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puddleshark
A dull grey morning, with mist lying in the valleys. But the weather's mild. It's not raining. A good day to follow tracks up onto the downs, go wandering along farm lanes towards places I have never been before, without ever entirely expecting to reach them. (It has been a very, very wet autumn. Not all paths are passable.)
An early morning drive, cautiously, in third gear, slowing down to second gear on the blind bends, down the twisty one-track lane that leads to the Gussages: Gussage St Michael and Gussage All Saints. The lane is just wide enough to park a car near the War Memorial in Gussage All Saints (remembering to fold in the wing mirror). Set off past the church, following Harley Lane, which is in fact a gravel track.
A murky morning to go walking through a landscape of large arable fields, woods.
But it's a good stone track to be following after a wet autumn. Some of the puddles have ambitions to become lakes, but there is always a way to tiptoe round the edge.
Up onto Tenantry Down. Robins singing from the woods along one side of the track. A single roe doe seen bounding across the fields. But otherwise the landscape is silent and empty except for the occasional clatter of disturbed wood pigeons. Not so much as a rook. (Though that could have been because there was a pheasant shoot taking place somewhere in the distance, and the rooks, being clever birds, had taken themselves off somewhere quieter).
The fields still green with the mild autumn weather, but the dreary monoculture green of intensive farming.
Onto the bridleway that heads down to the hamlet of Monkton Up Wimborne:
The way lined by yew trees, which is unusual. Yews are highly toxic to livestock, so are usually only found in churchyards. Old yews, but not ancient. Perhaps medieval, from the days when the local villages belonged to the church? Or planted by some estate owner to line his coach road back in the 17th or 18th century?
Down in the valley bottom, Monkton Up Wimborne.
Sheep and ducks and the River Allen, not far from its source.
According to the Ordnance Survey map, there is a chapel at Monkton Up Wimborne. But I never saw it, and can find no photographic evidence for its existence on the internet. (Monkton Up Wimborne is such a tiny place, it doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry...)
A watery lane along the valley bottom.
A line of poplars along the River Allen.
Look how high the water is, and it's not even November yet.
All Hallows Farm.
Through the farmyard, where the old concrete silage clamps now have farm machinery parked in them. Past huge closed barns where machinery hums - grain drying sheds? All the signs of a farm that has switched from unprofitable dairy to grain production.
Looks like it has been dry enough to plough, up on the downs here. Most farmers have been complaining that it has been too wet to plant winter wheat.
Here I crossed the path I took earlier, to make a figure of eight on my return.
The track along Harley Down. Huge flocks of pigeons flying up from the woods.
Mist still lingering in the distances. But overhead the sun was trying to come out.
Into the woods, to a place where four tracks meet:
Harley Gap.
And once through the woods, onto Ackling Dyke, one of the best preserved stretches of Roman Road in the country. Running from Old Sarum (Sorviodunum) to the hill fort at Badbury Rings (Vindocladia), where it connected with the Roman Road down to Poole Harbour.
Still perfectly drained and mud free after over 1500 years. (Though the grass is tall and rainsoaked, so you'll still end up with wet feet).
Last time I followed Ackling Dyke was May 2019, with the cow parsley in flower, before the ash trees started dying. The hedges to either side of the track are still wonderful, full of ancient hedgerow indicator species: hazel and hawthorn, blackthorn and buckthorn, spindle and dogwood. It's just that all the taller signature trees are slowly being lost. Ackling Dyke becoming an own avenue of dead ashes.
Though this ash is still looking quite healthy, perhaps protected by the ivy.
A thrush among the pink spindle berries. The hedges full of blackbirds and finches. The sunshine warm enough for Red Admiral butterflies to be on the wing.
A string of Black Bryony berries. Pretty and poisonous.
Where Ackling Dyke meets the byway westwards, I was going to sit in the sunshine, and drink coffee from my flask. But there must have been a hornets' nest in the hedge, and many hornets were make flying passes over the ivy flowers. They are so beautiful, hornets - golden in the sunshine - but I prefer to admire them from a distance. I walked on.
Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) living up to the sanguinea bit of its name.
Down the hill, and over the little bridge over Gussage Stream:
The bridleway comes out on the lane in the short stretch of no-man's-land just past where Gussage St Michael ends, and just before Gussage All Saints begins. A short walk along the road, but it's a quiet lane - the road through the Gussages leads nowhere else - then back into the village.
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Date: 2024-10-26 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-27 08:20 am (UTC)Yes, nothing like Yews for making a place look sinister! You wouldn't want to be taking that path at twilight...😊
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Date: 2024-10-26 10:58 pm (UTC)Thanks for another ramble through the countryside.
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Date: 2024-10-27 08:22 am (UTC)It was a very criss-crossy walk yesterday. But luckily all the bridleways were really well marked, and I managed not to lose myself.
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Date: 2024-10-27 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-28 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-27 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-28 05:21 pm (UTC)