Low flying swans

Sat 7 Jun ‘25. DH, RW, PCL, DL, JB, JS & Scrumpy

With a yellow weather warning for the day, I did wonder if we would even get to the starting line today, but thankfully the day started bright and dry as six of us met outside of a very busy Bell public house in Evercreech. Once parked up and we had confirmed our arrival with the pub team, we set off, mostly in waterproof coats (and for some trouser) towards the parish church. Despite having travelled a lot around Somerset selling houses, Deryck took the opportunity to check out our newest members knowledge of local peculiarities.

I’m not sure if he worked it out or was given any clues but for those who don’t know the story I have written about the church clock on the Grade 1 listed St Peter's Church previously as the face features an unusual ‘mistake’. It is missing the X(10) and instead has an XI(11) and then two XII(12). Rumour has it that the man who paid for the clock was told by his bossy wife that he had to be in from the pub by 10 so decided not to put a 10 (X) on the clock face.

We made our way down the narrow back streets and turned down Rodmore Road, but instead of carrying straight down as we have on previous occasions we took a narrow pathway behind some properties and into a sheltered housing area before taking another small path out into the fields south of the village.

Passing through a field of cows who looked ready for milking we arrived at a pathway leading right between two halves of the local sewage works. There were high fences either side of the path and I was expecting it to be slightly unpleasant for the next couple of minutes, but it looked like a lot of the circular filtration tanks were not in use, as the water dispensers were not spinning and there was plenty of grass growing in the beds. There was some water movement in a smaller tank, but all in all it seemed to be mainly dormant this morning. Maybe the folks of Evercreech have a leisurely start to their weekend!

As we continued across the next field in a southerly direction and the sound of some occasional gunfire, we were almost stopped in our tracks by the sound of two low flying swans circling overhead. I was a bit slow getting the camera sorted on my phone so missed them at their closest to us, but with their long white wings beating they continued to circle and drop lower looking for somewhere to land. They targeted something on the far side of a hedge and just as they made their final approach and were feathering their wings to land, one of the bangs went off again. The lead swan was already committed and made it down but the rear one immediately stepped on the accelerator again and pulled back and decided to initiate and emergency go around. Thankfully as we continued to watch, it circled a couple of more times and eventually joined its mate on the ground. It seemed an odd place to have landed but we guessed there must be some suitable water on the sewage work discharge area. Looking at the map later, there is indeed a large rectangular tank in the area, labelled as a sludge tank. We didn’t wait around to see what colour they were when they took off later. A side bit of info about the difference between a pond and a lake for you, apparently if a body of water is large enough for a swan to land and take off from then it’s classed as a lake, anything smaller is classified as a pond. Now you know!

After all the excitement, but with a bit of rain now falling, we continued southwards and had to cross a field of young maize plants, which is where we presumed the bird scarring bangs from earlier were coming from. Thankfully we found an easy pathway through the plants although the fine soil had turned to sticky mud with the rain, which clung to our boots on the way through. It made the next stile a bit more hazardous as combined with slippy wooden planks and muddy boots we all had to tread carefully. There were a few more stiles as we made our way closer to the area of the Natterjack pub, so it was a bit of a stop start passage. We paused briefly for this weeks groupie with the northern slopes of Creech Hill as our backdrop and with John S being this weeks electric fence monitor we finally made it out onto a mettled road where we turned left to commence the eastward leg of todays walk.

We had only just started along the road when we arrived at a bridge over a river. The water was quite a way below the bridge which was identified as the Riber Alham, which rises in the hills above Batcombe, flows through Alhampton and joins the River Cary at Alford. We have certainly crossed it a few times on previous walks. Crossing a cattle grid we saw a sign informing us to keep dogs on leads - by law! Obviously not an issue but a bit of a forceful way to refer to the Act of Parliament passed in 1963. With Scrumpy on her lead we continued up the track to the farm, past some wonderful oak and copper beech trees and paused briefly to chat with one of Phil’s pupils who farms in the area.

As we arrived in Redlands Farm yard we glanced around the old buildings and were quick shocked to see a number of large ammonites embedded into the walls. A conservative guess would put the buildings over 200 years old so the question is, were they found locally during construction or have they been transported back to the farm from the Jurassic coast? Either way there were at least eight that we could see, maybe even more in other walls of the barn.

The farm house itself was extremely picturesque and being in such a quiet location I’m sure if it ever comes on the market it will be snapped us as a holiday home by some rich Londoner.

Our route took us around the house and through a gate held tight by over overgrown brambles, but with a bit of persuasion we managed to open it to save climbing over. It’s clear this is not a well used path as there was no sign of a pathway through the long grass in the next couple of fields. As we got closer to the river a track started to appear and once through the last gateway we turned left to the stone bridge over the Alham. We last crossed this bridge back in the winter of ‘22, on what was Scrumpy’s first ever walk with us and when the river banks were full of snowdrops and slippery stiles to negotiate. The weekly bag of lollies was passed around and once over the bridge we climbed the gentle rise, past the large metal Dutch barn, which although derelict looks no worse than when we passed it over three years ago.

There was then a stretch of downhill and uphill again through a field of young wheat before we got to the ridge line and the sight of Evercreech and the church in front of us. We still had over half a mile to go and just twenty minutes to get there so couldn’t hang around too long to enjoy the views up to the fort on top of Small Down Knoll in the Chesterblade area beyond Stoney Stratton. We dropped down the grassy field and across a field of very young calf’s, who were certainly interested in Scrumpy as they followed us right through to the farm lane. It was then just a short stroll past the milk station, where you can also get butter if you’re a local and back to the pub for our breakfasts.

We completed todays walk of 3.7 miles in exactly two hours and settled into our usual spot by the fireplace. The waitress was quick to come and take our orders, which ranged from a big bell for the gutsy one, to mini bells with extra black pudding and due to the absence of any vegetarian option today, an egg sandwich for JB. As usual at the Bell, an urn of hot water was on the bar along with all of the necessary to make our own hot drinks. There was slight delay before our breakfast appeared although we had been brought a plate full of toast, but with no side plates to get them buttered. When our plates full did arrive, the room went silent as we got stuck in, including Scrumpy who was very quiet under the table. It was only when Deryck offered some sausage that she roused, and was duly given her tub of breakfast to try and stop her from jumping up looking for more. We certainly weren’t in a rush as by the time we settled up we had been at the table for almost ninety minutes. A nice way to spend a leisurely morning.

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