Chesterton, Shropshire

This was our second trip to the West Midlands in our series of Chester walks.  The countryside we were walking through lies between Wolverhampton and Bridgnorth, which is on the Severn.  Usually, myself and BAM (Best Aussie mate) find the nearest long-distance path and follow this, but that wasn't practical this time round, so we invented our own path - a rather circular one, at that - which is more in keeping with the concept of trailblazing! 

It was difficult to know, just by looking at a map, whether our chosen route would be a mucky slog through difficult countryside, or a pleasant stroll through wonderful autumnal colours.  Luckily for us it was mostly the latter!

Lodging and Victuals

The Old House at Hilton

Chesterton is just a small village and the nearest lodging we could find was at a neighbouring village called Hilton, which lies on the A454, the main Bridgnorth to Wolverhampton road.  The nearest train station to access this Chester walk was Wolverhampton, but we were lucky enough to get a lift to Hilton with a lovely lady called Fifi Sharplin, who is the owner of The Old House in Hilton, where we spent the night. 

The Old House is a beautiful building and we stayed in the main ground-floor room in the cottage.  It was an incredibly peaceful place and Fifi gave us a lovely welcome and talked to us about her time spent living overseas, in faraway places like Botswana and Sri Lanka.  She is also a wonderful artist and produces her own floral drawings which can be bought as prints or cards. 

Hilton to Claverley (2 miles/3.2 kilometres)

Hilton view, November morning

We were incredibly lucky with the weather during yesterday's walk and were treated to the most glorious November sunshine, as we set out from Hilton in the direction of Claverley.  Turning right on the main road outside the Old House, we headed back in the direction of Wolverhampton, before crossing the Hilton Brook and turning right through some buildings to follow a public footpath that follows the brook all the way to Hopstone.

The distance from Hilton to Bridgnorth is only 4 miles by road, so we started off walking away from Chesterton, rather than towards it, as otherwise the walk would have been too short and we would have missed out on some amazing countryside.  The path alongside the Hilton Brook is pretty clear and soon brings you to an interesting area of rock formations, known as The Clouds. 

The Clouds, rock formation

Shropshire has a particularly diverse geological make-up and this area, to the east of the River Severn, has a lot of red sandstone rock formations, which date back to the Triassic period, so they are around 240 million years old!  I've certainly not seen rock formations like this before in England and they reminded me of the rocks I saw on a recent trip to Wadi Rum in Jordan.  They give the landscape a very 'romantic' quality, which is more 19th-century Black Forest than 21st century England!

Once we'd passed the rock formations of The Clouds we came out onto a small country road which took us past the hamlet of Hopstone, downhill to the village of Claverley.

Claverley to Ludstone Hall (1 mile/1.6 kilometres)

Claverley

Claverley seemed like a nice village.  I bought some chocolate at the Post Office shop and saw a very touching sign on the village noticeboard about the local Women's Institute, which was forced to close down, after 61 years of continuous existence.  I don't usually get sentimental about change, but you could sense the genuine disappointment of the person who wrote the notice. 

The demise of Claverley's WI was due to falling membership, which could only be turned around by an influx of young members.  The notice was posted in 2008, which also served to give the village an aura of timelessness - I don't think life moves as quickly in Claverley, as it does here in London!

We walked through the village, past the pubs and turned left before the local school, to follow a small path that runs along the back of the village. This eventually brought us to a wider path, where we turned right into a birch coppice, which is more or less on the grounds of Ludstone Hall. 

Path through the Birch coppice

The public path continues to the left of the birch coppice, but we got a bit lost here, going through the trees to a small meadow and some artificial ponds, where we stopped for some chocolate and banana.  There was one magnificant tree by the upper pond, which had turned bright orange, shedding half of its leaves and looking spectacular in the afternoon sun.  Rather than retrace our steps to the right path, we continued across a field to meet a small road, then turned left towards the gates of Ludstone Hall.

Ludstone Hall to Rudge Heath (1.25 miles/2 kilometres)

Ludstone Hall is a fine building and has a long history, having been part of the monastic lands of medieval Bridgnorth.  The current building is Jacobean (ie from the era of James I, early 17th century).  It's privately owned, but is open to the public once a year and has a small museum which is also available for private viewings.  You can find out more on Ludstone Hall's website. 

