Frome Valley Trail - Part 3 - Dorchester to Wool 27th August 2018

After a day of heavy rain, which we spent largely indoors, we were raring to go again for part 3 of our adventure.Had we known what lay in store, we might have been a bit more hesitant. I knew this was going to be at least equal in length to the final stage of the walk which we were putting off for the time being, having run out of time.

We parked in Dorchester and I insisted on starting where we'd left off on Saturday, which meant a bit more of a walk and we should probably have parked closer to the start. Oh well, so what if you've walked two miles and you're not even out of Dorchester?

River Frome at St John's Pond, Dorchester - SY6891

 This is probably the most walked part of the River Frome, and it is rather attractive and I was encouraged to see a local nature reserve here, as well as something I've never seen before - some hedgehog spotting descriptions. There are obviously some very keen hedgehog spotters round here!

Nature Reserve in Dorchester - SY6990

Hedgehog Spotting in Dorchester - SY6990

We'd walked nearly two miles and we were still in Dorchester! I daren't tell Paul so I kept quiet and hoped he wouldn't ask. Meanwhile we approached another bridge reminiscent of a bygone era. It carried a warning about weight restrictions from Mr Frooks.

Sign on bridge over River Frome, Dorchester - SY6990

We were able to walk right by the river as we continued our attempt to get out of Dorchester. at least we were in another gridsquare now.

River Frome and Mallards east of Dorchester - SY7090

We were following a right of way now through an industrial estate and then past the town's sewage works. I held my nose as we passed and was glad to get onto a greener and less smelly lane.

Bridleway near sewage works, Dorchester - SY7190

 I was very glad to see the stone which served as a boundary between the parish of Dorchester and that of West Stafford which we were now entering. Now obsolete, these stones were no doubt important in their time. Josiah Ober states that boundary markers are  "a way of imposing human, cultural, social meanings upon a once-undifferentiated natural environment." (Methods in the Mediterranean: Historical and Archaeological Views of Texts and Archaeology.) I suppose that's stating the obvious really, but for us it was an indication that we were finally out of Dorchester only an hour and 2 and a half miles since starting our walk!

Boundary marker between the parishes of Dorchester and West Stafford - SY7190

As well as following the River Frome, we were also following the railway line and watched as a train passed by quite close. I didn't quite manage a photograph in time for that gridsquare so had to be content with a boring field photograph instead.

Bridleway near Frome Farm - SY7189

 A Grey Heron was patrolling the River just before we arrived in West Stafford.

Grey Heron on River Frome near West Stafford - SY7289

I'm always pleased when I discover something interesting about a place; something I hadn't known beforehand; some nugget of information to ruminate on for at least the duration of the walk and perhaps to investigate further when I get home. In fact an outing or a walk is not really worth its length in miles if I haven't come back with at least one such nugget. Though I have to admit some walks are a challenge in that respect.

Not so this one; we stopped for a well-deserved and long-awaited cup of tea in St Andrew's  churchyard at West Stafford, having first popped in to find out a little more about its history. I'm not so much interested in the dry details of the church's construction as in its more literary and local connections. Apparently in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d' Urbervilles, this was the church where the bells were rung at Tess's wedding, though he refers to West Stafford as Talbothayes which is actually a mile further east.

There is also allegedly a smuggling association with this church (don't you just love these sorts of facts?!) in the form of a former rector nonetheless - Dr William England.

St Andrew's Church, West Stafford - SY7289

Feeling refreshed we left this rather delightful little village and walked along the road for a bit until we turned slightly down the drive to the Manor House which was just out of view. Here we joined a footpath which would take us back to the River and spoke briefly to two horse riders just setting off for their morning ride. We walked across a field of stubble to Lewell Mill Farm.

Field of stubble near Lewell Mill Farm - SY7389

At Lewell Mill Farm we joined a minor road which turned out to be a designated cycle route and several cyclists passed us on this stretch. We whiled away the monotony by picking roadside blackberries; there seems to be a good harvest this year.  Fortunately, other than cyclists, the road was not busy so we didn't have to keep darting out of the way of traffic.

We passed an interesting old brick building, rather like a Nissen hut used no doubt for storage and then we were at Lewell Corner.

Nissen Hut near Lewell Corner - SY7489

Lewell Corner - SY7489

We plodded along the road until we reached West Woodsford  where there wasn't a lot to see and I took a photo of the bus stop because I couldn't see the promised castle. But as we rounded the bend at the farm we were face to face with the biggest thatched cottage you've ever seen. "Do you think that could be the castle?" I asked Paul.

Woodsford Castle - SY7590

More like Gulliver's thatched cottage than a castle, the building is reputed to be the oldest inhabited building in Dorset, dating from the 14th century. Apparently it has never been a proper castle in the truest sense of the word, more like a sort of fortified manor house with a few  turrets and towers added for defence, possibly against raids by the French.

