This is the second in a series of posts investigating the close-season soundscape of football pitches on the route between Brightwell-cum-Sotwell and Winslow. There are more details of the project here.
6th july 2017
14.49 : The Village Green – Stadhampton OX44 7UB
(looking north towards the B480)
Crow overhead – two calls made simultaneously with the sound of a passenger jet; swifts flying low; a large articulated lorry bounces through pot-holes that make an instrument of its trailer – the sound resonates across the green; a dog barks and the sounds of agricultural industry can be heard – perhaps a JCB moving earth or clearing a path – or perhaps the sound of outbuildings being removed; a single jackdaw call; the smooth white noise of the road like a wave receding from the shoreline on a beach of small pebbles – Aldeburgh perhaps – the sound is constant but rises and falls; a babble of hedgerow birds in the distance – a chaffinch the chief noisemaker amongst them; wood pigeons call from a rooftop; a group of rooks call; a fly passes my right ear; another light aircraft progresses slowly across the sky with the steady pulse of tremolo propellor sound; all of the sound-making activity is on the fringes of the green – only the darting swallows enter the space regularly; a car passes – tyres on grit and gravel – the sound fades quickly; the chaffinch is back and a military helicopter passes to the east hurling tremolo waves of sound to all sides; as the helicopter passes a passenger jet can be heard high above the clouds.
10th july 2017
11.26 : The Village Green – Stadhampton OX44 7UB
(red clover flowers near the scorched markings of the centre circle)
Wind shakes the screen of trees along the Eastern edge of the village green; a single light aircraft overhead – distinctive tremolo of diesel engine; sounds of agricultural industry – a resonant metal trailer-ramp hits concrete – pallets are dropped; the bright droning sheen of tyres on asphalt blends with the wind; birdsong from several directions simultaneously; the sound of an accelerating engine rises above the road surface drone; a collared dove call duets briefly with an abandoned pasty wrapper that moves slowly across the grass with the erratic breeze – and then darts away caught by a sudden gust; rook calling; a chorus of wood pigeons now; twin copper beaches at the northern edge of the green are sounded by a sustained gust of wind that then moves on to the eastside of the green creating sound in its wake; a diesel-engine truck reversing; the rattle of trailer and grind of gears as a refuse truck passes and is swiftly followed by the call of a red kite and the distant flap of wings; a kazmierczak truck passes but its contact with the road surface is soundless at this distance until a dull thud as it hits a pot-hole – perhaps the truck is full and the weight of the trailer is deadening the sound; a flat-bed truck passes straight afterwards – its base a resonant metal sheet – rattling freely and accompanying the sound of children calling in the playground.
On this second visit to green on July 10th I also made a sound recording: