Horses vs Dragoons (or Dragons?)
Welcome to the fourth ‘stop’ on ‘The Cavalier & Roundhead Route’ – a sculpture trail in Lea Park.
This trail was funded through Public Art Funding, and installed in 2024. Find out more about the project through this link.
This piece of Public Art shows a ‘Horse’ and a DRAGON, not a Dragoon.
Find out more about Dragoons
You can see some great images of what the Civil War Battles may have been like on the National Army Museum website, but you wont find a Dragon there.
Find out more about our local Dragon
If you want to find out more about the Dragon connected to Thame, then visit the Library on North Street to borrow ‘Farmer Giles of Ham’. Or find out more here: www.tolkienestate.com/writing/farmer-giles-of-ham.
If you want to visit Ham Wood, named after this short story, then it is only a short walk from here, crossing over Tythrop Way, and following the signs. There is the opportunity for den building and exploring the woods. You won’t spot a dragon, but we are pretty certain, that if you are quiet enough, you will see the white bobbing tails of a few rabbits.
The naming of Ham Wood
Ham Wood was planted in March 2000 as part of The Woodland Trust’s millennium wood project, when 250 celebratory millennium woods were created across the UK. Thousands of trees were planted in the six-acre site at the time, and have grown up into a gorgeous area to explore, just up Moorend Lane. The project was national, but the naming of the wood was far more local. At the time the Thame Gazette put out a call for suggestions of what the wooded area could be named and an Aylesbury man, with strong connections to Thame and Haddenham, Richard, came forward with the suggestion that the wood should be linked to J.R.R. Tolkien, as his book ‘ Farmer Giles of Ham’ was the only one of Tolkien’s books to have been set in a real place, Thame (Ham).
You can read about the story in more details in the articles below. Click on each one to enlarge them.
Original sign at Ham Wood, and how it looked then. Go and visit to see how it looks now.
Challenge Questions:
- Look at the piece of art: What are ‘Dragoons’? M___________ I_____________
- Look at the piece of art: What does ‘Chrysophlax’ mean?
- What real animals might you find in Ham Wood?
Continue the trail:
- To go to the next location walk back to the bottom of Harrison Place and turn left along Roundhead Drive. (If you have just discovered the trail, Harrison Place is the road that connects to the end of the footpath, at the lower end of the park).
- Follow Roundhead Drive to the end and turn right onto Cromwell Avenue
- Follow the road around to the right hand turn into Denbigh Road and the next piece of art is located on this corner.