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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Saturday 6 June 2015

Third Walk

Extra Walk - Tisbury Circular (via Dinton and Fonvant)
Length: 23.8 km (14.8 miles). Toughness: 7/10 (Both shortcut options: 20.5 km Toughness: 6/10)
Catch the 9:20 from London Waterloo arrives Tisbury 11:06. Return trains xx:01.
This is the final walk in the Tisbury series. This walk is via Dinton and Fonvant (a circular eastern loop).
For the first outing of this new walk by Thomas, we will be taking the opportunity to check the walk directions. From the text: "This is one of the furthest daywalks from London. It explores the Nadder Valley east of Tisbury, part of the West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which is spectacular walking country with some breathtaking views. Without scaling any ridges or steep ascents, the route meanders through the beautiful undulating and peaceful countryside with a few grassy U-shaped valleys, pretty views out to some distant coombes, and scenic Dinton Park with its grand mansion (Philipps House). A couple of picturesque former corn mills on the Nadder River are walked past, while the afternoon route also offers views from a wood’s fringe across a valley to the Fovant Badges, regimental badges cut into the chalk, and the largest group of hill side figures in Europe, before leading through a couple of quiet villages followed by a gentle descent across fields back into Tisbury, a remarkably unspoilt village. An extended walk, rated 10/10 and leading through the Fovant Badges up to the ridge of Fovant Down with its Chiselbury Iron Age hill fort site is described." Link to directions.
T=swc.249

9 comments:

DAC said...

Intend going.

Pia said...

Definitely coming, two of us.

Anonymous said...

Another Tisbury walk! I'm wondering if it would be cheaper to get an annual season ticket. Has the indefatigable author got a second home there?

Anonymous said...

The cynic who posted the last comment, and whose sourness has surfaced on other occasions, needs to simply join the Ramblers. Spare us your boorishness.

Thomas G said...

to explain the block-appearance of Tisbury walks: in a 'new' territory for SWC it is just more efficient to write them all up in one project, to limit overlap and to come up with the best posssible combination of routes. as compared to the drip-drip fashion in which walks have been written over the years in other parts of the country. besides, 5 very different walks with minimal overlap in superb walking country, what's not to like ? anyway: still a low number compared (for example) to the 8 walks that start or finish in Haslemere...

Karen said...

n=10 on this walk. A lovely w=sunny day.

Set off from Tisbury shortly after 11. An easy morning with nice views of the Nadder Valley and the first glimpses of the Fovant Badges. The walk through Dinton Park being particularly pleasant.

4 picnicked in the churchyard at St. Mary's, Dinton, and the remaining 6 had a very satisfactory lunch at The Wyndham Arms. The service was friendly and the presentation of the food surprisingly elegant.

Picnickers and pub diners regrouped at the pub, with one walker going on ahead. About an hour into the afternoon portion of the walk, 4 of us split off to walk the extension. A steep but mercifully short climb took us up onto Fovant Down for a close-up of the Fovant Badges.

Those of us who chose to do the extension made it back to Tisbury not long after 19:00. One walker from the other group waited to dine with us at The Boot Inn. Took the 21:01 back to Waterloo (sadly, no trolley service) and were back in London a few minutes shy of 23:00.

This is a long walk, but if you don't opt for the extension, not too arduous (in my opinion). Some gentle ascents and descents. Nice variety of sections through woodland and across wide fields. Lots of pretty thatched cottages to look at. Towards the end of the walk, there are a few gentle but long ascents through very wide fields (my personal bête noire, sometimes those fields seem endless). Given the time of year, there were plenty of nettles about, but those wearing shorts assured the rest of us they were of the non-stinging variety.

Karen said...

Forgot to include this information in my previous comment:

Extra Walk - Tisbury Circular (via Dinton and Fonvant)
Length: 23.8 km (14.8 miles). Toughness: 7/10
Extended walk: 28.9 km Toughness: 10/10

Pia said...

I totally agree with Karen's comments and absolutely love the undulating country side around Tisbury. Doing the walks as a group also makes you understand a whole area, this one surrounding Tisbury, a pretty village, much better. This was not the prettiest or easiest walk of the series this time of year: a lot of vegetation, nettles particularly prevalent, and absolutely of the stinging variety (those wearing shorts were putting a brave face above some red spotty legs). So far no 3 is my favourite but I missed no 2 so I will definitely go back and catch up. It was a glorious walk and 4 of us felt 23 km was plenty with almost 4 hours traveling as well although I find train journeys very relaxing particularly with the frequent trolley service we enjoyed (advantage of a very short 3 coach train; disadvantage, it was very full). The instructions were excellent, the reader's capacity to follow them sadly did not reach the same high standard; hence we had a small adventure in Hardene Wood where we had to clamber over and under trees on all fours, not to everyone's delight, to follow a neglected path to get back on the correct track. We were in time for some of us to catch a quick half pint at The South Western pub before getting on the 7pm train to London just avoiding the embarrassment of being overtaken by the more ambitious extension hill climbers. Well done however to all those, that was a super long walk.

Pia said...

I forgot to say thank you to Thomas G for taking the time and the trouble and applying his walking and route finding skills to devise new walks for the SWC. It may be a little bit far out, but if you walk regularly, it is a treat to discover new countryside that you would never think of to walk in before or go and explore by yourself. In a group with all transport and watering/eating places researched beforehand it becomes a wonderful opportunity to explore new pastures. The walks are also nice and long, with options to shorten or make them challenging. Indeed, what's not to like about this. Walkers should display a little more gratefulness towards those who make all the effort of organising/devising walks etc rather than criticise or assume ring premises.