Halsway and Crowcombe via Halsway Post - 4 November 2010

For early November it was very warm, if rather windy, with temperatures around 16 deg C. In fact, when walking, it was warm enough to wear nothing heavier than a T shirt and I carried my waterproof jacket the whole way. The circular (actually more like a rectangle) 4.5 mile walk took me 2 hours 20 minutes.

Autumn Colours near Halsway Manor

I was able to park my car in a lay-by where a lane branches off the main A358 near Halsway Manor At about 1415 I set off up the lane to   Halsway Manor which is England's National Centre for Traditional Music, Dance and Song. The only dancing outdoors was the swirling of the falling leaves in the stiff breeze but the Autumn colours were impressive.

I followed a track just to the North-West of the manor that led quickly, but not all that steeply onto the open ground of the Quantock Hills. Unfortunately, the sky above the hills became dark grey. Together with the strong wind this made the moorland seem rather bleak and empty, just how I like it!

I turned left and headed towards Halsway Post, above the top of Halsway Coombe. There were the usual fine views to the West, even though visibility was reduced by a mellow haze that appeared to merge into low cloud over the Brendon Hills. The high parts of the Quantocks are now predominanty yellow and red-brown as winter approaches.

Autumn colours on the Quantocks above Halsway Combe

Although the hills themselves continues to be overshadowed by dark cloud, shafts of sunlight could be seen lighting up the vale between the Quantocks and the Brendons. This emphasised the contrast between the browns of the hills and the still lush greens of the lower ground. In fact, this year, with lower than usual rainfall in the late spring and early summer, the grass has seemed to grow better in the autumn than it did in the summer.

Near Halsway post a hunt became apparent in the form of a few 4 x 4 vehicles, the distant sound of a hunting horn and horseriders. No dogs though. The track along the top of the Quantocks is passable for 4 wheel drive motor vehicles and these can spoil a walk. As I got nearer to Crowcombe Park Gate I could see a collection of horse boxes parked off the road.


Before reaching Crowcombe Park Gate I left the msin track and took a narrow footpath which leads down to the north western end of Crowcombe village. At first though my route almost doubled back on itself before curving round to a more south westerly direction. The path leads to a gate beyond which it leaves the wild open country and crossed green pastures. It crosses a track using a pair of styles. One of these was in need of repair.

A shaft of sunlight over the green vale

The sun breaks through near Crowcombe

As I crossed the higher field the sun broke through a gap in the layer of cloud with a great golden blaze of light.
The route back to my car from Crowcombe was partly along the Quantock Greenway. The first part of this is a path that follows the A358 main road and is in places only a couple of yards from it. The second part goes through Halsway on a back lane. This is a detour but avoids a stretch where the road is narrow and ther is no verge to escape the traffic.

Alcombe Common and Dunster on 25 October 2010

This was a short 3.5 mile walk taking advantage of a brilliant sunny day. It took me a leisurely 90 minutes.

Rather than upload images twice, I have referred them to the URLs of images in my Picasa Web Album rather than upload them separately to the blog. Lets see how it goes.

I started from Alcombe near Minehead and walked up the road from the Britannia Inn towards the Youth Hostel. The track led through woodland and Autumn colours were showing.  I climbed past the Youth Hostel and onto the open ground of Alcombe Common. Excellent views over Minehead were revealed. Visibility was reasonably good and Wales was clearly visible.

Minehead and the Bristol Channel from Alcombe Common

I saw a steam train on the West Somerset Railway, making its way from Dunster to the terminus station at Minehead. It looked tiny from this distance.

A steam train on the West Somerset Railway

I climbed up to the ridge  and turned eastwards towards Dunster. After a short distance the path diveded. As indicated by signs the right hand path goes to Dunster via the Cemetary and the left hand one goes via Conduit Lane. I took the left fork and got a splendid view of Blue Anchor Bay on the way.