Ludstone Hall

We continued along the public path to the left of the building, crossing a couple of fields until we came to the B4176, the secondary road between Dudley and Telford.  We didn't cross the road at this point, but backtracked towards Hopstone before turning right onto the Rudge Heath road, a small country lane which passes Rudge Heath farm.  This brought us back to the main Wolverhampton to Bridgnorth road (the A454), which we crossed to access a small lane between a shop and a plant nursery. 

As I'm sure you can imagine, crossing all of these roads was the least intersting part of the walk, but the most convenient way of getting from Ludstone back towards Chesterton. 

Rudge Heath to Chesterton (1 mile/1.6 kilometres)

Meadow near Ludstone

For some reason, we didn't really make good time yesterday.  I guess all the stopping and checking of maps delayed us somewhat, as yesterday's route was a lot more 'involved' than merely following a national or long-distance trail.  Also BAM was a little bit slower than usual, being covered in bruises from a recent kayaking experience! 

Crossing the B4176 at Rudge Heath, we entered a field with some horses and then came to a diversion sign, which was telling us to go up-hill to Littlegain, rather than along a small valley to the Littlegain footbridge, as we had planned.

BAM investigating the footbridge

I'm not sure why the diversion around Littlegain is in place, but I do know that Littlegain is very aptly named, as we lost a lot of time trying to figure out where to go next.  We eventually found the foot bridge via the diverted route, but the sound of gunshots and the sight of birds flying upwards from the forested area at the end of the footbridge put me off following the public footpath to Chesterton.  BAM was much braver than me, as usual, and she was prepared to stick to our original route, but we hadn't factored in 'getting shot' as part of our walking plan, so I managed to convince her to divert back to the dreaded B4176.

We followed the road again to the turn-off for Chesterton, but we never made it to the village.  Time was pushing on and the sun was slowly making its way downwards, so we decided to pick up our route again at the crossroads and avoid an unnecessary diversion to the village itself.

Chesterton to Worfield (1.7 miles/2.7 kilometres)

House near Lowe Bridge

Crossing the road again, we climbed a stile to enter a long field following Stratford Brook, then went uphill across a ploughed field to meet another country lane just outside Bradney.  At the country lane we turned left and continued downhill to a triangular junction, taking the road on the right to reach Lowe Bridge and the edge of Worfield village.  We got a little bit lost here, taking the footpath to Wyken, but we soon realised that we'd taken a wrong turning, so we backtracked to Worfield and found the correct path which led uphill past Davenport House.

Worfield to Rindleford (1.6 miles/2.6 kilometres)

Wheel in the River Worfe

The rest of the walk from Worfield to Bridgnorth was stunningly beautiful.  Davenport House is an example of English Baroque architecture and has a long, winding drive, which we crossed twice on our way to the River Worfe.  The river is crossed by a footbridge and there is an old mill wheel still standing near the footbridge, which was no doubt put to good use during the Industrial revolution. 

The signposting around Burcote House is really good and we often remark that farmers who make sure public footpaths are well-signposted around their land, ultimately have less problems with walkers getting lost and inadvertantly trespassing.  At Burcote, we turned right to follow a narrow path above the River Worfe and alongside the Burcote Rocks.  Like The Clouds over at Hilton, the Burcote Rocks are made of red sandstone and have interesting formations. 

Mist at Rindleford

After about 15 minutes, we crossed the river again, over a footbridge and continued along a small open valley towards the village of Rindleford.  The temperature was dropping at this time of the day and (hopefully) you can see, in the photograph, a wonderful mist over the Rindleford valley. 

Rindleford to Bridgnorth (2.5 miles/4 kilometres)

At Rindleford we crossed the river again and backtracked on a small, sodden path before turning uphill through a fantastic wooded valley towards Batch Lane.  I think this was my favourite part of the whole walk and I've never seen so many pheasants in one place in my entire life!  It's an incredibly secluded valley, which makes it really peaceful and the walking was easy up through Batch lane to a small country road.

Secluded valley

Crossing the small road we took a path uphill past Woodside Farm.  At this stage, it was dark enough to warrant using a headlamp and, as BAM rustled around in her bag, I looked backwards towards distant ridges and the ghostly orange glow of the West Midlands conurbation. 