Massive though it is, it is owned now by the Landmark Trust and let out as a self-catering property sleeping only eight people on the first floor. The ground floor with its store rooms and service room has not really been touched by the Trust, though apparently you can look up the kitchen chimney through soot and see the sky. One of the current bedrooms has been converted from the old chapel, through which there is a squint to the Queen's Room. There's also a King's Room, but the names are just a pretentious gesture with no claim to fame.

What is another claim to fame about the building though is that at 330 square yards of thatch it is the largest thatched inhabited building in the country.

Thomas Hardy refers to Woodsford as Shadwater, which I think is much less pretty a name than Woodsford.

We discovered quite a lot of this information whilst munching lunch, which we almost shared with an inquisitive and hungry tup, but I have jumped ahead slightly.

Upon approaching this mighty fortress, we noticed a footpath not marked on my old map. Should we take it or not? Were we likely to end up somewhere miles from our original route? Thanks to 4G and google, we did some research and discovered that "Yippee! We can take this path, miss out a bit of road walking and be right by the River Frome!""

Things were looking up. Giggling with joy at our unexpected discovery we crossed the Frome and decided to sit right on its banks with the innocuous sheep and eat our lunch.

River Frome at West Woodsford - SY7590

At first we didn't notice the sheep. Then I began to feel a pair of eyes burning into my back and I turned cautiously to face a ewe eyeing up me and my lunch. "Don't look now, but we're not alone," I warned Paul as the ewe edged closer. usually sheep give us a wide berth, but this lot were brazen as anything. Next thing we knew a tup had approached us and walked boldy right up to my sandwich bag and poked its woolly nose right in there. Paul gave it a bit of a shove. But it was a solid mass. If that butted us we would be right in the river with some very soggy sandwiches. Panicking lest I was going to lose all my lunch I threw the remains of my sandwich in its direction and told it to help itself. It didn't. It lost interest altogether and I'd just wasted half of my lunch. Humph!

Undeterred by our sheepish lunch, we continued to walk along the banks of the Frome eastwards.

River Frome at West Woodsford - SY7590

River Frome at Woodsford - SY7690

I'd originally intended to stop at Woodsford and look at the church, but we were on the other side of the river and could barely see the church from here. I much preferred to be by the river anyway on this occasion as that was the purpose of our walk.

Whilst there was a footpath which wasn't marked on our map, there was also a footpath marked on the map which wasn't actually there, or, if it was, it went straight through a field of maize. We tried to find the path and ended up walking round in a circle - literally. We decided we'd have to walk on the road up to Tincleton, a village which we called Tinseltown and which I'd got high hopes for.

Bridge at White Mead - SY7691

Tincleton was not going to reveal itself easily. We had to fight through bog, briar and blackthorn to reach it, and even then we weren't actually going to visit its centre; we were heading eastwards to the church.

St John the Evangelist Church, Tincleton - SY7791

We were now heading northwards, frustratingly as it was away from the Frome, but, other than walk along the road, we had no option. We followed a field border to Southover Heath.

Approaching Southover Heath - SY7792

Then we were in woodland and walking by Clyffe House. Built in 1842 by architect Benjamin Ferrey, the property has now been converted into one house and three flats. What drew our attention, however, were the huge chimneys.

Clyffe House,Tincleton - SY7892

We followed the waymarkers, some of which were surprisingly marked as being the Frome Way again. This reassured me that I really had chosen the closest rights of way to the River Frome and |I hadn't missed anything. There are loads of shake holes marked on the map in this woodland, some of which were visible from the path. The whole woodland and heath has been divided into several areas, each with its own name and it was all very beautiful. We looked in vain for Grayling butterfly after I had seen so many the previous week in Wareham Forest, but all we saw were Speckled Woods aplenty.

Right of Way through Southover Heath - SY7892

Pallington Clump - SY7892

"There ought to be a trigpoint here," I said to Paul, as I recalled my aforementioned walk through Wareham Forest last week and my visit to Woolsbarrow Hillfort with its very own trigpoint. "There is!" I announced excitedly as I looked at my phone map and saw the tell-tale blue triangle. "I didn't notice that before!" But, despite an extensive search we couldn't locate it. Was it hidden behind the tumulus? Nope, I went up to have a look. Somehow or other it transpires that we managed to miss it. I checked when we got back and it IS there somewhere so that's two things to return for another day - the trigpoint and Woodsford Church.

We cut the corner of SY7992 and then emerged into farmland once more where I took a photograph of Golden Springs Farm before we joined the road again.

Pallington Clump - SY7992

Golden Springs Farm - SY7991

If we'd been able to walk directly south from here, we would have come to a fish farm formed in the Frome, but I suspect this is private fishing and access is for fishing purposes only. Instead we continued along this minor road and were passed by nothing more than a horse and cart with three people in it.

