| Date: Location: Distance: Parking: Lunch: | 6 December 2017 Tarrant Monkton 6.7 miles Langton Arms Coach and Horses, Wimborne ★★★★☆ Gave them the extra star as the gammon was back on with two eggs, peas, onion rings and tomato. Two for £10.49! |
 All Saints Church |  An Attractive Village Setting |
It was rather dull and grey when we started out from the Langton Arms where we had kindly been given permission to park. It stayed like this all day but nevertheless this was a really enjoyable and varied walk.
We decided to do this walk in a clockwise direction so with any luck we would be in the wooded section if the forecast rain appeared a little later. Turners Lane may look a little daunting judging from the contour lines but it was a fairly easy and gentle climb for the first kilometre. Looking around from the top there are very good expansive views back over the Tarrant and towards Long Crichel. They were all easy paths with nary a stile to be seen. Not much style either but that’s another story! The other thing we missed was the wild life.
Turning east after Penfold Belt we noticed that the main path was rather wet and muddy but just to the north of it there was an alternative footpath that was dry and leafy so we took that.
We expected to see some deer but never spotted one the whole day. We saw one farmer out spraying a field at Horse Down and he was one of the two people we saw outside the village.
We decided to do this walk in a clockwise direction so with any luck we would be in the wooded section if the forecast rain appeared a little later. Turners Lane may look a little daunting judging from the contour lines but it was a fairly easy and gentle climb for the first kilometre. Looking around from the top there are very good expansive views back over the Tarrant and towards Long Crichel. They were all easy paths with nary a stile to be seen. Not much style either but that’s another story! The other thing we missed was the wild life.
Turning east after Penfold Belt we noticed that the main path was rather wet and muddy but just to the north of it there was an alternative footpath that was dry and leafy so we took that.
We expected to see some deer but never spotted one the whole day. We saw one farmer out spraying a field at Horse Down and he was one of the two people we saw outside the village.
 The Cottage | Turning into the woods at Coutman’s Croft gave us a completely different but still no wild life. We admired the welded constructions in the garden of the old cottage where we turned the corner to travel south west into Queen’s Coppice when we last walked past it on 25 September 2013 and were very pleased to see them still there with, we thought, a few additions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crichel_Down_affair provides some interesting information on this area. |
| Some forestry work was going on in the Honey Grove area and this had provided us with a wonderful selection of seats. The paths continued to be very easy to follow and the views opened up again as we turned north by Monkton Common Higher. |  Logging On |
| Here we noticed a exceptionally long stretch of iron fencing. We were wondering how long it had been there and why it had not been used to build Spitfires when we came across the bush in the picture. The bush had managed to completely encase a section of the fence. How many years did that take? |  The Strength Of Nature |
We considered returning via Common Drove but decided it would be better to just carry on to Turners Lane and hence back to the car.
RSS Feed