Tarrant Gunville & Harbin's Park

[puddleshark]

A dusty sort of day to go walking in North Dorset...



From Tarrant Gunville village, along the lane to Home Farm, and from there onto the bridleway up onto Gunville Down.


For a long time, the bridleway hides in the woods...


...but is eventually tempted by an apple tree to emerge into the fields. Apples falling with a thump.




Then it's a long lonely walk along the edge of empty stubble fields. Not a deer nor a pigeon in sight. Not a bird singing in the hedges. Just the wind blowing. A buzzard mewing.


Further along, the wheat not yet harvested.

Across a tarmac lane leading nowhere, and then back into the woods along (the slightly unfortunately named) Handcock's Bottom:





To one side of the path, a ditch and bank. It it this - a large square landscape feature on the OS map - that made me curious to take this walk.


Harbin's Park, which, it turns out, is a medieval deer park.

Known as Tarrant Gunville Park until the 19th century, the earliest reference to this deer park is in 1279. The bailiff’s accounts for the park, in 1337, included paying 4 men for 3 days’ work, ‘mending defects in the fencing around the park’. A record of a dispute over its ownership, in 1649, suggest it was used as a deer park well into the 17th century. Of particular significance is the ‘Park Pale’, a scheduled monument which surrounds the park. It was created by digging a 6’ deep ditch with the spoil creating a 6’ high bank. On top of this bank hazel fencing was used to create an enclosure to contain the deer that had been enticed in with apple pumice.

https://cranbornechase.org.uk/chaseandchalke/resources/tarrant-gunville-and-stubhampton-heritage/

Onwards through the dappled woods. A less lonely landscape, this. A walker accompanied by the moving shadows of the leaves on the track. The fluttering of blackbirds, woodpeckers calling, jays screaming blue murder. A deer bounding away through the trees, a flash of golden brown in the sunlight.




Along the edge of another endless wheat field. In the far distance, growing louder as I walked, the sound of a combine at work.


Onto the bridleway to Great Peaky Coppice, which cuts through the woods, and comes out on the lane to Iwerne Minster. A cloud of dust and a great roar rising from behind the hedge on the other side of the lane.



A little way along the lane, I took the bridleway that cuts back south west back towards Tarrant Gunville, through newly planted woodland.


Growing in the tree protector in the centre of the shot, Bird's-foot Trefoil with ambition to become a tree.

I could hear something crashing through the vegetation around the newly planted trees, and now and then caught sight of antlers (presumably with a deer underneath, but I cannot confirm this).


Spot the antler. Maybe a Fallow deer? (I would have liked to see a Fallow deer. I only ever see Sika and Roe deer at home).

The next stretch of path, though smooth and grassy, turned out to be hard work. The sun was getting hot. I had foolishly left my hat in the car. And there was no shade among the newly planted trees. Not unless I was willing to wait forty years for the oaks to mature.


On the plus side, the bridleways around Tarrant Gunville are all marked on the gateposts, and there are Private No Access signs to prevent you straying from the One True Path.


Back onto the lane down to Tarrant Gunville, passing the cricket ground, where they are building a splendid new thatched pavilion.

Comments

[sartorias]

Those bridle paths could never be boring. The light alone is magical.

[puddleshark]

It was all green tunnel/stubble field/green tunnel/stubble field yesterday. At least I got a bit of variety!

[heleninwales]

Your walk photos are never boring because the landscape where you are is so very different to ours. I also particularly liked the old twisted tree in the very green wood.

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

Most of the woods I passed through yesterday were either hazel coppice or plantations planted in the last century, and there weren't many ancient trees, so it was nice to come across one twisty old oak!

[frith]

Sure looks like a palmate antler to me, so yes, that would be a fallow deer lurking in the tall vegetation and tubed trees.

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

I thought it was a Fallow, but I wasn't confident to identify it from a single antler.

And thank you for that icon - I needed a laugh!

[frith]

You're welcome. ^_^ That's Johann Sebastian Buck on the bed. I would rehab up to four fawns at once (sometimes five) and before they were old enough to skip a bottle-feed in the middle of the night (and get moved outside), they'd take over my bed. Sometimes there wasn't enough room and I'd sleep on the couch.

[puddleshark]

Johann Sebastian Buck

LOL.

[frith]

I like punny names. Off the top of my head, I also had fawns named Rebuck, Honest Buck, Sour Doe, Eau Dire (French/English pun), Buckminster and Buckle.

[puddleshark]

*groans*

Those are great.

[zenigotchas]

Ah more photos that reinforce the idea the fact that Euro forests have this ethereal quality to them, I can see why people imagine little fairies and gnomes live in there (compared to American forests which also have an otherwordly quality but in a vast, dark, creepy way that I love just as much because I get to imagine tons of cryptids galavanting around for better but mostly for worse.)

[puddleshark]

...galavanting around for better but mostly for worse...

LOL

I visited an arboretum in the New Forest a few years ago, which has an amazing collection of Giant Sequoias and Douglas Firs and Red Cedars, all planted back in the 19th century. And it was a very different feel from walking in an English oak woods... Maybe it was the lurking cryptids! 😊

[mallorys_camera]

Never boring! 😀

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

Those North Dorset arable fields seemed to go on forever yesterday! But I'm glad the pictures weren't too boring.

[house_wren]

haha -- "boring." You are funny.

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

Sometimes it seems like I'm taking exactly the same pictures every week. But I'm glad they weren't too boring.

[greenwoodside]

"Growing in the tree protector in the centre of the shot, Bird's-foot Trefoil with ambition to become a tree."

I feel tempted to run out to print t-shirts and compose a campaign song in support of the trefoil's vaulting ambition. You grow up high you lovely yellow ground cover, you. 🌴

[puddleshark]

LOL

Yes! Hurrah for the scramblers and their vaulting ambition! Long live the Tufted Vetch and the Bird's-foot Trefoil and *whispers* the Hedge Bindweed.