Morgans Hill to Etchilhampton Hill (Wessex Ridgeway [Wiltshire] 3)

Morgans Hill

We resumed the Wessex Ridgeway at Smallgrain picnic area and followed the road to rejoin the path at North Wilts Golf Club. We were then heading south with Morgans Hill, with its distinctive copse, behind us. We quickly saw a couple of butterflies, a Small Tortoiseshell and a Peacock, but this turned out to be the full set of species spotted on this walk, with just a few solitary examples later on.

We turned right onto a farm track and were delighted to see a Yellowhammer in the hedgerow. After a while, there was a lovely defile to the side of King's Play Hill and a nice view down to the village of Heddington.

As we approached the Iron Age Oliver's Castle, we were surprised by a sign board describing the Civil War battle of Roundway Hill in 1643. A Royalist force coming from Oxford defeated a Parliamentarian one which was besieging Devizes where a defeated Royalist army had taken shelter. It seems that this was a significant engagement in which took the Parliamentary army months to recover from.

The entrance to Oliver's Castle revealed a lovely path descending quite steeply, with Lesser Celandines decorating the slope beside it.

We followed a higher path and emerged onto the Castle with Roundway Hill to the left and the descending path now visible at the bottom. There was a lovely view across the plain to Devizes. We were also pleased to find our first cowslips of the year just coming into bloom

This view became a bit clearer as we got nearer.

Reaching the hamlet of Roundway, we followed a long straight path, over a road leading to Roundway House and past a housing estate. This was Quakers' Walk.

I rather liked this house at the end of the Walk with its projecting doorway and small well.

At the edge of Devizes we turned left along the Kennet and Avon Canal. This is the view to the right towards the canal quay.

Devizes is a lovely town, full of interest, and a full description from when I walked round it and on to the famous Caen Hill Locks can be found here. On the opposite side of the canal we enjoyed an unusual, but effective, way of presenting marigolds.

We followed the towpath as far as Coate Bridge. The canal is in a deep cutting and after a while we could see houses, some quite grand, high above us on the other bank. We had fun critiquing the quality of their rear elevations, gardens and means of handling the steep slope down to the canal. We were impressed by a few and appalled by others.

We headed south for a bit and then east along a muddy path. In a gap in the bushes there was suddenly this great view north past the former Victorian barracks towards a hillside with a hitherto (to us at any rate) White Horse.

I learned from Wikipedia that it was cut in 1999 to celebrate the Millenium and was inspired by an older once which once graced Roundway Hill beneath Oliver's Castle.

Soon after this we turned to the south and walked through an area of vast fields towards Etchilhampton Hill.

As we approached, we met three small parties of schoolkids, two with a teacher in tow. We were struck by how the boys rather sullenly ignored our greetings while the girls volunteered a cheery hello.

Conditions: cloudy with some sunshine.

Distance: 7.5 miles.

Map: Explorer 157 (Marlborough & Savernake Forest) and, just for the last few hundred yards, 130 (Salisbury & Stonehenge)

Rating: four stars.

Folly to Up Cerne (Wessex Ridgeway [Dorset] 4)

Ball Hill

On the the third day of our exploration of the Dorset part of the Wessex Ridgeway we set out from the hamlet of Folly and climbed Ball Hill (250m), passing slightly to the left (south) of the highest point. There was a lovely view to the south.

We skirted Watcombe Wood and emerged onto the wide, grassy Church Hill to see a long open section stretching before us. This was very welcome as the previous day's walking had been quite fragmented, needing careful attention to signs and map.

At the end of the initial straight grassy path, a stony track stretched out ahead, clearly involving a descent into a valley and then a possibly steep climb up to the next ridge: the inland version of seeing a cove ahead on the coast.

It was nice to steam ahead along a well-defined track and this brought us down to cross the B3143 just north of Alton Pancras. A sustained, but not too arduous climb, brought us to Black Barn and just past there we enjoyed this lovely dry valley below us to the right.

The hill at the left end of it has some marks on the turf which we thought suggested an animal - an echo of the Cerne Abbas Giant or the many White Horses to be found on chalk hills in the south. We thought we could see a dragon or maybe a Wyvern, symbol of the Wessex Ridgeway.

