The Seven Shires Way - Stage 9

Poundon to Ludgershall, Friday 12 July 2013

Many apologies for the delay in writing this post. The writer was distracted by other activities and, sorry to say, the walk on 12 July 2013 wasn’t sensational. A cool  day rapidly became rather hot and sticky. Combined with difficult to find paths and misjudgements on distance had us arriving in Ludgershall in much need of a pint or two only to find the Bull & Butcher pub shut. As with the last walk the transport to and from the walk was rather complicated as well. As last time, we went on the S5 bus from Oxford to Bicester and a taxi to Poundon to start walking at 09:30.

Old water works, Marsh Gibbon

 The plan for the day was to get to Boarstall though that was fairly ambitious if we were to catch the infrequent bus service to Oxford. P then came up with a plan to divert to Bullingdon and catch the S5 bus outside the prison. T was already working up interesting summaries for the blog along the lines of ending up at prison. Any way that was not to be as revealed below.

The day started cool and grey and found us heading out across horse filled fields and a view of the back of Poundon Manor towards Marsh Gibbon. On the outskirts of Poundon there is a radio station (SP637252) at Poundon Hill, research on Wikipedia later revealed that it was a disused MI6 communications station. Good view of the Vale of Aylesbury and then down and across the single line of the railway at SP647245 that once went from Oxford to Cambridge and an easy walk into Marsh Gibbon, past the village water supply pump house.

Marsh Gibbon Church

The path then headed south across flat clay land (like a fen – that’s why it’s called Marsh Gibbon) towards Ludgershall. It was then we realised that the route seemed to be taking much longer than planned. 

As P pointed out later, the book under estimates this part of the walk by 2.5 miles (at the rate we were walking that was 2 hours adrift. The path was difficult with long grass, cracked, hard-baked clay underfoot and awkward stiles, often broken or covered in brambles or nettles.

Near Ham Pond (SP643215) lost in the tall grass

We eventually made it to the road and the bridge over the River Ray, which marks the county boundary. The road surface of this very minor road in Buckinghamshire contained a high proportion of china waste in the matrix of tar, bits of pottery and clay pipes.

By now T’s knee (injured doing DIY months ago) started to play up. When we reached the A41 P proposed that perhaps we should call it a day and taxi back to Bicester. We were all feeling tired but decided that as Ludgershall was only 3 miles away we could still do do that in an hour and a half and get to the Bull & Butcher pub in time for a  cool beer or two.

Unfortunately the path became even more difficult to find. Even the Seven Shires Way Book written in 2002 mentions on page 65 that one has to climb over a fence at The Old Farm House (SP640193) so much for public footpaths. We then had a stretch of about 2 miles of missing or unsafe stiles, fields where the path had been covered in crops and fields where the naturally inquisitive cattle were more interrogative than ever and we had to resort to lots of arm waving and shouting to stop a stampede. (Dear readers you have probably realised by now that T isn’t too keen on crossing fields with cattle of any sort in them). We emerged across a stile at  New Barn Farm (SP652185) to be told immediately by the occupant that the path had been diverted around their garden. No real problem but what gives these people the right to change things just because it suits them. Mutter mutter.

Bridge over the River Ray (SP637201)

It seems a great pity that some landowners feel that they can ignore our ancient rights. We are so lucky in this country to have foot paths and public rights of way. Yet there are still some people who want to keep walkers of all sorts out of the countryside.

Never mind we limped onto Ludgershall "will we ever get there?" and emerged into a “Stepford Wives” sort of village with large open spaces and pretty cottages set back from the road. The pace quickened as the pub must just be round this corner – SHUT, probably open at lunchtime - we will never know. "OK let’s call it a day". It was 14:40. A taxi back to Bicester (only a 15 minute wait and a ten minute journey was an entertaining taxi driver, where we found a pub in the old post office, The Penny Black (5 out of 10 – real ale good and most welcome, ambiance not so great).

Back to Oxford in time for N to go to a gig (Ah! that's why we had to start early – again!) and P&T to returned respectively home to near Didcot and Reading. P reported later his train scheduled to stop at Didcot, didn’t (some great First Great Western excuse) and he had to go to Reading and back-track.

There was no way we were ever going to achieve our target of Boarstall or Bullingdon prison that day. Chalk it up to experience and make sure we plan the next leg with more care. Oh and T get your knee fixed. Next time we promise to be more up-beat.

Summary: Total of 7.2 miles. Hard work, bit on the warm side and not for hay fever sufferers. Foot path quality and stiles in Buckinghamshire 3 out of 10.