After Woodside Farm, we entered a steep wood called Hollybush Coppice, picking our way carefully along the top of the ridge, before taking a small path downwards to meet the A442, which is the main Bridgnorth to Telford road.  We stumbled out onto the road by the impressive sight of Fort Pendlestone, an old textile mill, which has been converted into a modern apartment block.

Bridgnorth signpost

It looked quite imposing in the dark and our imaginations were running riot as to the building's fort-like attributes!  From Fort Pendlestone, we had wanted to join a path along the Severn, which leads into Bridgnorth, but it was too dark by the time we got there and a very inviting roadside path became our preferred route into town.

Bridgnorth looks like an interesting place.  We climbed up the Cartway to the High Town, had a wander around the High Street, looked at the Town Hall and made our way back to the Low Town via the Stoneway steps.  I wish we'd had more time to explore Bridgnorth (or at least seen it by day!), but time wasn't on our side yesterday, so it was back to Wolverhampton and our train to London. 

I've calculated that the walk was around 11 miles (17.7 kilometres) in all.  It definitely felt longer than that and, in a way, distance of little relevance during a walk like this, it's the landscape you cover that matters most.

The Stoneway Steps, Bridgnorth

Access for Wheelchair Users

The nature of yesterday's walk meant that it wouldn't be very well suited to wheelchair users.  The walk involved lots of country lanes, which are dangerous because of traffic and climbing over stiles, which would make the walk inaccessible for wheelchair users.  The only accessible bit might be the route from Rindleford to Batch Lane, although, even here, the terrain was  incredibly rough. 

Image credits:

All photos were taken by me - please feel free to reuse these images via the Creative Commons License, Attribution (especially to this blog), Share Alike and Non-commercial. 

Chester-le-Street - Concangis

This was the first time our Chester trip brought us to the North East of England.  Chester-le-Street is a market town in County Durham, just to the south of Newcastle, it lies on the Roman road which ran up the east coast of England to Wallsend.  This trip certainly had a very different feel to it and I think it's fair to say that myself and BAM are now thoroughly familiar with the east coast route, due to the delays and difficulties we had getting there and back! 

Lodging and victuals

Tribley Farm near The Moorings

We might have arrived in Chester-le-Street two hours later than we'd expected, but our accommodation at the Moorings Hotel in Hett Hills, just outside the town, more than made up for the long journey to get there.  Unfortunately, because of the delay, we didn't get a chance to eat at the hotel restaurant, the Prime Rib, which has great reviews.  Apparently, it's a really popular spot for Sunday lunch and people drive there from miles around to sample their famous Yorkshire pudding! 

We'd found it hard to get accommodation in the town itself and we now know this was because of the one-day International between England and India at Chester-le-Street's Emirates Durham International Cricket Ground.  That would explain why every room in the town was booked out!  By all accounts, tickets for the match had sold out in December of last year!  We couldn't have ended up in a better place than The Moorings and I'd recommend it, if you're ever up Durham-way. 

The Moorings Hotel to Edmondsley (2 miles)

Horses at Tribley Farm

Weird sculpture on the ground

We didn't intend to visit Edmondsley on this walk!  Whilst we have, on occasion, got a little bit lost in previous Chester walks, this time we got spectacularly lost and somehow walked in completely the wrong direction, away from Chester-le-Street rather than towards it!  In our defense, I have to note that the landscape between the Moorings hotel and Congburn plantation looks completely different to what you see on the map.  It feels as though they have been tearing chunks out of the surrounding fields and re-creating the landscape to turn it into something else.  There were lots of eerie pieces of wooden sculpture, like the one in the photograph, which seemed to have been run over by a digger. 

Congburn Plantation

The myriad of paths through Congburn plantation are also partly to blame, as well as the interesting conversation we were having about hostage-taking, which led us to take that fateful right turn, when we should have gone left!  In case you're not already aware of it, I have a sister blog to this one called Learning about the World, which recounts my armchair travels to different parts of the world.  I'm currently blogging about Yemen, which is why we were talking about hostages in the first place!  I guess the path to Edmondsley had taken us hostage and, although it seemed like a nice enough place, we were keen to get to Chester-le-Street and back on the track of our intended walk. 

