The Seven Shires Way - Stage 19

Tuesday 29 July 2014

Ashdown House to Bourton / Shrivenham

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.

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.

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. 

Strip lynchets from above

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.

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.

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.