The Ridgeway: Avebury

Friday 6th April 2018

Setting off from the Barbury Castle car park once again I began my last stage on the Ridgeway National Trial that I had started almost a year earlier in Wendover and was now nearing completion. After gorgeous weather for the previous day I now at best had rather dull, hazy sunshine but with a bitterly cold wind that forced me to wrap up tight as I made my way south along a byway. Compared with the previous day I only had a small distance left to walk along the Ridgeway, which was very welcome as my excessive walking of the past couple of days had left me feeling very tired and the ankle on my left leg was beginning to ache. The Marlborough Downs are covered in byways that are mixed in the quality of their surfaces with many having a firm chalky ground that is easy to walk upon, but some I found to be waterlogged and muddy. As I made my south many people were galloping horses in the nearby fields, making use of the forgiving ground in the area, but this has no interest for me so I left them behind until eventually I came across a road where I found a much nicer path to walk upon as it was narrower without the space for motor vehicles.

At the top of the path I found the route of the Wessex Ridgeway, which extends the Ridgeway south all the way to Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast and starts in the town of Marlborough not far from where I was now joining it. Heading west I entered the Fyfield Down National Nature Reserve where the ground is scattered with large sandstone boulders called sarsen stones, although these stones are known as Grey Wethers. My map indicates the area is full of ancient settlements and tumuli, but I could see nothing of interest except a few stones. Slowly the weather began to warm up and hazy sunshine was beginning to break through the clouds so by this point my fleece and woolly hat came off and the day slowly became quite pleasant though still with a cold breeze. It was a relief to be enjoying another day of good weather during this week of mixed conditions that had not been pleasant at times.

Eventually I crossed the Ridgeway and began descending into the village of Avebury where there are three stone circles including the largest in the world. These are not complete circles, and it is not as spectacular as Stonehenge, but it was still interesting to see these enormous stones standing on their ends, and to touch them and feel the history that has passed by in the view of these stones. I wondered what the country was like when these stone circles were being erected and what had provoked the ancient Britons to engage in such a monumental effort. Leaving Avebury I headed beside the River Kennet with the obviously man-made mound of Silbury Hill ahead of me. This is the tallest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe and is one of the largest in the world, though its original purpose is unknown. I didn’t bother to investigate the mound but continued along the path over the busy A4 road and up to the West Kennett Long Barrow, but this ancient burial mound also didn’t interest me as I had my eyes only on the start, or end, of the Ridgeway trail, which lies near the tiny village of East Kennett.

The original Ridge Way, the ancient road that lends its name to the National Trail does not end at this point but continued south to the Dorset coast. The person who created the modern trail decided to start it beside the A4 trunk road half a mile north of East Kennett, so after crossing the road I set off along the Ridgeway passing tumuli and other ancient remains to head north along the trail and finally complete my trek. By now my ankle was really aching so I just hobbled along the generally good track slowly making my way back to Barbury Castle. Eventually I reached the Iron Age hill fort and although I had parked near it the day before and at the beginning of this walk I finally walked through the circular ramparts and on to return to my car. This was a curious holiday that failed to engage my enthusiasm. I had not originally planned to spend the whole holiday walking the Ridgeway and had actually planned some walks beside the River Thames through Henley. However, once I had completed the Ridgeway I didn’t stay in the area for the last day of my holiday and instead headed home stopping at Bletchley Park again on the way.

My walk along the Ridgeway had originally started as an excuse to see bluebells and became a way of doing some walking south of home when usually I go north for my walking. The Chiltern Hills are a fabulous place for walking, especially in late spring and summer when the area is full of wild flowers, but during my walking last Easter there were few, if any, wild flowers due to the late winter and this detracted from the walking for me. The North Wessex Downs were not able to engage my enthusiasm like the Chiltern Hills, but neither of them were able to interest me in the same way as a good rock-covered mountain. That is principally where my interest lies and there is nowhere south of home where such terrain can be found, so I think in future I will still almost always be found either north, or west in Wales.