Place of the horse people

I'd managed to convince myself, before this trip, that, in true English fashion, Chester-le-Street should be pronounced something like Chester-l'Estrey or something equally pretentious, but no, in true North East fashion it's just Chester-le-Street!  The accent in this part of Durham is fascinating - not quite Geordie, definitely not Yorkshire, but somewhere in between. 

Front Street, Chester-le-Street

After all of our Chester walks in the south of England, the North East was suddenly very exotic, like being in a different country - the place names are very different - Ouston, Birtley, Kibblesworth, Nettlesworth - definitely not southern English names.  Then there were curious names, like No Place and Pity Me and North American names like Washington, Canada, Philadelphia and Quebec, as though the Americans had colonised England and not the other way about!

The Romans called Chester-le-Street Concangis, which was their approximation of the original Celtic place name, which meant something like 'place of the horse people'.  It's also the name of the small river Cong which runs through Chester-le-Street and the plantation where we got lost!  Interestingly, the Russian word for horse is also конь kon'.  The name Chester-le-Street was used to differentiate this Chester from all the other Chesters in England, ie. this was the one on the Roman road (or street) to Wallsend.  Chester-le-Street's Roman history isn't very visible these days, because the town was built on top of the Roman fort, so everything Roman is underground. 

The Pilgrim's Way

St Mary and St Cuthbert's

Signpost for Cuddy's Corse

We restarted our walk on the main street, which is called Front Street, with a view of St Mary and St Cuthbert's, Chester-le-Street's main church.  St Cuthbert seems to have been phenomenally popular in the north of England and his body rested in Chester-le-Street for 112 years in the 9th/10th century, before being moved further south to Durham cathedral.  It turns out that the walk we did from Chester-le-Street is actually part of a pilgrim's route known as Cuddy's Corse (ie. the path that they carried St Cuthbert (Cuddy's) body (corse).  The route runs from the Farne Islands (north of Newcastle) to Durham, but it's not exactly a direct path, as it goes via Edinburgh and Carlisle in a highly circuitous loop. 

Chester-le-Street seems to be a popular stopping off point on the way from North to South and it was also the first stop on the famous Jarrow March of the 1930's, when 207 protestors marched from Jarrow in South Shields to Westminster Palace in London, to highlight the extreme poverty and unemployment faced by people in the North East at that time. 

Chester-le-Street to Great Lumley (2 miles)

England v India at the Emirate Durham ICG

The first two miles of our walk took us past the Emirates Durham ICG where we could hear the cheers of 75,000 spectators and we could see the stadium draped in English and Indian flags.  As we were passing, the weather was fine and everything was going well, but I heard on the news later that they had to call the match off because of the rain which fell at around 3pm.  We crossed Lumley Bridge, then turned right onto the Weardale Way, passing the magnificent Lumley Castle Hotel (rooms starting at 185 GBP for a twin.  Hmmm, maybe next time!) The way followed the River Wear for a little bit, then turned left to pass Lumley Riding, skirting a hedgerow and wheat fields which brought us to Great Lumley. 

Horse at Lumley Ridings

Front Street, Great Lumley

All of this land was once part of the Lumley estate, the Lumleys being a prestigious local family of Anglo-Saxon origin.  Great Lumley was also known for its coal mines in the 19th century.  Intriguingly, we spotted a pub on Great Lumley's Front Street called The Warriors Arms. 

Fields outside Great Lumley

We often hear the sound of gun shots on our walks through the country, usually a regular sound created by machines to scare away birds.  This time we heard real gunshots, down towards the river and it reminded me of a great Spanish movie I've seen recently called El rey de la montaña. If you've seen the movie, then you'll know why. If you haven't seen it (and you like thrillers) then it's well worth watching!

Inside Finchale Priory

Great Lumley to Finchale Priory (1.4 miles)

The entrance to Finchale Priory

We continued following the Weardale way, through some fields and onto a small country road called Cocken Lane, which brought us back to the river, crossing a pedestrian footbridge to reach the ruins of Finchale Priory.  This one is pronounced differently than it's spelled, so it's pronounced Finkle not Finchale.  The priory is really beautiful and reminded me of Bolton Abbey.  Like Bolton Abbey the priory was abandoned during the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century.  Walking around the ruins, I couldn't help but feel appalled at the ruination of such a wonderful site.  It's now managed by English Heritage and maintains an atmosphere of dignified contemplation. 

