puddleshark

Mangerton Mill.

An early morning expedition into West Dorset. Fields silver with frost. An optimistic crow with a twig in his beak flying high above in the cold blue sky. Sheep are out on the high ground between Dorchester and Bridport, but the hills are still the yellowed green of winter - no bright green flush of spring grass yet.

From the hills, down the narrow lane to Loders, a pretty village with cottages built of the local peach-coloured stone.

Left the car in Loders. Just room enough to park on the main street opposite the pub (if you tuck your wing mirrors in).

From Loders, onto the bridleway to Mangerton, which starts as a sunken way, then, as the hill rises and the path descends, becomes a true holloway:

Deeper...

...and deeper...

Shadows of ferns and ivy on the sandstone walls of the holloway.

Ferns, celandines, primroses lining the path.

Only temporarily swallowed up by the earth, you emerge on the hilltop.

Onto a farm track running between high banks and hedges, the grassy centre of the track still silver with frost, but the sun warming the nettles and stitchwort on the banks.

Past the pylon. On the journey that morning, I had driven through Winterborne Abbas, where there's some major engineering works going on: the National Grid are laying underground power cables to replace the pylons that stride across West Dorset, to restore the beauty of the Dorset landscape. Perhaps one day, this pylon too will disappear.

Round Knoll, which is indeed a round knoll. Another of those sinister West Dorset hills that resemble enormous burial mounds.

A steep descent through the fields to Mangerton, with fingers and feet numb with the frost, and the sun warm on my back.

Farmyard at Mangerton

At Mangerton Mill, the tea room was not open yet, and would not open until ten. I spent a while trying to work out whether the time of 08:52 showing on my dumbphone was British Summer Time or Greenwich Mean Time... then remembered I had heard the church bells ringing in Loders as I climbed the hill, so it must in fact be nearing ten, and I had only minutes to wait for the tea room to open.

Mangerton Mill, a 17th century water mill, now a tea room & museum (though the museum is still closed for winter). None of my photos came out well - too much sun glare.

Such nice tea! Two teabags in the pot, and a pot of hot water to top up. Bone china cup & saucer in 1950s rose pattern. And a lovely fresh scone that tasted only faintly of hand sanitiser. (The tea room was still taking a lot of precautions to protect customers from Covid, but I think sanitising the scones was unnecessary). Took me a couple of miles to get the taste of sanitiser out of my mouth.

From Mangerton, I quartered some rather boggy streamside fields in search of the footpath, and was finally forced to consult the Ordnance Survey map, and mutter, "Footpath passes to left of pylon... Even you cannot miss a pylon, surely?"

Careful now, obstacles on the Brit Valley Circular Walk

Careful now! A mini-agility course for walkers, created by leaning a spare gate precariously across the footpath. If you attempt to open the gate, or climb over it, it falls over. So you must swing carefully round the end of it without falling into the river.

For a while the footpath follows the Mangerton River - a very snakelike windy river - through soft green meadows, lined with willows greening up with new leaves and full of chiffchaff song. In the meadows, the sun was so warm I tied first my coat, and then my sweater around my waist.

The Mangerton River, which is really more of a brook - you could probably jump across it, given a bit of a run up (though it would be rather embarrassing if you didn't make it).

This was the only Brown Trout I saw on my travels. Though the water in the river was very clear, it seemed devoid of life (but perhaps the trout were all hiding in the shade of overhanging trees - I disturbed two Little Egrets as I walked, and they must have been finding something to feed on in the river). Here and there the path passes through tangled willow thickets where the ground is carpeted in wild garlic.

Approaching Bradpole, a village on the edge of Bridport (and whose church appears to have a most peculiar spire - I shall have to visit it one day).

At this point, I thought I had lost my hat - it wasn't in my pockets, or my camera bag. I must have dropped it when I took my coat off.

A few hundred yards down the road, I realised the reason I couldn't find my hat in my pockets or my camera bag was because I was still wearing it.

Okay... Brain, would you care to explain that?

Brain: Maybe it's a Cheshire Hat? Or maybe hand sanitiser is a mild hallucinogen?

Track to Boarsharrow Hill.

But this post is getting rather long. The return to Loders must wait for the next post. (I did manage to make it back to Loders, just in case you were worried that I shouldn't be wandering round Dorset on my own).