Reported: 4 August 2017
Location: Bydemill Copse, Hannington, nr Highworth, Wiltshire
Lead photograph by the Crop Circle Connector

Great news! Further to completing this report, The Croppie has learned the farmer at Bydemill Copse has had a change of heart and decided to open up the crop circle to visitors. Admission is at £2.00 per person.

Photograph by Neil Petherick.

What’s this? A crop circle in Wiltshire? Surely not! After a lengthy, unheard of gap that began on 18th July, the circles have returned to the county with this archetypal formation. Unusually, it has appeared well away from the so-called ‘central area’ and can be found to the northeast of Swindon.

The farmer responsible for the field wasn’t happy.

Initially, a posting by a farm worker on Facebook has made it very clear how unwelcome this circle and any prospective visitors were:

Please stay away you have ruined a perfectly good crop, we have better things to do than spend all day watching people needlessly trampling all are [sic] hard work into the ground, the only people to gain from this are the drone owners that sell the pictures,the fields are NOT open for public access, you will be trespassing and treated accordingly.

Photograph by Neil Petherick.

The Croppie guessed the final sentence meant trespassers will be asked to leave the field. More importantly, the farmer is forwarding the idea that drone operators are linked to the creation of crop circles; in this case the farmer suspects they will be selling their photographs of the formation. So, just who are these photograph sellers?

Photograph by Crop Circle Connector

The farm worker went on to say:

we have been warned by the police that people claim to collect money for charity to see the circles but really just rip the farmers off and give nothing to charity, already the rest off [sic] the crop has been damaged by people indiscriminately walking all over it, why do people have no respect!

The first premise is nonsense. Paul Jacobs has and continues to work legitimately worked with farmer James Hussey in the Hackpen area to raise money for charity.

However, in a gracious turn of opinion, the farmer decided to recoup some of his losses and opened up the circle to paying visitors. The Croppie went along and got some photos: