Tuesday 29 July 2014
Ashdown House to Bourton / Shrivenham
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| Ashdown House |
“A Tuesday?” said in a Lady Bracknell kind of voice. It
wasn’t being careless, just pressures of work and family holidays meant that
the only day we could manage was Tuesday 29 July. Well, it was different and
quiet.
We had to get back to Ashdown House, we were last here on 17
April (see stage 16). Luckily there is a community minibus C90 that runs from
Swindon to Hungerford right past Ashdown House. So an early start and expensive
return tickets to Swindon from our respective bases of Reading, Oxford and near
Didcot. We met up on the 09:13 departure from Didcot and arrived in Swindon at
around 09:30. After a coffee we assembled at Swindon bus station and had time
to reminisce about the previous, many times we had stood here. The minibus
departed on time and took us out to the Berkshire Downs via Swindon hospital.
Quite a long journey and we didn’t set off walking until 10:45.
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| Ashdown House from Alfred's Castle |
The weather was fine - sunny, blue sky, and luckily breezy
as it was hot in the sun.
Walked through the parkland to the north of Ashdown House
stopping several times to take pictures and then took the wrong path which
meant we had to walk around Alfred’s Castle (iron-age fort at Grid Ref: SU2774
8223). Bit further on we didn’t turn off the path (distracted by a tractor and
spray) so ended up walking around a wood at Grid Ref: SU2754 8170. Eventually
we were on the right path as it slowly climbed up the dip slope towards the
Ridgeway.
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| Above Bishopstone looking north |
We reached the Ridgeway above Idstone at Idstone Hill (Grid
Ref: SU2636 8354) and turned west. It was getting hot so we stopped for a quick
bite (late elevenses) just about on the Oxfordshire-Wiltshire border. Actually
it was fairly busy on the Ridgeway with several couples moving along with the
aid of walking poles. We carried on west so as to see the famous strip lynchets
(medieval terraces) above Bishopstone.
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| Strip lynchets from above |
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| Strip lynchets from below |
We were now in Wiltshire our seventh
county. We missed the path down through the historical terraces so had to climb
a fence before making our way down the hill, through the sheep grazing on the
scarp face of the Downs. Goodbye chalk land, hello flat clay land.
Walked on into the
pretty spring-line village of Bishopstone and found the Royal Oak pub,
(Grid Ref: SU24498374.) According to our guide book this is the first public house that the route
passes since West Ilsley over 30 miles away,
What a great pub, definitely a bit quirky, selection of
books to read and games to play. Beer on offer was mostly Arkells, started on
Wiltshire Gold but soon gravitated to the slightly stronger Moonlight. P was
feeling good about the place, we all were, so we decided to sample the food - locally
produced bacon, sausages and goat cheese in a variety of open sandwiches.
Excellent. Pub rated 9 out of 10 on our very subjective scoring system.
After probably one pint too many we set off back towards Idstone, back into Oxfordshire.
Talk turned to recent holidays in the Ardennes (Belgium), and France (Calais),
and strangely the BBC radio programme The Archers. It’s amazing how easy it is
to get back into the story of “simple country folk”. We think that was the
strap line. Of course none of us admit to following the long-running serial
though if pressed could probably recall major events throughout the decades
that the show has been running. The walk was becoming a bit Archers like - we
had to make way for a herd of milking cows being driven along by a quad bike
and then after ducking under various electric fences and clambering over
rickety stiles came across the challenge of the day.
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| Featherbed Lane |
Despite being marked as the footpath, with a
proud Oxfordshire sign, the path from Idstone to Bourton, Featherbed lane - became
totally overgrown between Grid Refs: SU2483 8514 to SU2471 8598.
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| Overgrown path |
We gave up and
moved into the adjacent fields. It looked like earlier walkers had done the
same. The third field contained some bullocks but they were some distance away
so we moved smartly along the fence line. Then they saw us and decided to investigate at full stampede.
We made it to the gate in the corner of the field just in front of the
excitable steers. Damn, the gate had been tied shut with baler twine – a
farming tradition of not trusting walkers to shut the gate so tying it shut to
start with.
No problem in the end, though we could have done without the
enforced 30m dash.
Are we going to complain to the footpath man at Oxfordshire
County Council? Is the path the overgrown route or now diverted through the
adjacent fields (probably to the dislike of farmers and walkers alike)?
We walked on through the stables and horse paddocks of Fern
Farm and on to the road to Bourton. The recommended path then continued through
some rough land (yet again overgrown) so we prudently choose to walk along the
lane into Bourton and took a break on a bench in the churchyard, (Grid Ref:
SU2337 8678), to eat the remains of our packed lunches.
Summary: Another delightful
day, the “Ashdown, Arkells and Archers” day. Fairly easy walking, though the
footpath bashing and heat towards the end of the day meant we were all fairly
tired by the time we returned to Swindon. Mileage was 10 miles.