After crossing another road and a vast ploughed field we found ourselves above Giant Hill with a simply wonderful view across to Minterne Parva, a farm, a big house and a few cottages.

The view a little to the south was also spell-binding.

We descended into Minterne Parva and admired this large round building, presumably a former dovecote. On the right in the photo is one of the distinctive, and very effective, Wessex Ridgeway signposts.

We crossed the A352 and followed the road into Up Cerne, enjoying the sight of our first lambs of the year.

Up Cerne is tucked away in a valley and has a few charming thatched houses, with a small stream flowing by and a fine manor house.

Conditions: A lovely sunny day, with temperatures reaching 13 or 14 degrees.

Distance: 5.5 miles.

Maps: Explorer 117 (Cerne Abbas & Bere Regis).

Rating: Four stars.

Ibberton Hill to Folly Farm (Wessex Ridgeway [Dorset] 3)

View south from Ibberton Hill

We set off from Ibberton Hill, high above Blackmore Vale, and followed the road along to Woolland Hill.

Then round the corner to continue along the road towards Bulbarrow Hill. After a while we noticed a made up path at a lower level and dropped down from the road to follow it. This wasn't totally successful as it soon turned away downhill, but it did give us a better view of some lovely old trees.

Back on the road, we crossed over to get our first view of the long curve of Bulbarrow Hill, one of the highest points in Dorset at 274m. Over to the left is Nordon Hill, on our route about 4 miles away.

Soon we could finally leave the road and walk towards Rawlsbury Camp, an iron age hill fort built on a promontory of Bulbarrow hill.

The iron age fort was impressively large (five acres) and you could make out an outer ring of defensive earthworks.

Walking away to the south west was perhaps the very best part, giving a great feeling of being on top of the world as the hill sloped away steeply on the left and open country stretched out ahead.

We now followed a downhill path towards Crockers Farm. As we got lower down it became more and more muddy, and we were grateful that we had to wade a small stream to get some of the mud off our boots. The farmland on the other side of the road was similarly muddy and it was frustrating to find that diagonal paths shown on the OS map across two fields had been ploughed over, and the signs appeared to have been subtly altered to require you to walk along two sides. There was at least a nice view back from the top of the second field.

Further field edge paths and farm tracks brought us to Melcombe Park Farm. Now we headed across another large field heading for the Dorsetshire Gap. We suddenly realised that we had walked this path before - on a walk a year ago on a walk around Ansty and Higher Melcombe. We emerged form the field to suddenly find ourselves on a ridge, with a lovely view to the left over the hamlet of Higher Melcombe. The fields to its right once contained the village of Melcombe Horsey, which disappeared after the Black Death. Higher Melcombe itself now consists of a single farm, whose 15th century manor house, built for Sir John Horsey, has a later chapel.

Ahead was the wooded area of Nordon Hill containing the Dorsetshire Gap and to the right Blackmore Vale and the wooded Melcombe Park. The Dorsetshire Gap is the intersection of four ancient paths and has the unusual feature of a Visitors Book concealed in a picnic cooler. We duly recorded our visit.

The final stage took us along a banked path with lovely primroses growing everywhere into a copse with Lily of the Valley and Bluebells waiting to flower. The Bluebells were nowhere as advanced as teh ones we saw yesterday. This led to a path a across masssive field and then a narrow track descending to the hamlet of Folly, consisting of two houses, presumably the minimum qualification to be a hamlet!

Conditions: Grey and cooler than yesterday, reaching only 10 or 11 degrees.

Distance: 6 miles.

Maps: Explorer 117 (Cerne Abbas & Bere Regis).

Rating: Three and a half stars.

Shroton to Ibberton Hill (Wessex Ridgeway [Dorset] 2)

View towards Stepleton House

After a year's break, we resumed the Wessex Ridgeway in Dorset. A chalk path leads up to Hambledon Hill and after a short while there are glimpses of Ranston, an 18th century house, substantially rebuilt in the early 1960s by Louis Osman. I wish I could have got a clear picture.

At a slightly higher vantage point, you can see Stepleton House, whose presence forces the busy A350 road into a massive detour. I have made this detour many times and often wondered why. Now I know. The house is 17th century according to Pevsner.