Finchale Priory to Brasside (1.1 miles)

The lonely road to Brasside

Finchale Priory lies at the end of a very lonely road, which brings you down to the village of Brasside, the location of two Category A prisons, Low Newton womens' prison and Frankland mens' prison.  We've seen a few fortified buildings on our walks, notably Fort Nelson in Portchester, but nothing as frightening and impressive as the prisons at Brasside.  The Weardale way, rather nonchalantly, goes right between the two prisons and we crept along, in awe of the prison walls, as the clouds burst suddenly and the rain pelted us angrily.  I've found out since our walk that Rosemary West is currently being held at Low Newton and that Frankland holds the child-murderer, Ian Huntley.  It makes me shiver just thinking about how close we were to such evil minds!

Brasside to Durham (2.3 miles)

View of Durham cathedral

The rest of the walk to Durham was pleasant enough, despite the rain, and we could see Durham cathedral in the distance, romantically lounging in the mist on top of the hill.  I'd never been to Durham before this walk, but I'd heard a lot about it and it certainly lived up to my expectations.  We arrived with about an hour to spare before our train, so we walked around the city, through Market Place and up Saddler Street and Owengate to Durham Cathedral.  The cathedral is a fantastic structure and we walked around inside, listening to the choir singing and reading about the history of the building.  We also visited the shrine to St Cuthbert, thereby ending a pilgrimage that we didn't know we'd started!  

Access for Wheelchairs users

Durham castle

The part of this walk that I would recommend for wheelchair users is the Weardale way from Finchale Abbey to Durham.  If you don't mind wheelchairing through a prison(!), this part of the route is fairly accessible, with a few bumpy bits coming down Frankland Lane and a slightly steep slope down from Frankland Farm.  Durham has a new pedestrian bridge which is wheelchair-accessible and will bring you to Market Place via the Gala Theatre.  Alternatively, you could get an elevator to street-level in the Gates Shopping Centre and cross the bridge at Leazes Road, just as we did. 

Image credits:

All photos were taken by me - please feel free to use them under the Creative Commons license:

Attribution (especially to this blog)
Share alike
Non-commercial

Dorchester - Durnovaria

Sign at South Dorchester Rail



Thomas Hardy statue in Dorchester

 The walk we did yesterday in Dorchester was our first foray into the Chesters of South West England.  I've been a big fan of Thomas Hardy since my teenage years and I've read almost all of his novels, including Tess of the D'Urbervilles and The Mayor of Casterbridge, both of which are set in Dorchester, fictionalised by Hardy as Casterbridge.



The Military Keep Museum



I'd been in Weymouth and Portland before, but this was only my second trip to Dorset and the walk we did was one of the most beautiful walks of the Chester series thus far.  Dorchester is an interesting enough town to spend a day.  Whilst BAM couldn't make it down from London until the evening, I arrived in the late afternoon and took a walk around the town, browsing in the shops of South Street and exploring the sights of the High Street, made famous by Hardy's novels.  I also walked around the old Roman fortifications and walked as far as The Keep Military Museum.  Dorchester seems to have a lot of museums - as well as the Keep, there was a Teddy Bear Museum, the Dorset County Museum, a Tutankhamun Exhibition, a Dinosaur Museum and an exhibition on the Terracotta Warriors (one of the few permanent exhibitions outside China which is devoted to the Terracotta Army!)

I overheard two ladies on South Street talking about an upcoming dramatisation of Tess and local posters informed me about Friday night's ceilidh, although we missed the Ghost Tour which took place on Thursday!  It's always a bit of a culture shock coming from London and dipping suddenly into the life of a rural town, like many of the Chesters we've been visiting.  By the time BAM arrived at Dorchester South Railway station, it felt as though I were one of the locals and as though I'd been in Dorchester for years, rather than hours!

