Tarrant Crawford

Date:
Location:
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Parking:
Lunch:

29 November 2017
Shapwick
6.1 miles
Breside St Bartholomew's Church
Coach and Horses, Wimborne ★★★☆☆  No gammon!

Tarrant Crawford is the most southerly of the eight Tarrant villages and is very close to the junction of the Tarrant and Stour Rivers.  St Mary’s Church dates back to the twelth century and has some remarkable fourteen century paintings.  We have been here before but so long ago that I didn’t have any pictures of the interior and this walk provided an opportunity to remedy that.

St Bartholomew's Church

We parked beside St Bartholomew’s Church in Shapwick, a nice quiet spot for a few cars, and walked along the road past the old school and onto the footpath leading across the fields.  It is not very well used but its general direction is easy to follow.  Swan Way is a a very easy wide track leading to the B3082 with some very pleasant views over to the avenue of trees.

Although the trees are almost bear now we had to stop and take a photo with the trees in the background.  It was tricky timing it so there were no cars in the picture.  We followed the path along the edge of the road until we were level with the pig farm and then turned south west.  The first part of this path was nice and easy but as we approached our next turn, towards Tarrant Crawford, it became quite wet and muddy so we elected to walk along the edge of the field  We met a group of walkers going quite slowly in the same direction but they turned towards Tarrant Keyneston at the next junction while we turned in the opposite direction.
There is a covered stone entrance to the church where we sat for around half an hour.  Well Ray sat all the time but I spent quite a few minutes taking my pictures.  He had finished his coffee by the time I reached for my flask!  Unfortunately the sun was in just the wrong position to get a photo of the front of the church - maybe next time.

Trunk Road?

The Interior - Wall Paintings

St Mary's Church. Tarrant Crawford

Leaving the church we took the path that runs around the edge of the hill following the Stour Valley Way.  We followed this, more or less, all the way back to Shapwick.  We deviated slightly to keep close to the river but had to make our way back to rejoin it by the Pump Houses knowing that it almost impossible to cross the little stream anywhere else.

​For more information these locations visit:
http://www.thedorsetpage.com/locations/Place/T010.htm
https://www.visitchurches.org.uk/visit/church-listing/st-mary-tarrant-crawford.html​
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~jimella/tcrawfrd.htm

We stopped at the Coach and Horses in Wimborne for lunch, yet again, but were dismayed to find that they had run out of gammon.  They had actually run out of quite a number of items on their menu.  So it was one pie and one hunter’s chicken plus two pots of tea for the princely sum of £15.60.