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On Foot

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Pause for Thought

Pause for Thought

“We have hills which, seen from a distance almost take the character of mountains, some cultivated nearly to their summits, others in their wild state covered with furze and broom. These delight me the most as they remind me of our native wilds.” (Dorothy Wordsworth, 1795)

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On Foot HUMBLE CARES AND DELICATE FEARS

Emma Tabor and Paul Newman

Distance: 3 ¾miles Time: Approx. 2 hours Park: Blackdown Village Hall car park Walk Features: A walk in the footsteps of Dorothy and William Wordsworth, who lived at Racedown Lodge from 1795 to 1797. The walk is a steady circuit around Pilsdon Pen, taking in secluded farmland to the north east with some wooded and boggy sections, before a short ascent to the Dorset Ridgeway and the summit, with fine views across the Marshwood Vale and down to the coast. After exploring the hillfort, there’s a straightforward walk back to Coles Corner. Refreshments: The White Lion, Broadwindsor

Each month we devise a walk for you to try with your family and friends (including four-legged members) pointing out a few interesting things along the way, be it flora, fauna, architecture, history, the unusual and sometimes the unfamiliar. For February, we’ve been inspired by the Wordsworths’ time in Dorset to walk in their footsteps and explore this corner of the Marshwood Vale. With its unique concentration of hillforts, dips and summits, it takes only a small leap of imagination to see how Dorothy Wordsworth found an echo of their beloved Lake District here. The two would walk daily, with William composing his poems out loud whilst on foot.

Directions Start: SY 397 024, the car park at Blackdown Village Hall. 1 Turn right out of the car park, head along the road and, after a few yards, look for a stile on the right opposite Coles Cross house. Follow the sign for

Whetham Mill Cross; this path is now part of the

Jubilee Trail. Head straight across the field and down into where the corner of the field funnels to a point, to meet a stile. Cross this into the next field with an electricity pylon on the left and Coombe

Farm on the right. Dip down to cross a small brook and then up towards a metal gate in a hedge with a footpath sign on the post. Go through this into the next field, with views of Pilsdon Pen now on your right. Head slightly up into the field and then down, looking for a small gate and footbridge in a tree-lined hedge which lines a sunken brook. Cross the footbridge and go through another little gate into a field. Just after entering this, look for a gate which takes you into the copse on your left. >

2 Follow a track through the wood and, after a few yards, you will reach the other side to leave Boyden

Wood at the back of Coombe Farm, via a fivebar wooden gate (with a Dorset District Council footpath sign on the post). Go to the left of a barn then follow the track round to the right, in front of the farmhouse. Keep the farmhouse on your right and follow the hedge along the field edge towards a metal gate and clear footpath signs. Go through the gate and head slight right across the field towards cottages hidden in a dip. You will see larger farm buildings on the left as you drop down towards the cottages. Go through a metal gate onto a wooden footbridge over a brook. Head up a small path past the farmhouse and cottages. Look out for random electric fencing here which may be across the path before you reach a junction. 3 Continue up the farm track towards Pilsdon Pen, passing a bungalow on your left and abandoned farm vehicles. You soon reach a large metal gate with the Jubilee Trail sign to your left (ignore the track which goes slight right). Now walking parallel to Pilsdon Pen, stay on the track. This is a good place to listen out for Ravens tracking along the

Ridgeway above you. After 200 yards, before the track reaches the next gate, break off to your right, over a temporary fence. Head uphill and diagonally across a field, looking for a small metal gate in front of a telegraph pole, in the top corner. Go through the gate onto a bracken-covered hill track. This is a tricky section, very boggy and difficult, and the way is obscured in places by a mix of bracken and bramble. Keep heading on the diagonal line up from the previous field and you will soon reach a small wooden gate and signpost with a hedge on the left, leading onto Specket Lane with Specket

Cottage to your left. 4 Cross the road and walk up some steep wooden steps, through another small wooden gate. Keep left along the fence, through thicket, and climb up the slope, heading to your left. The hedge on the left eventually meets a fence running along the top of the hill - go through the small gate in the corner of the field into another field and, after a few yards, you will see a gate on your left with the fort of Pilsdon Pen ahead. You are now on the Wessex

Ridgeway. Follow this across the field, with great views either side, until you reach a five-bar gate which takes you into the hillfort. 5 You can now make a clockwise circuit of the fort, so turn left to follow one of the banks. Soon, there are good views of Lewesdon Hill ahead of you as you look from Dorset’s second highest point towards its highest. When you reach the far side of the fort, turn right and walk up the path which comes from

Lob Gate car park into the eastern entrance of the fort. The triangulation point is a good place to stop and admire the views over the Marshwood Vale and towards the coast. Continue around the fort, now on the inside, back towards the western entrance where you first entered the fort. As you do so, look out for low banks and ditches inside the fort, which are the remains of previous settlements and possible pillow mounds. Just before you reach the gate to leave the fort, turn back on yourself, this time starting to go anti-clockwise on the southern half of the fort. You will see a track which takes you out of the fort and straight down the hill, heading towards the western end of an impressive, beautiful row of beech trees. 6 At the trees, go through a gate with a stile which is inscribed with some of Wordsworth’s poetry, and round a magnificent beech at the end of the row.

Continue downhill towards Pilsdon Hill Farm. As the track reaches the road, look for a bridleway sign on the right and pass through the large metal gate. 7 To follow a hedge on your left through a succession of fields, with Pilsdon Pen and the

Ridgeway now above you on your right. The open fields along here are a good place to see winter thrushes, including redwings. Pass through two smaller fields, then a larger one and, about 300 yards after passing some buildings on your right, the path forks to the right (straight on will take you to Home Farm). Follow the path round to the right; ignore the next path off to the right which takes you back up Pilsdon Pen. Continue following the contour of the hill and look for a small metal gate ahead between hedges. Go through this, follow the track for a short stretch where it then meets the road and then follow the road for a few yards back to Blackdown Village Hall.

The title for this walk is taken from The Sparrow’s Nest (1815) by William Wordsworth and a few lines from the poem can be seen engraved on the stile by the beech row on the return leg of the walk.

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