Date: Location: Walk Leader: Participants: Distance: Parking: Lunch: | 17th August 2016 Braemore Ray Ray, Peter 7 miles By St Mary's Church Bat and Ball ★★★☆☆ |
It is worth going to have a look at St Mary's Church said to be one of England's most important Anglo- Saxon Churches.
See http://greatenglishchurches.co.uk/html/breamore.html for more detailed information.
The easiest route is probably through the church yard but we went into the field and around the edge to join the path into Breamore Park. It seems to be a rarely used path but is reasonably easy to follow at the start. Between Yarnfield Pit and Lions Lodge the path vanishes as you can see from the picture below!
Their are fields on each side of the route and there were many opportunities to see crops being harvested as we made our way along North Chagford Drove. We stopped for a break in a small shady wood after crossing South Chagford Drove and were pleased to get out of the sun for a while.
We have got used to seeing fields of poppies in Dorset in recent years and came across another one as we approached Manor Farm. We had decided to take the track around the old fort but had forgotten how long the climb was to the top. The stud farm and training areas at Whitsbury are always worth a look. It is a beautifully maintained business. Unfortunately there were horses in the field we had planned to cross so we had to back track a bit before heading towards Whitsbury Wood. There are notices saying that horses are dangerous and we were not about to test that out.
It was very pleasant in the woodland and we agreed that it would be nice to cut through Breamore Wood so went off piste. There were no notices saying that these woods were dangerous.
I am preparing a little video to explain the effects of this decision.
We then had a rather uncomfortable journey back to the car before driving to the Bat and Ball to meet Clive and Rob for lunch. The food was up to the normal standard but the conversation was somewhat less lively than usual.