Blue Anchor Bay

Conduit Lane is a strange name, not very Somerset, but the trusty 1:25000 OS map shows that St Leonard's Well is on the route. Apparently, the well used to supply fresh water to a Benedictine priory that existed in Dunster. The water was conveyed to the priory via - yes a conduit. The priory was dissolved by King Henry VIII, but the church and some buildings remain. The well is in a stone building with a locked door. Pipework leads out of the bottom, so it looks as though it still supplies water to someone. The conduit is exposed at the bottom of the lane (a footpath) but no water was flowing, although the path had a dribble of water running down it.from the well.

I did not go into the village but turned left and after a few yards found Butter Cross, or rather, what is left of it. It seems to have lost its top part. The story goes that it derives its name from having been a meeting place where people sold butter. It used to be in the village but has been moved. The English Heritage website says it is managed by the National Trust.

I turned off the tarmac lane that goes past Butter Cross to take the right hand of two paths that would take me to the old A39 road, now a back lane, that would take me back towards Alcombe.

Minehead to Porlock via the rugged coast path 7 October 2010

Distance - 8 miles
Time taken - 4 hours 30 minutes

It was a beautiful morning and the forecast was promising. I last did the "rugged" part of this route in December 2008 and have since had an ambition to walk from Minehead to Porlock and return by bus. So, off I went.


View Rugged coast path in a larger map


I left Minehead on the normal South West Coast Path. I was surprised to see that path had been visited by the guys who paint around potholes, so that months later, if the paint has not worn off, someone with a bucket of tar, fills them in in. This has struck me as being a wasteful process as it would surely be more efficient to send the tar out in the first place. This example should win a prize. It was not even a particularly deep hole.

Pothole?

I followed the track towards Greenaleigh Farm. This part of the route is wooded and there is only one place where you can look down and see Minehead Harbour. Trees are great, but I like to see out.
The path diverted from the track to the farm and went gently uphill. The trees eventually thinned out to give coastal views back towards Minehead.

Greenaleigh Point

The rugged alternative coast path is clearly signed where it diverts from the standard route.
The rugged path follows the coast around the area of pasture on North Hill. I think it is a much more interesting route than the standard path. It is the true coast path, having the essential quality of sea views. Today these were excellent, although it was a bit hazy. The route certainly involves more ups and downs and is harder work, but is not particularly difficult if you are reasonably fit. It is longer as a result of heading up into and out of several deep valleys (Combes).

Grexy Combe

To begin I had to descend into Grexy Combe and then climb back to the top of the cliff beyond.The next section is mostly easy, following a straight section of coast, although there was a short section where the path was eroding quite seriously above a steep drop. Near here I came across the biggest caterpillar I have ever seen.

A big caterpillar

I do not know what sort of moth or butterfly this will turn into but I think Air Traffic Control need to be informed. A couple I met had seen an adder.
At the end of a straight section a came to a point where the path turned south to go around Henners Combe. This was a good place to eat lunch as there were some rocks that made a dry place to sit down.At this point a good view of the coast to the west is revealed. Foreland Point was clearly visible. As it  was low tide I also had a glimpse of Selworthy Sand from here.

Looking West over Henners Combe

 The next section of the route headed along the eastern side of Henners Combe before crossing the two streams and then climbing up the western side. It was not far beyond this that the process was repeated to cross East Combe. There are better views of Selworthy Sand from here. The only way I know onto this beach involves using a knotted rope for support to get down the steep slope, consisting of loose rock, that is found at the back of the beack. The rope is tied at its upper end around a boulder. I have not dared try this.

Looking down on Selworthy Sand

After East Combe I followed the track to the top of Hurlstone Combe. I found that descending the steep path down the Combe was the most tiring part of the whole walk. Still there was no more serious climbing to do. I just had to follow the track to Bossington and along the lane to Porlock in time for the 15:23  No 39 bus back to Minehead.

