Date: Location: Walk Leader: Participants: Distance: Parking: Lunch: | 16th April 2014 Winterborne Zelston Clive Clive, Peter, Ray. 6.4 miles Beside St Mary's church Winterborne Zelston The Worlds End ★★ |
A very pleasant sunny day but with a cool wind.
We parked by the church at Winterborne Zelston and had a nice stroll past some interesting property up to Marsh Bridge. The route then crosses the busy A31 where some care is needed. We were also surprised to find quite a high volume of traffic along the B3075 which runs past the Worlds End pub.
We then found our way across the fields towards East Morden and avoided going back on to the B3075 by keeping inside the field boundary until we reached a point level with the footpath on the opposite side of the road.
We stopped for our coffee break at the St Mary's Church in East Morden where we admired the Lattice work windows. The lower part of the West Tower is of the late 13th century; the rest of the church was completely rebuilt in 1873, the architect and builder being Joseph Siller.
We then joined the Wareham Forest Way for a short distance before turning back NW towards West Morden. It was a short distance from here were we saw what is probably the largest ivy plant we have ever seen growing on a tree. It had been cut through and looked almost like a separate trunk of the tree.
At Pound Wood we dropped down into a little valley where there were bluebells on the slopes above us and primroses growing in the woods.
As we re-entered Winterborne Zelston it was good to see the stream running beautifully clear with Lady's Smock, aka the Cuckoo Flower, growing along the verges and Comfrey lining the banks.
The Botany Bay was closed for refurbishment so we decide to try the Worlds End which we recalled as rather disappointing. It was however really much better than expected with reasonable choices and prices and good service.