A tunnel too far

Saturday 9th March ‘24. DH, RW, TO, AC, PCL, DL, CH, PCL Jnr, Scrumpy & Maisie.

Todays walk was another new route for us all and the plan was to walk on the western side of Shepton Mallet and up a wooded valley right up to the Windsor Hill tunnels of the old S & D line Between Shepton and Bath. Seven regulars and Phil's oldest son Peter met in a large layby near Bowlish House. As we arrived Richard was making his final parking manoeuvres and when his passengers alighted there was much muttering about the tight squeeze in the rear and the noise form the blowing exhaust. However once they were threatened with walking home the grumbling soon abated and we prepared ourselves for the walk.

The first leg of what was a roughly triangular route took us along a path by the rear of a housing estate and parellel to the A371 a few feet below us as it wound its way towards Wells. Once at the edge of the houses we could clearly see the relatively new Shepton Treatment centre, where it would appear a few of us have been patients at one time or another and also the older Community hospital and the small maternity unit. There were a few gates and easy stiles as we made our way slowly along the ridge, although at one point we did end up a bit too far up the hill and had to drop down by the side of the hedge to find the crossing point. we headed further north at the point where the road goes around a sweeping 'S' bend and as we crested the ridge above Croscombe a wonderful view of the old village and the valley right down the Wells opened up in front of us. As we stood taking it all in, a small rainbow started to form to the left of obvious tower of Wells cathedral. We then dropped down the hill and squeezed through a small path alongside the River Sheppey to come out over an old stone bridge onto the main road. I had estimated that we should have reached this point after about 45 minutes but we were running a bit behind as we arrived here almost dead on 60 minutes.

A short dash along the A371 and then we turned up a steep residential street and right at the top towards the woods. At a small junction a track left left passed some storage sheds and thinking it might save a bit of height we opted to follow it hoping it would drop into the valley bottom quickly and save us a couple of minutes. Unfortunately it was a dead end and so we had to retrace ours steps and drop down to the main track meaning we had lost another 5 minutes or so on an already tight schedule.

The track up through Ham woods was a steady climb between the rocks typical of the Mendips. At the side were some step cliff faces and there was plenty of evidence that the valley had been quarried at some point, possibly to build the village and infrastructure in Croscombe. A bit further up a wooden shelter with interior seating drew the attention of our educational correspondents, as it turned out to be an outdoor forest school for the children at the local primary school. I was very conscious as we made our way up the mile long valley that we still were some way behind schedule and feared that if we made it as far as the tunnels that there might be more delays as we discussed their history and use. So having a plan B option up my sleeve, we took a track on the right which doubled back and continued to climb up the side of the valley, where we spotted a few primroses and also the much smaller wood anemones. When we reached the edge of the wood line is was just a couple of fields to cross to get onto the narrow lanes leading back to Bowlish. We did manage to stop for an issue of lollies and a bit further up the weekly groupie with the Mendip transmitter in the background.

Once we hit the road it was literally all downhill with great views across to Glastonbury Tor and over the ridgeline that we had walked on the far side on the A371 only an hour earlier. The final descent took us through the almost indistinguishable hamlet of Ham before we entered the outskirts of Bowlish. A plaque on the wall of one of the cottages provides information about many of the cottages in this historic valley, although we didn't have time today to spend any time reading it. More interesting information about the project can be found at www.dbhp.org

I'm not sure everyone realised where we were at this point so it was certainly a shock to some that as we approached the main road they could see the cars parked up on the opposite side. we had completed 3.8 miles in a fraction under 2 hours and I must apologise to all those who were hoping to get to the tunnels today, as can be seen from the red dotted line the route we should have taken was a little bit further and would probably have taken us another 20 minutes, if we kept going! As the title of the blog says, it was 'a tunnel too far' this week but hopefully we can walk a slightly different route to them in the not too distant future.

A short drive into town and into the Shepton Brasserie for our first time, where a large table was waiting for us at the back of the room. It was order and pay at the counter today and options ranged form the normal full breakfast, to one without hash browns, whilst three of us went for the scrambled eggs and smoked salmon option. An odd miss match of tea cups and saucers that weren't saucers provided some amusement whilst we waited and Maisie took the opportunity to leave her mark at the cafe. Some very tasty breakfasts were enjoyed by all and it was good to see that nobody was in any great rush to get up and leave, maybe it was the prospect of a couple of potentially dull games of the 6 nations which kept us there!