 Lodging and Victuals

Visiting the Chesters isn't just about walking, of course - food and accommodation play an important part as well and we were really lucky to stumble upon a lovely little restaurant off Trinity Street which was called Billy's Fish Restaurant.  It has a very unassuming entrance and could be easily missed, but once you get inside, the decor is great and the food was absolutely amazing!  I had King Prawns with potatoes and I'd highly recommend Billy's place, if you ever find yourself in the locale.



King Prawn's at Billy's



We stayed at a B&B called The White House on Queen's Avenue, which was very good value for money, incredibly clean, with a spacious room and lovely red tiles in the bathroom.  Queen's Avenue is rather a grand driveway, planted with lime trees, leading up to The Thomas Hardye School.  I've learned this weekend that there was more than one Thomas Hardy, this one being a 16th-century merchant who founded the school to educate local boys. 

The B&B owners, Mr and Mrs Lees were very welcoming and have been running the B&B for 26 years!  We met an interesting older couple at breakfast who moved from England to Adelaide more than fifty years ago and had come back to meet some old friends their daughter had managed to contact through the Internet.  We got a bit distracted listening to their story and set out on the walk later than expected. 

In previous walks, I had been using pen and paper to try to measure the distances between one point on the map and the other.  However, it always seem to be longer than we'd expected and most of our previous Chester walks were around 12-16 miles, rather than 8-12, which is more comfortable (especially when you get chatting over breakfast and set out late!)  Not to be outdone by my erratic cartography, BAM invested in a small piece of technology, a kind of map measurer, which made planning this walk much more straightforward (and accurate) than previously.  It definitely made a big difference and we felt less rushed towards the end, which was a contrast to past walks when we were racing along the countryside outside Sleaford so we would be on time for our train, scrambling up over the Portchester downs in the failing light and finding ourselves plunged into the darkness of muddy fields in the Hundred of Hoo!

Dorchester to Maiden Castle (1.7 miles/2.7 kilometres)



A sheep at Maiden Castle

 After stocking up on water and chocolate on Maud Road, we made our way down to the Maiden Castle Road and a very pleasant walk out of Dorchester to the site of this Iron Age Fort.  The area that is now Dorset, Somerset and south Wiltshire was originally inhabited by a Celtic tribe called the Durotriges - it's from this tribe that we get the Roman name for Dorchester, Durnovaria and the Saxon name for the county of Dorset.  It's one of the best preserved Iron Age forts in Britain and I thought it was fantastic, especially the steep ramparts, which still look incredibly formidable.  It's mostly inhabited by sheep these days, but the view from the top is wonderful and it was a great start to our day's walking.  It's the kind of landscape you could imagine Thomas Hardy's characters to be roaming around in and I think this part of England is very beautiful, with its roly-poly hills and views down to the sea. 




BAM walking through Maiden Castle




Maiden Castle ramparts

 Maiden Castle to the South Dorset Ridgeway signpost (1.6 miles/2.6 kilometres)



Bridleway to Higher Ashton Farm

 When I'm planning these walks, I usually 'cheat' a little bit, by getting us on to one of the National Trails - partly because it's easier to follow a way-marked trail, but mostly because the way-marked trails go through some of Britain's most spectacular scenery.  Dorchester doesn't lie on any of the way-marked trails, so I improvised the 1.6 miles from Maiden Castle to the South Dorset Ridgeway, using a combination of public bridleways to make sure we didn't stray onto private land. 



South Dorset Ridgeway signpost

 There's a bridleway that runs to the west of Maiden Castle and it was really easy to follow this until it came out onto a small country lane and then a slightly bigger road (the B3159) which runs between Broadwey and Winterbourne Abbas.  We crossed the B3159 at Higher Ashton Farm and took another bridleway running diagonally uphill through two fields and then along the eastern side of another field until it meets the South Dorset Ridgeway with a handy signpost outlining your options!  The options at this point are east to Bincombe or west to the Hardy Monument, so we turned west, as planned and in keeping with our general direction. 



South Dorset Ridgeway

 I've done quite a bit of walking in England and have walked more than half of the South West Coastal path, which also runs along the Dorset coast not far from our Dorchester walk.  The Ridgeway is an interesting alternative to the coastal path and one that I'm getting very interested in.  There are quite a few ridgeway walks in the south of England, the most famous one being in Oxfordshire/Berkshire (reputedly Britain's oldest path).  The South Dorset Ridgeway is a 17-mile walk from Osmington Mills to West Bexington and can be walked as an additional stage or an alternative loop in the South West Coastal route.  It was certainly a very pleasant walk and the views over Portland and Chesil Beach were second-to-none!

