21 OCTOBER 1995, Page 50

Holy Places

Eleusis ditched by cement factories. Hopkins mourning a butchered tree. The Nemian spring, scant rubble, a dribble and a gelati store.

Windsor Great Park, a private golf course, the oak fenced off.

The holy places have shifted, edged off, lit in a cluster of weeds or fungi gathered like a village in the moist ditches; or on the hgh street, there they are, impersonal, lovely.

Cliff Ashcroft