Saturday 3rd February’24 DH, RW, PC, AC, PCL, DL, Scrumpy
The morning started a bit grey with spots of rain around but as we headed west along the A303 the skies were considerably brighter. we arrived at 09.00 at the car park outside of the Prince of Wales pub on Ham Hill, ready and raring to go but had a slight wait for the Bruton car to arrive, apparently a kitchen clock somewhere is running a bit slow! Once sorted the six of us, with just Scrumpy for company this week, headed from the car park and through the old quarry area of Ham Hill country park, which now occupies the site of an iron age hill fort. The name may come from the Old English ham and hyll giving a meaning of "the settlement hill", however its original name was Hamdon, meaning "the hill among the water meadows". There is evidence of occupation from the mesolithic and neolithic periods.
We headed through the millenium stone circle which was built by the Millenium Project to commemorate the centuries of quarrying on Ham Hill and the stonemasons that worked here. Although we have been to this area of couple of times, it is the first time we had walked out to the large obelisk at the north west corner. The memorial, which is Grade II listed and stands 8.00 metres tall is visible from 3 counties and is made from the very local Ham stone. It was officially unveiled and dedicated in September 1920. On 19 July 1923 HRH Prince of Wales KG, Duke of Cornwall and Lord of the manor of Stoke visited the memorial and laid a bronze laurel wreath at the foot of the memorial which was later fixed to the column. As expected the views from the memorial were amazing and with the sun shining on some of the villages in the mid distance we could see right across to Glastonbury Tor and the Mendip and Quantock hills beyond.
We took the opportunity to grab this weeks groupie and had a short discussion about the text on the northern face and also about one of the 44 fallen of WW1 whose name is on the western face, and who's grave I took an Army cadet to visit back in 2008ish. The soldier in question was the young cadets Great Grandfather and prior to our visit he had carried out some of his own research to discover that he was a signaller in an observation balloon over the WW1 battlefields along side a young officer. They would have been searching for targets for the guns and adjusting their fire, but when the balloon was shot down and without a parachute between them, they fell to the ground. They are buried next to each other in a cemetery quite close to the Belgium coast. The young cadet was making the first visit by any of his family to the grave of his Great Grandfather and as such it was quite an emotional trip. There are also eight local member remembered who gave their lives in World War 2 or subsequent conflicts.
The planned route was to descend into the village by a steep path, but unfortunately we left the monument at the incorrect point and after passing a metal panorama we followed a path along the edge of the park. so when we reached the entrance to the parking area and road, we had to double back on ourselves and drop down the hill. To keep off the narrow road we took a steep path on the left, which had a lot of steep steps cut into the hill to make the descent safer, although it wasn't perhaps the fastest option. When we reached the bridleway we doubled back on ourselves yet again and followed a well defined path through a large grassy field as we headed in the general direction of Norton Sub Hamdon. By the time we reached the first gate the group of six had split into 2 groups of 3 although only around 20m apart from each other. As the first 3 went through we took the pathway to our right which lead steeply downhill amongst trees. Gravity certainly helped us along and it wasn't until a couple of minutes into the descent that i realised i couldn't hear any of the others behind us. we waited for a while with no sign of them and I quickly deduced that they must have not seen us turn down the hill, but had instead carried straight along the hillside.
I tried to get someone on their mobile to confirm this is what happened but did manage to then see some movement above us and after exchanging a couple of shouts I was convinced we have found them. We did eventually manage to speak to Pete by which time they had reached the end of the path. No amount of persuading would manage to get them to descent down to us, so they opted to find their own route and meet us back at the pub. The three of us in the bottom had no choice but to amend our route as having lost time at the beginning and again a few minutes missing the path off of the hill, I calculated that with a slow and steady climb back up we should be back at the agreed time.
We started up the steep gradient at a slow and steady pace and thought we were doing well until a couple of runners steamed past us as if we were standing still. With jackets now fully unzipped we watched the runners disappear over the top as a lady in a Land Rover stopped to let us past. We eventually reached the summit and crossed in to the grassy area and worked our way around to the pub, confident that the other 3 would be sat in our usual window seat, waiting for their breakfast. We had completed our 2.4 miles in just under 75 minutes so imagine our surprise when we walked into the pub and they were nowhere to be seen! Knowing they would not have a problem getting back to the pub we took our seats at the table and waited. It was only about 5 minutes before they arrived and joined us at the table. Once seated the full explanation came out. Obviously distracted and in deep conversation they had failed to see us turn down the hill so continued along thinking we would wait for them at some point. As we know that was never going to happen and after the phone call they had decided to just follow random paths around the country park. Never 100% sure exactly where they were at any time or even where they were heading it was just a case of pick a path and follow it, but always remembering that ‘just because there is a path doesn’t mean it’s the right path’. Eventually by luck or good fortune they came across a point they recognised and could work out a safe route back to the pub.
Once our drink and food orders were placed we were entertained by Adrian telling us all about his rocks, how the club managed to get hold of a white transit load of stones, how he polishes them and them displays them. There were lots of questions bouncing across the table, a couple sensible ones but many not so, as he tried to explain the intricacies of rocks. Dereyk chipped in with a few geological terms and rock types whilst Phil is still awaiting his question of which is Adrian’s favourite rock, to be answered .
Thankfully the waitress soon had plates full of breakfast for us and the conversation ground to a halt as we got stuck in. Another good breakfast at a reasonable price. We will certainly be back at some point so that we can walk the planned route, and hopefully this time get round it as a group.
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