The Ridgeway: Ashbury

Wednesday 4th April 2018

For the next stage of my trek on the Ridgeway trail last Easter I thought I’d try a different approach. I caught a train from Goring & Streatley railway station to Swindon where I caught a bus to the Ridgeway path at the top of Ashbury Hill just outside the village of Ashbury with the result that I didn’t reach the Ridgeway until quarter past eleven. I then had to walk all the way back to the Streatley Youth Hostel along the Ridgeway, which is a distance of over twenty miles, and it was wet and windy; terrible weather to be walking along an exposed ridge top. The path was already really muddy thanks to the rain that had already fallen over the last couple of days, so when I got off the bus into the murky, drizzly weather I was not eager to get started and things just got worse as I plodded along the many miles of trail. Initially the path was actually well-made with a good, free-draining, gravelly surface underfoot, but it wasn’t long before this good path stopped and I had to endure mile after mile of rutted tracks while trying to avoid the mud.

The Ridgeway trail follows the route of one of the oldest roads in Britain which dates back to before the Romans and is called the Ridge Way, and lends its name to the National Trail. This ancient trackway deliberately kept to the high ground as this would be drier than in the valleys which would make travel easier and would also provide a measure of protection by giving the ancient traders a commanding view that gave them warning against potential attacks. However, this just meant I was exposed to the wind and rain that resulted in me suffering through many hours of miserable walking with few highlights. Not long after starting I reached Wayland’s Smithy, which is a Neolithic long barrow, a burial chamber situated in an idyllic woodland setting. In better weather and with less of a walk ahead of me I might have appreciated it better. Not too long after I reached Uffington Castle, an Iron Age fort that is now merely two circular earth banks. Nevertheless I walked around the northern edge of the fort where on a good day there are fabulous views across the valley below.

This was not a good day so I continued around the bank to reach the trig point at the highest point on Whitehorse Hill upon whose slopes sits a highly stylised representation of a horse 110 metres long and formed from deep trenches filled with crushed chalk. Hill figures such as these are quite common in England, though most are more recent copies of this horse that must be at least as old as the nearby fort. Unfortunately I was in the wrong place to see it at its best so I didn’t even bother trying and returned to the Ridgeway trail where I resumed my slow trek in deteriorating weather with little of interest to relieve the tedium of the dull surroundings. The brief moments when I had a good footpath underfoot were very welcome as was the times when the wind wasn’t blowing a gale or it wasn’t raining, but these failed to prevent the overriding sense of constant mud, wind and rain as I made my miserable way along the trail. Deep ruts caused by four by fours made the walking especially unpleasant so when one passed by me I gave them an evil look.

At one point in the middle of the afternoon while enduring the usual rain with grey clouds ahead of me I realised that I was beginning to cast a shadow. Disbelieving my eyes I turned to look behind me and saw glorious blue skies as the weather slowly began to brake and the sun made its first appearance of the day, though this proved to be short-lived and it wasn’t long before it started raining again. As the afternoon began to give way to early evening the wide avenues of mud became narrower lanes with hard surfaces that were finally much easier to walk upon. As I thankfully started the descent into the Thames Valley the clouds finally cleared for good and I had a sun-filled end to the day, but it was too little, too late and did nothing to prevent the memory of the previous six hours of misery. When I had started planning a return to the Ridgeway I was initially going to stay in the Chiltern Hills and go no further along the trail. With hindsight I wish I had not decided to complete it.