The Ridgeway: Barbury Castle

Thursday 5th April 2018

After a day spent walking from near Swindon to the River Thames at Goring along the Ridgeway trail, I returned to my usual pattern for these walks as I drove to Barbury Castle, which is not far from Swindon. This is an Iron Age hill fort and lies on the Ridgeway trail so after parking beside it I immediately set off along the trail, however not over the fort but in the other direction, east. The weather for this walk was completely different to the day before when I had rain and strong winds almost all day as now the sun was shining through virtually cloudless skies. Thanks to the free-draining nature of chalk downs the ground had dried surprisingly quickly despite the heavy rains of the last few days. Consequently I was able to stride out on firm grass under the fabulous weather across the gorgeous landscape of the Marlborough Downs along the grassy top of Smeathe’s Ridge. I had not seen much on the previous day, but now I could see far and wide with fabulous walking underfoot alongside ranges where horses were being trained at a gallop on the springy turf.

Gradually I began to descend into the valley of the River Og and around the village of Ogbourne St. George where I was already beginning to feel hot despite the morning chill that lingered in the air. After stripping down to a thin top I strode up the slopes on the other side of the valley along lanes and byways such as I was often finding on the Ridgeway trail. This section of the trail has good paths with muddy bits coming only rarely which made the walk a lot better than the day before and considerably better than the horrendous mud I had found in the Chiltern Hills. I quickly strode out along the trail passing Liddington Castle fort, over the M4 motorway and up to the top of Charlbury Hill. Barbury Castle hill fort, where I had started, and Liddington Castle hill fort are just two examples of a string of forts that would have lined the ancient Ridge Way road that lends its name to the National Trail. I wondered as I passed whether there used to be a fort on top of Charlbury Hill, but this doesn’t appear to have been the case while the next fort along the Ridge Way was Uffington Castle, which I had visited on the previous day.

Eventually I reached the Ashbury crossing where I had started my walk along the Ridgeway the previous day and there I left the trail to head south along the road. However, I soon tired of walking along the road so when I came to a footpath on my right I took it around the edge of the woods that adorn Ashbourne House, which is a National Trust property. I didn’t explore the park as I still had many miles to cover to get back to my car although my route back was in doubt. My original plan had involved a lot of road walking that would take me all the way down to the village of Aldbourne, however I had already tired of road walking and that wasn’t the most direct route. Looking at a map I had an idea, as I was walking along, to turn left onto a byway that heads west and rejoin the Ridgeway somewhere south of Liddington Castle. The flaw in my plan was that I didn’t have a map of this precise location as I was in a gap between my Ridgeway map and my O.S. Marlborough Downs map. All I could do was keep heading south and hope I came across the westward byway that I wanted, but inevitably I missed it and by the time I realised I was stuck on the original route through Aldbourne.

After passing over the M4 motorway I headed through the village of Baydon and frustratingly all the way along a road to Aldbourne where I turned onto the Swindon road eventually coming off onto a byway that heads almost straight west towards Barbury Hill. It was now getting quite late in the day and I rather tired while the weather had turned colder when clouds finally ruined the clear skies and a cold wind lowered the temperature meaning that the lovely weather that I had enjoyed while on the Ridgeway was now a distant memory. The remaining walk was a slog as I headed over the ridge that carries the Ridgeway trail and hours earlier had carried me on it in sunnier and happier moments, but now I wearily descended the steep slope on the other side to a busy road. The walk ended on Gypsy Lane climbing steeply up to top of Barbury Castle, while all the way cursing myself that I had parked at the top of a hill. The first half of this walk, along the Ridgeway, was pretty good in fabulous sunny weather along good, dry paths that were enjoyable to walk upon. The return to Barbury Castle was a hard, tiring slog and calculating the total distance now it comes out at a gruelling twenty-seven miles, so I just wish I’d come up with an easier walk.

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.