Winter Walk: Tolpuddle to Weatherby Castle

[puddleshark]

There are some paths you don't walk because they are beautiful. You follow them to find out where they go. Or - if you have foolishly left your emergency chocolate supply on the counter in the kitchen, and your pockets are empty - you follow them in winter to mortify the flesh.

Though, as it turned out, it wasn't really cold enough to mortify the flesh. The temperature is rising, and so is the wind. 5 degrees C this morning, according to my car thermometer. But the ice on the puddles has not melted. This turned out to be a blessing, as there were boggy fields to cross.



Took the little lane by the Martyrs' Inn in Tolpuddle, which climbs steeply out of the village.




A narrow bridge across the Puddletown bypass.

Not the most peaceful walk, this one. Though once you are far enough from the bypass, you can convince yourself the distant roar of traffic is the roar of the wind in the trees.

The byway from Tolpuddle to Milborne St Andrews starts off as a narrow tarmacked lane, before turning to gravel farm track, then to a dirt track through the fields and woods. Along the way, barns full of straw bales, and barns where young beef cattle are wintering in, feeding on silage.


A derelict milking parlour.


It's a very intensively-farmed landscape this: cattle pasture and silage fields all planted with a monoculture of ryegrass, hedges neatly trimmed by tractor so there's not a berry left for the thrushes.




Weatherby Castle Iron Age hillfort on the skyline.


A flooded gateway. I managed to get through by grabbing a gatepost and swinging round. Luckily the boggy areas alongside the track were still frozen, and I could pick a way across.


Up through the fields to Weatherby Castle.


The entrance through the ramparts.

The interior has been taken over by woodland, but it's sort of possible to pick a way round the ramparts, ducking under trees, and trying not to fall down badger setts. The whole hillfort smells strongly of sheep, even in winter, when the sheep have been taken off...




An obelisk hiding among the trees.


Erected 1761 by Edmund Morton Pleydell, owner of nearby Milborne House, as a folly.



I wonder what Weatherby Castle will be like in future, when all the ash trees have been lost to Ash Dieback... Perhaps the hillfort will return to open grassland again, as it was in Pleydell's day. The archaeologists will probably be happier, but I shall miss the way the folly hides itself among the slender ash trees.

Descended from the hillfort onto what had looked like a quiet back lane, when I was planning this walk on the map. But it turned out to be a rat-run. Lots of speeding traffic. The verges littered deep with energy drink cans and takeaway coffee cups and junk food wrappers.


A nice view of Weatherby Castle though.

From the lane, a bridleway through fields of set-aside. Perhaps not the most interesting bridleway, until you look at the map and realise you are following the old Roman road, marching towards Durnovaria.




A kestrel hunting above the set-aside.


The final stretch of bridleway, running right beside the dual carriageway. Not the most peaceful walk I've ever done, but at least there's not the remotest chance of getting lost.

Comments

[house_wren]

Thanks for taking me on another walk!

[puddleshark]

You're welcome!

[bleodswean]

The history!

[puddleshark]

Yes, layer on layer on layer of history... and a modern dual carriageway bang on top of it all. But that will be history too, one day.

[heleninwales]

It used to be that only locals new of these back lane short cuts, but sat navs have a tendency to try to send everyone down them because they are a little shorter according to mileage though not actually shorter in terms of time.

[puddleshark]

Yes. Sat navs are a menace. They've made a lot of little lanes really unsafe for cyclists and walkers.

[bunn]

I hope the ashes will be replaced by other trees - maybe some of them might even survive the blight?

Looks like a great walk!

[puddleshark]

All along the lanes here, ash trees are being cut down before they fall down. But perhaps in more remote woods, left to themselves, some of the ashes will develop resistance?

I didn't have high expectations for the expedition, because of the proximity of the Puddletown Bypass, but actually it was a really enjoyable walk. And I'm always happy to accidentally come across another stretch of Roman road!