At the end of the pleasant climb you go through a gate and turn left onto the sprawling Hambledon Hill. The ramparts of the Iron Age hill fort are away to the right.

You walk along the ridge, surrounded by sheep, and then turn right downhill, to soon have an excellent view across to Okeford Hill, with the town of Shillingford over to the right.

At the bottom, left and right turns take you the hamelt of Hanford, which appears to consist of a farm and a school. The school is in Hanford House, described by Pevsner as "a major Jacobean house", dating from 1623.

Now across fields to suddenly meet our old friend, the mighty Stour (we walked the Stour Valley Path in 2014, although the route went further to the east at this point.

Soon afterwards, in Cliff Coppice, there was a lovely display of Primroses, Celandines and Bluebells - our first of the year.

 And shortly afterwards I saw my first Peacock of the year. We now walked under a former railway bridge, now carrying the North Dorset Trailway ....

 ... and crossed the A357 on the outskirts of Shillingford. Shillingford Hill and Okeford Hill towered ahead.

This next filed led to a long walk uphill through mixed woodland, mainly Beech and Silver Birch, to Okeford Hill. This is the entry to the last section.

The route now goes downhill to cross a minor road with lovely views to the south.

The next section is on a classic, albeit shallow, ridge: there is too much foreground for worthwhile pictures and the sun is in the wrong place too. However, these trees offered some drama to the view backwards.

On the right, above Bell Hill, there was some serious pig farming and the track became trying with enormous muddy puddles in the tractor ruts.

We descended gradually to the high path above Ibberton which offered fabulous views past Woolland (where a walk in December 2014 helped us form the desire to walk the Wessex Ridgeway) towards Hazelbury Bryan.

We ended our walk at the small parking area here.

Conditions: generally sunny, gradually warming to reach 12 or 13 degrees.

Distance: 6.5 miles.

Maps: Explorer 118 (Shaftesbury and Cranbourne Chase) and 117 (Cerne Abbas & Bere Regis).

Rating: Three and a half stars.

Watership Down and Cottington's Hill

St Mary's church, Kingsclere

This lovely walk starts in Kingsclere. We parked in the village car park and walked around St Mary's church. The church was founded in 1130, but the flint faced exterior is the result of "ferocious restoration" (in Pevsner's phrase) in 1848-9. The fine north doorway (below) is early Norman and the reddish patches are apparently the result of a fire in 1402.

A slightly tortuous route over a stream and along a road leads to open country and a set of gallops heading towards the ridge of the North Hampshire Downs and Cottington's Hill with its landmark mast.

You leave the gallops and climb a path towards the ridge which doubles back above Watership Down. We were pleased to see some deer and, more importantly, some rabbits.

Many people will associate Watership Down with Richard Adam's wonderful 1972 anthropomorphic novel about rabbits, so it was great to see some. By coincidence, there was report on the BBC website to the effect that if the 1978 film of the book was released today it would carry a PG certificate, rather than the U one it was awarded at the time. This is apparently because of the violence and strong language it contains.

At the top we joined a second set of gallops along the top of the ridge. I thought this isolated set of railings were quite photogenic.

Heading east now, along the Wayfarer's Walk, which I completed three years ago, we passed Combe Hole and The Warren to our left.

We crossed the B3051 and left the Wayfarer's Walk to head towards Cottington's Hill. Behind us it was desperately dark and already raining.

Quite soon the rain overtook us and we struggled along a very muddy path chasing sheep before us, before turning sharp left and making a very muddy and slippery descent. We were shocked by the extent to which the sheep had chewed the bark off the trees.

At the bottom a straight path beside a third set of gallops led back to Kingsclere and mercifully the sky had cleared. More sheep could be seen dotted over the hillside to the right. There was also a beautiful rainbow, but my camera couldn't seem to see it. I must check out how to address this.

By the time we got to the far side it was a lovely late afternoon.

It remained only to cross the recreation ground and walk downhill back to the car park.

Conditions: sunny - rainy - sunny. April weather.

Map: Explorer 144 (Basingstoke and Alton).

Distance: 5.75 miles.

From: Rambling for Pleasure: Kennet Valley and Watership Down (East Berkshire Ramblers) 1999 - and a little hard to follow at first.

Rating: four stars. Lovely wide open country.