The South Dorset Ridgeway signpost to the Hardy Monument (2.3 miles/3.7 kilometres)

It's quite windy on top of the Ridgeway and the shadows over the landscape added a dramatic tone to early afternoon light.  You can see the Hardy Monument in the distance, as you're walking and, at 239 metres (784 feet) above sea level, it was the highest point of the day for us. 



The Hardy Monument, Portesham



Blackthorn

 The monument was built in honour of yet another Thomas Hardy, the Vice Admiral Hardy who was a commander in the Battle of Trafalgar, famously close to Admiral Nelson and remembered in (one of) Nelson's dying phrases Kiss me, Hardy! Myself and BAM had a discussion about the significance of Nelson's words and how they could be interpreted so differently in the modern era of gay rights and recognised relationships between men.  We concluded that it was a very different time and that, perhaps, it would be a little bit unfair to apply a modern interpretation to Nelson's words.  It's an interesting thought, all the same and no-one seems to know whether or not Hardy kissed Nelson on the head, the cheek or gave him a good old-fashioned snog!  I guess we'll never know . . .

Unfortunately for us, the Monument is undergoing repairs and the bottom half is currently covered in scaffolding.  Nevertheless, it was an apt compliment to our Portchester walk, when we rested in the shadow of the Nelson Monument on Portsdown Hill. 

The Hardy Monument to Abbotsbury (2.9 miles/4.7 kilometres)



Benecke Wood

 From the Hardy Monument we went downhill through Benecke Wood, then followed a stone wall running along the bottom of three fields until we reached another small road at Portesham Hill.  We crossed the road and passed Hampton Barn, sticking to the top of the Ridgeway with sweeping views over Abbotsbury Plains we could see parts of Chesil Beach, in the gaps between the low-lying hills of the coast.  Eventually we crossed Bishop's Road, which links Abbotsbury to the Hardy Monument and then we turned downhill again, leaving the South Dorset Ridgeway to follow a small valley down through fields full of sheep, until we reached the road again and continued into Abbotsbury.  



Abbotsbury

 The weather was glorious with a late-afternoon sunshine and Abbotsbury was full of daytrippers, eating ice-creams, walking their dogs and shopping in the local gift shop.  It was a nice way to end the trip and Abbotsbury has a lot of quaint thatched cottages, as well as a famous swannery and tropical gardens, just behind Chapel Hill. 




View of Chapel Hill and Abbotsbury Plains




Gable-end cottage in Abbotsbury

 Disabled/Wheelchair Access



Bluebells near Abbotsbury

 As my sister is disabled and has one of those clunky motorised wheelchairs, I've promised to include information about wheelchair access (if any) in our Chester walks.  Unfortunately, most of this route was completely inaccessible to wheelchair users, the only exception being the walks around Dorchester and the road leading to Maiden Castle (although wheelchair users would find it difficult to get into the fort itself). 



View of Portland Bill

 It's always dangerous walking or wheelchairing along country roads, even quiet ones like Maiden Castle Road, but an alternative to this walk might have been to continue along the cycle path from Maiden Castle to Martinstown (although I'm not sure if the cycle path is completely accessible) and then along Bishop's Road from Martinstown to the Hardy Monument and down in Abbotsbury.  Maybe some day, wheelchair users will have access to routes like this one, without too much interference from drivers (who, let's face it, have lots of other options!). 



Thatched cottage in Abbotsbury

 The landscape is the same as the one we passed through, although I imagine that wheelchair users, especially people in motorised wheelchairs like my sister's, which are dependent on electric batteries, might want to limit their journeys to shorter stages such as Dorchester-Martinstown, Martinstown-the Hardy Monument or the Hardy Monument-Abbotsbury. 

Image credits:

All images were taken either by me or my Best Aussie Mate (BAM).  Please feel free to re-use these under the Creative Commons license for Non-Commercial, Share Alike and Attribution (especially to this blog).