This was a very  satisfying walk on a beautiful day surrounded by wonderful scenery

The Quantocks 21 September 2010

This was a 6 mile walk that took me about 2.5 hours. The weather was warm with periods of sunshine, but rather hazy.

I do not have a GPS set but do like to carry a decent map. In this case it was Ordnance Survey 1:25000 Explorer Map 140 "Quantock Hills and Bridgwater". These are the best maps available, but the Quantocks are cris-crossed by a network of paths and tracks in the access land that have no official status and are not mapped. This can be confusing at times. Also, it seems to me that the boundaries between woodland, scrub and heath are not always in the right place. The map I have was revised in 2004, but I do not think this included the vegetation information. The land forms do not change much but bushes and trees can grow considerably over a couple of decades. or be removed quickly.

Back to the walk.

Starting from Staple Plain I followed the Great Road . This stony track, not a public road or particularly great , has a sign at the start saying "No unauthorised vehicles". There are often vehicles on it in quite large numbers. I wonder how many of them are authorised? How do you tell? Today however, it was quiet.

The Great Road offered excellent views towards Minehead, the Brendon Hills and Exmoor before crossing the Quantock ridge, and equally stunning views over the Bristol Channel, Sedgemoor and the Mendips on the Holford side. For an excellent all round view it is only a short detour to the summit of Beacon Hill. The track eventually leads to the edge of the woods above Holford. Here there are a plethora of paths but I found no signs pointing to Holford. One that led downhill and in the right general direction came out on a sharp corner of the drive that leads to Alfoxton Park. On this corner there is a very substantial rectangular stone walled, roofless structure. There is a plaque on the wall that reads:

"This ancient dog pound was given to the village of Holford in l982 by the family of the late John Lancelot Brereton, descendants of St Albyn's owners of Alfoxton since the 15th century whose crest appears above."

Unusually, I did not have a camera with me but there is a photo and a rather grisly explanation on the Quantock Online website. The structure also shows up clearly on Google Earth. I did wonder whether one of John Lancelot Brereton's ancestors was a Member of Parliament who claimed expenses for building this!

At this point I joined the route of the Coleridge way. The drive leads through woodland to Alfoxton House. This is marked "Hotel" on the map but there is no evidence on the ground to suggest it still serves this purpose. William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy stayed here in 1798/9 and spent time with Coleridge. The route passes behind the house, and after passing Alfoxton Cottage turned right and led downhill . I preferred to keep to higher ground and found one of those unmapped paths that took me back to the Coleridge Way without losing height. I crossed Dene Combe, with its unmapped but unmissable narrow strip of woodland, before cutting up another narrow path to meet the Greenway path (not to be confused with the Quantock Greenway). This went steadily but not too arduously uphill and offered a view of pleasantly empty moorland ahead and fine views over the Bristol Channel, Kilve and East Quantoxhead behind. The Greenway Path joined the Great Road which I took back to Staple Plain.

This was a satisfying walk covering some new ground as well as parts I have visited before.

Chrome Hill - The Peak District

In younger days I spent a fair amount of time in the Peak District.

From the A 53 road that runs between Buxton and Leek, if you look east, you can see some limestone hills that are distinctively jagged, at least for the Peak District. These are Chrome Hill and Parkhouse Hill.

These intrigued me but I had not managed to investigate them properly until the 4th September this year. I was on the way back to Somerset from a funeral in Salford and decided to take the time to climb Chrome Hill and visit the Churnet Valley Railway, just south of Leek.

I could not resist taking the scenic route through Pott Shrigley and past the Cat and Fiddle pub I arrived in the village of Hollinsclough.

I parked in the gap between Chrome Hill and Parkhouse Hill and set off up the ridge of Chrome Hill. This was not a long or hard walk, about half a mile each way but does offer spendid views in all directions. Iwould have liked to try Parkhouse Hill with its steeper ridge and strange conical formations but the Churnet Valley Railway beckoned.

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