Saturday 10 December Chesterblade DH, RW, TO, PC, Sully& Scrumpy
It was -3.5 C as I drove out of Wincanton this morning to pick up Trev in Ansford with a lovely frost covering the fields and hedges but as I dropped down into Cary it had ‘warmed’ to only -2 and the sun was attempting to break through. With Trevor onboard we arrived at The Bell in Evercreech in good time and were suitable booted and suited, with plenty of layers on as the Bruton duo arrived. With a slightly earlier start time this week to allow us to get round and back in time for breakfast, it was just after 08.45 by the time Richard had finally got his car suitably parked between the lines and in his bay. Once the landlady had been convinced that we weren’t using her car park without later going into the pub, we set of towards Stoney Stratton crossing a couple of white fields where both dogs had a good roll on the frosty ground. We entered the village and past what appeared to be the old village pub, well not many folks would call their house The Barley Mow, and headed for the north east corner of the village and the start of our clockwise loop. A wide village stream was in good flow as our route took us through a farm yard and out on a good track. Knowing we had to cross the stream at some point, the first opportunity provided us with a couple of stones suitable placed to cross easily, although with the added hazard of potential icy tops, the crossing men probably looked more like Bambi and once over it was seen it wasn’t the correct place, we had to repeat our crossing again.
Once back on the original side, a 200m walk alongside the stream before we came across the crossing point we needed to continue up the valley. The path continued alongside the stream through white frozen fields and with the ground nice and firm we were making good time. As I pushed the pace, knowing there would be harder areas in front of us we crossed the stream again and before too long we were approaching Mill Farm. Thankfully Sully waited on the outskirts and Scrumpy, having stood to watch another duck glide across the water, was called back by Richard before either of them took chase.
As we passed the mill pond a large and very vocal goose was acting as guard dog on the far side, or was it shouting for help, as it certainly looked plump enough to be centre piece on the Christmas dinner table in a couple of weeks time. As we moved out onto the road, the garden opposite was full of old rotting cars with even a 1980s Porsche 911 slowly falling apart on the roadside. Surely it deserved a better life than simply fading away on a sleepy Somerset lane? The road climbed steeply towards the tiny village of Chesterblade with its Grade 1 listed church just beyond the part where a finger post directed us across the bottom of a private garden. As we passed the ‘Sheep in field’ warning sign pinned to the gate, we must all have been suffering a bit from the climb as each of us that approached it read it out aloud, word for word. Passing through the garden and the large house up to our left, with no sign of any sheep, we passed through another old gate and under a pergola archway out onto open fields again.
We had gained about 80 metres since setting out and despite being warmed by the walking it was if anything colder than earlier. The frost well established on the hedges and the ground was rock hard as we made our way across the top of the valley towards the old hill fort on Small Down knoll.
It was an undulating route but the views down the valley we had just ascended was pretty spectacular with the sun slowly breaking through at last. There were a couple of other walker with dogs further up the hillside but thankfully our route was not going up the steep grassy hill, rather around it on a very minor road. We were now officially on the way back, but the lane kept on climbing before eventually levelling out alongside a pond, where we all took a very welcomed breather, and were rewarded with an energy laden barley sugar sweet.
The views from the top really was one of the best we have had over the years, although quite difficult to actually pinpoint our location as some of our usual familiar landmarks were hidden in the cloud. Fortunately the view South and West was less obscured and the pinnacle of Glastonbury Tor was quickly identified before our eyes swept south to make out the escarpment of Pilsdon Pen, some 30 miles away on the ridge between Bridport and Lyme Regis.
We made our way down a farm track and up above us and clearly visible were the the earth banks and ramparts of the Iron Age fort, where flints from the middle Stone Age have previously been unearthed. At a height of 222 m , it’s actual 25m higher than Creech hill, which looked rather small in the near distance as we started our descent. We had about 30 minutes remaining to make it back for 1030, and with the church tower in Evercreech clearly visible ahead of us, it was all downhill from here. Slightly off course at one point, (although I didn’t let on) we had an awkward gate/fence to negotiate before a very steep drop, when sledges or plastic bags would have come in handy, and with the farm track visible ahead of us we were soon making good progress back towards Stoney Stratton. A very helpful farmer redirected us onto the public right of way across his land and then it was a simple task of retracing our route back to the pub. Unfortunately the tracking this week failed around the half way point but an estimated 4 1/2 miles was walked today in 2 hours, which considering the climb was a good effort all round.
Wisely we had phoned our order through on our way back, although the choice of just medium size this week met with some disapproval, but by the time we arrived back at around 1045, and bid Richard farewell as he headed off to Pitcombe Christmas Fair, the 3 of us remaining were grateful to be in the warm pub where our table was ready and waiting for us. We were quickly served and the very decent and good value breakfast didn’t stay on the plates for too long. Most definitely a walk we will repeat again at some point, but it will be hard to beat the scenery in the frost today. As mentioned earlier in our walk we haven’t had too many good frosty walks, but it certainly beats slushing through the claggy gateways of the other week.
