, to try to find out if anyone knew anything, or could remember any of their own family talking about the ownership of land.
We’d even got Alouette and Jack helping us again. They’d been engaging the regulars in their pub with as much chat as they could about the subject. But they too had drawn a blank.
Only Bran said he remembered seeing an argument between a farmer who had owned the field previously and one of the former vicars. But he said he didn’t know what it was about; he just remembered it because it was unusual to see anyone arguing with a man of the cloth.
So our initial enthusiasm that we might have found a way of stopping the build before it began again when the dig finished had so far amounted to nothing.
I felt some of the others had lost a little of their eagerness now we weren’t getting anywhere, but Jonah and I were still determined to discover the truth.
‘Morning, Ava!’ Tori, the site administrator, calls as she sees Merlin and me gazing over the fence. ‘How are you?’
We’d got to know Tori well. When the dig team first arrived, she’d had a lot of questions for us about where exactly we’d found our items and when, and if anything had been found anywhere else in Bluebell Wood. We’d showed her the engraved piece of metal, but she hadn’t seemed that interested in it, saying it was from a much later date than they were concerned with. I’d then had to tell her, a little red-faced, that the Roman coin that I had discovered had been found on my bird table. But Tori hadn’t been as surprised as I thought she might be.
‘You’d be amazed how often that happens,’ she’d told me. ‘Birds often seem to be drawn to the sites we later excavate. Do you get a lot of magpies on your table?’
‘Occasionally.’
‘One of them probably dropped it when it was getting food.It’s likely it came from the main site, though. Do you have anything else the birds have left?’
I didn’t think it necessary to go through every single one of the birds’ gifts, but I decided it best to mention the locket.
‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ she’d said, examining it. ‘But again, much later than we would be looking for. You say you think you know who the man is in the photo?’
We’d told her about Corbin once being the rector of the village and how the cottage where I lived had once been the vicarage, and she seemed happy with our explanation.
‘Very nice. All history is interesting. It’s someone’s story, isn’t it? But I have to concentrate on a fairly narrow window. Although your locket and that funny piece of metal you showed me are lovely. You can keep them; they won’t be treated as treasure.’