Horse and cart near Golden Springs Farm - SY7991

At Waddock Farm we crossed the B3390 (Waddock Drove) and joined a footpath which led south-east past Two Gates Farm.

Sign at Crossroads, Waddock Farm - SY7990

Our footpath was very straight, so straight in fact that we could see an obstacle in our path at Two Gates Farm. "I hope it does have two gates because one of them is blocked by cows," I said as we got closer and could see that the cows weren't moving. "They must be on their way to milking," I observed and then a massive beast with more than an udder hanging between his legs strode forward as if to say "Who are you calling a girl?" Fortunately there was an electric fence between us and them and we hoped that what it lacked in sturdiness it made up for in power as it looked particularly flimsy.

Cattle at Two Gates Farm - SY8090

Happily we were able to take a diversion through another electric fence and round the back of the barns as there was no-one to ask how long the cows were likely to be there and we certainly weren't going to go through them.

We rejoined the footpath which followed a northern tributary of the River Frome. It's difficult to tell from the map whether this is still the Frome as it seems to divide from the fish farm into two forks. We couldn't see it from our footpath anyway, though it was only a cow's stride away.

Footpath near Two Gates Farm - SY8089

Soon we reached a confluence of footpaths, one being the Jubilee Trail running north-south, one heading into Moreton Plantation and the other a right of way heading towards Bovington. We had walked all of these except for the one we were going to take today - towards Bovington. We were now very close to Moreton where there is a fabulous ford across the River Frome. To cross that today would be gratuitous, which is not so bad if you haven't already walked over 12 miles and are not sure how much further you've got to walk. We had crossed it several times before so didn't mind missing it today.

This was the point too when we could have called it a day and walked to Moreton Station which is a couple of miles west of the village itself. It seemed pointless to do that when it couldn't be much further than that to Wool from here, surely? (Turns out it was by another couple of miles).

So we walked through the much more mundane Glade (I know it sounds nice) which is military training ground though we saw no evidence of it today.

Military training territory, Bovington - SY8189

I now decided it was safe to check the map and see how much further we had to go and therefore try to work out which train we were likely to catch. "I reckon we might just make the 4.30 pm," I said to Paul, "but if we miss it we'll miss it by a few minutes, so let's take our time instead." That seemed a good option as we were both wearying and my feet were beginning to feel like lead.

Bovington Camp - SY8289

We reached the delights of Bovington Camp with its razor wire, keep out signs, joggers and Big Daddy registration plates. (Honestly!) And of course the museum, which virtually covers a whole gridsquare - well, OK, that's a slight exaggeration as I've just checked and it doesn't. Perhaps it just seemed to take forever to pass the building due to our extreme state of weariness!

Bovington Tank Museum - SY8288

When we turned right onto a footpath I took another photograph of a gate warning of military activity and entreating passers-by to be very careful.

Warning on military land, Bovington camp - SY8388

There were a couple more such warnings before we exited MOD land and were in fields with the Frome once more. "It's time to bid our river farewell," I said in what I hoped was a meaningful tone.

River Frome near Wool - SY8387

We had watched it wend its way through fields and watermeadows, under many bridges. It was watched over by the military (at a push), castles, farms and mills. It was home to Herons, Mallards, Mute Swans and no doubt a plethora of other creatures, avian and riparian. We would soon continue our journey with it to its journey's end at Wareham, but for now we had to leave it and we bade it as fond a farewell as we could muster as we stomped across the last footbridge and onto our final footpath of the day.

We entered East Burton and I photographed my final gridsquare of the day - Fromedale B & B - rather appropriate considering our journey of the past three days. Then we heard the train's whistle as it pulled out of Wool Station heading towards Dorchester.

Fromedale B& B, East Burton, Wool - SY8386

"I could just eat a plate of chips," I announced, knowing now that we'd have to wait even longer for food. I'd been fantasising about that plate of chips for the past couple of miles and thought maybe now we would pass somewhere which would help me realise my dream. We didn't. We crossed the railway at a convenient juncture thinking we couldn't enter the railway station if we stayed on the northern side of the line. That turned out to be a big mistake.

At Wool level crossing I ended up having to walk into the middle of the road and hold out my hand like a white-gloved policeman of days of yore to stop the traffic. Otherwise I think a skeletal form of ourselves would still be there waiting to cross the road.

We collapsed onto a bench  at the station with our trickle of lukewarm tea and two raisins each and were soon joined by a cyclist who a) confirmed we were on the right side of the platform and b) told us we'd walked past an cafe which sold excellent fish and chips. If only we hadn't crossed the railway when we did! Out of energy now there was no way we were going back. "Domino's Pizza," I said dreamily to Paul as we embarked the train.

Number of new gridsquares:18
Number of gridsquares I failed to photograph: 1
Number of miles walked: 16.2
Number of trigpoints missed: 1
Number of cafes missed: 1