Saturday 1st June ‘24. DH, RW, TO, AC, PCl, PC, DL, JB, CH, Scrumpy, Albus & Maisie
Following on from some low turnout weekends over the May Bank holidays it was good to see us almost at full strength today for a walk around the edges of the Stourhead estate. It was another bright morning with few clouds in the sky as we met in an almost empty Stourhead NT car park. Once parking tickets were obtained and we were all set we headed out a fraction before 9.00am down the road to the main arched gateway, where we used the old wooden revolving turn style to the side of the main driveway and by a former gate house lodge - now most likely a NT holiday let.
As we made our way along the grass track the large imposing facade of the Palladian villa of Stourhead came into view. The house was built in 1721-4 by Colen Campbell and Wincantons own Nathaniae Ireson for Henry Hoare, a London banker. His son Henry Hoare II, who together with his architect Henry Flitcroft, was responsible for the construction of Stourhead’s spectacular gardens and many temples and other buildings. In 1792 Richard Colt Hoare added two pavilions to the original house, one for the picture collection and the other for his library. After a fire damaged the main block in 1902, a local architect made a series of unsound alterations. The roof timbers began to sag and Sir Aston Webb, the designer of Admiralty Arch and the east front of Buckingham Palace, was called in to remedy the situation. We just had to stop for this weeks groupie with such an imposing backdrop before we continued heading northwards away from the house.
We crossed the road which heads towards Alfred’s Tower or Gare Hill direction and into empty fields, with views to our right of the chalk hills of Mere down and beyond. At each stile or electric fence the group of nine formed an orderly queue to cross the obstacle but of course such numbers always take a bit longer each time that’s with a smaller group. We dropped down into the lane which actually connects the White Sheet road opposite the closed Red Lion pub to ten road leading to Alf’s Tower but almost immediately turned back off it again to head for the village of Kilmington.
At some point young Maisie found a short period when she was not running around and barking at Albus, to roll in something not nice, with a strange odour. Trevor was keen to get her washed off before we headed into anywhere for breakfast but didn’t like the look of the large puddle we stood by as we wait ies for the tail end to catch up. As Dereyk kindly offered this weeks confectionery we watched a few swifts swoop down to collect mud and water for this years nests. We set off again in search of a suitable water point to wash Maisie down, heading up the village High Street and passed a few rather nice properties. In the front garden of one, a selection of old wrecks included an early Bedford RL 3 ton truck, one of the last petrol lorries and very similar to the ones I used to drive back in the ‘80s.
As we reached the top of the high street and just past the war memorial stood in a triangular traffic island, Trevor spotted the answer to his prayers. At the far side and enclosed by a metal fence stood the village water pump. John immediately took it on himself to be the pump operator whilst Trevor went to the outlet end to see if any water could be drawn to wash Maisie. The pump was just a simple lift pump with a single throw flywheel and the outlet to both a tap and a longer delivery pipe to one side. Before Trevor had even had time to get Maisie under the tap John was ferociously turning the wheel, but nothing was coming out of the tap.
Hope of some success was raised when Trevor turned the tap open but it wasn’t until John changed direction that a steady flow of water appeared from the tap. Trevor quickly thrust Maisie under the flow although with the colour of the water running onto her back I’m not sure if Maisie was going to get any cleaner. A few swift rubs of her coat as the water slowly cleared and Trevor was most pleased with the outcome. Maisie less so, as she slipped her harness and squeezed through the fence to escape. A nearby plaque indicates that the Parish Pump was restored in 1994. (Maybe John got all his practise as apparently there are the remains of a similar one in Charlton Musgrove here). This has got to have been one of the funniest events we’ve had on any walk for a good time.
With a dripping Maisie we headed on out of the village and having failed to negotiate a stile entered a field of young cows through a gateway. After some initial interest the youngsters soon allowed us through as we headed for the far hedgerow. Dereyk spotted a stile a good 100m lower down the hedge than it should be but thinking we could see something in the most likely location we ignored his discovery. However when the sign could be seen over the hedge but there was no way through it, we made the short detour back to the only exit point we could see. It was certainly not the best maintained stile and caused all of us a few issues, but once over we walked up the road and then straight across at the junction and onto a dead end farm track. At the end of the track a gateway lead into a field where we walked along the edge until a further stile took us into a giant field of barley. At this point we finally managed to get a bit of 4G signal and made a booking at the Hillbrush cafe for the next 40 minutes or so.
The wood line of Stourhead was now getting closer but first we had a good 500 metre narrow path through the barley to negotiate. The skies were clear and the sun was still rising so it was warm work as we progressed in single file through the hip high crop. Eventually we reached the road and turn right then at the Six Wells car park turned left into the woods. The original plan had been to walk through the open valley past Peters Pump and down into Six Well bottom, but actually the track through the woods was on the level and apart from a few muddy areas allowed us to increase the pace as the fear of missing breakfast loomed on us.
We continued down the wooded ride until a gateway took us past Terrace Cottage, another gate lodge and onto the Stour Vally Way back into the open fields of the Stourhead Park. By this time it was evident that we would miss the last orders for breakfast and so made another call to cancel the booking. Heads dropped as I shared the news but already I was thinking of alternative locations who might still be able to provide our much needed breakfast. A call to our friendly Angle Corner cafe in Mere confirmed that it was too late for a full English but they could do bacon, sausage and or egg sandwiches.
It was past 11.30 as we all made it back under the archway and past a good show of rhodedenron bushes to the now extremely busy car park after a slower than average walk of 4.85 miles. It was then only a 10 minutes drive to Mere and into the cafe where we managed to spread ourselves out around four small tables in the back area.
The young Saturday waiter was quick taking the orders and before too long he and his colleague returned with our hot drinks whilst the kitchen staff got to work cooking a range of sandwiches. Thankfully there was no nasty smell from Maisie, Scrumpy was settled under the table whilst Albus went almost unnoticeable in his own spot. Chris having had his sandwich felt the urge to round of his meal with a quick slice of lemon cake (another first for the group) before we thanked the staff and settled our bills. At least they were far less than it would have been in the Hillbrush cafe.
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