On Foot

CONEY’S CASTLE AND PRIME COPPICE

Emma Tabor and Paul Newman

Distance: 5 miles Time: Approx. 3 hours Park: Coney’s Castle car park Walk Features: This walk takes in two of the Marshwood Vale’s hillforts, Coney’s Castle and Lambert’s Castle, via a loop into the heart of the Vale and its largest remaining block of ancient woodland coppice, Prime Coppice. There is a gradual descent from Coney’s Castle to Abbott’s Wootton Lane with a steeper ascent to Nash Farm towards the end of the walk. To the east, there are fine views across the Marshwood Vale, and also across to Charmouth, Champernhayes Wood and into Devon in the west. There’s the option to detour into Lambert’s Castle at the end of the walk. Refreshments: The Five Bells Inn, Whitchurch Canonicorum >

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.

This is a walk which takes you into the very heart of the Marshwood Vale, revealing something of its ancient character. The views from the Iron Age ramparts of Coney’s Castle reveal a modern-day patchwork of farmland divided by bounteous hedgerows, coppices and woods, whilst the section through Prime Coppice provides immersion in a carefully managed, seminatural ancient woodland rich in biodiversity. The walk is peppered with many fine oak trees as well as other species and you may be lucky to flush a woodcook from the depths of the wood or hear ravens calling overhead.

Warning: The section through Prime Coppice can be overgrown, uneven and muddy in places and difficult to navigate. The brook at the midpoint of the walk has to be forded and care must be taken after high rainfall. Stout, waterproof footwear is essential. As the walk passes through several farms, please keep dogs under close control and remember to close gates. At the time of writing, several footpath signs were missing or misplaced on this route. Ordnance Survey Explorer 116 is recommended and the map illustrated here is only for guidance.

Directions Start: SY 372 976 1 Park in the National Trust car park at Coney’s

Castle hill fort and head south along Long Lane. 2 Pass through the middle of Coney’s Castle on the road and after leaving the southern edge of the hillfort, walk for about 1/3 mile downhill until you come to a footpath sign on your left signed to

Whitchurch Canonicorum, 1 1/2 miles. 3 Go through the large, metal right-hand gate into a field. Walk down the field keeping the hedge on your left. In the far left corner is a gap in the hedge and a dismantled stile. Go through this into the next field. Now head across the middle of this field with farm buildings soon ahead of you. You will then come to a large metal gate next to a big concrete water trough. Pass through this gateway into the next field and head down towards the farm buildings. Go through a large metal gate, walking through the farmyard to reach the farmhouse. Pass to the right of the farmhouse, looking out for the beautifully carved window arches of this former monastic grange. This area is a good place to see long-tailed tits, house sparrows and goldfinches. 4 Cross Abbott’s Wootton Lane keeping ahead on a bridleway signed for Prime Lane along a substantial concrete track. Walk along here for 1/4 mile until you come to a Private Road sign ahead. Here, leave the track to go left through a metal gate into a field then head upwards to the right of the copse ahead,

Prime Coppice. 5 Enter the copse through a large gate to walk along a path on the right-hand edge; the path here looks quite overgrown at first. Follow the footpath and after 150 yards, reach another metal gate. Go through this to walk along the outside edge of the copse, keeping the fence on your left. Walk on until you reach a small wooden gate to go back into the copse which becomes a wood. Veer right as you enter, then keep going ‘ahead’. The path here is quite indistinct and tricky with fallen trees blocking

the path but keep through the middle of the wood between fences on either side of you. The wood soon widens out; keep going in the same direction and after 200 yards you should reach a clearing and the camp for the forest school, with views of

Pilsdon Pen ahead. Walk down the track to leave the wood, with a corrugated building and small wooden buildings, to cross a bridge and then turn left onto another track. 6 Go through a metal gate and head up the track to then enter a field to your left through another metal gate. Follow the northern edge of Prime

Coppice passing through one more metal gate alongside a pony paddock; keep on until the field funnels into a corner with a small metal gate in the far right-hand corner. 7 Leave the field through the small gate and turn immediately right into a larger field. Turn left to walk up the left-hand side of this field towards a small old barn. As you reach the barn, turn left through the gateway immediately before the barn, to go into the next field and then to the right to head across the field to the right-hand corner.

Go into another larger field with lots of new tree planting to pass under the pylons and down towards a large gateway and into the next field (at the time of writing this gateway had no footpath signage). Walk down the field towards a brook, which is reached via a large metal gate. There is no bridge so cross carefully, with wellies if there has been heavy rainfall! 8 Now walk up the middle of this field, then through an open gap in the hedge towards the top left of the field, into the next field. After a few yards

and three large oak trees, look for a double stile and footpath signs in the hedge on the left. Cross these precarious stiles and head towards the right and diagonally down, and then over the brook, to then walk up into the far right-hand corner of this scrubby field and through a new large wooden gate, into another field. Walk straight across this field to the wooden gate on the far side. Go through this to pass in front of the farmhouse (on your left) and barn conversion after which is a gateway onto a track. Cross this track and into another field keeping the hedge line and other farm buildings on your left. Walk along the hedge for 200 yards and then down the field until you come to a small wooden gate and footpath signs to turn left onto a wooded track. 9 Follow this track, heading towards Lambert’s

Castle, initially through a small wood and crossing a small brook and start climbing uphill, in half a mile you reach Nash Farm. Go through a large metal gate, pass the farm and then onto a drive,

Nash Lane, which takes you to the road which runs parallel to Lambert’s Castle. Turn left onto the road and in 1/4 mile, at the junction of roads by the southern footpath entrance to Lambert’s

Castle, go left onto Long Lane. Walk back under the pylons, and then uphill along the road to take you back to the car park at the start. The views along here are good in either direction and a lovely end to the walk.

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