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| At Stourhead Garden Gate |
For an OS map of today's walk click
here.
Our kind host Vivienne gave us a ride to Stourhead in the morning. Since we had already walked from Stourhead to our B & B the night before, we could legitimately accept a ride. This gave us an extra hour to explore Stourhead, which was great as we then had plenty of unrushed time to enjoy a remarkable place.
The gardens at Stourhead are one of those places that make you wish there were better words than "beautiful" to describe what you are seeing. Created in the eighteenth century and further developed in the nineteenth, Stourhead is a landscape garden where you walk on paths around a man-made lake and enjoy the views from different perspectives: an essay in the "picturesque." The weather was perfect: sunny and warm. The rhododendrons were blooming, and at many points on the path we could smell the spicy sweet scent of honeysuckle. As befitting the fashion of that time, most of the structures were neoclassical: a grotto, a pantheon, a "gothick cottage," and a small temple of Apollo. I think I remember it from the newer film version of
Pride and Prejudice. Ken had planned a relatively short walk (less than 9 miles) for the rest of the day, so we had ample time to enjoy the views. We had such a peaceful, refreshing time there. I loved it.
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| Picturesque Stourhead |
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| For those who love rhododendrons, it was paradise... |
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| The Temple of Apollo |
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| The Pantheon from the Lakeside Path |
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| Sculpture and Light inside the Pantheon, including Hercules in the Centre |
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| Ken Entering the Grotto |
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| "Nymph of the grot these sacred springs I keep..." (Pope) |
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| Neptune, the water god of the grotto... |
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| The Gothick Cottage |
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| One More View: the Lake, the Pantheon, and the Bristol Cross (Gothick Cottage partly visible to the right of the Cross) |
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| The Downs Begin |
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| 21 miles to Salisbury; 99 to London |
After leaving the gardens and provisioning at the Stourhead Farm Shop, not far off we could see the beginnings of what will become the dominant geological feature of the rest of our walk: chalk downland. Today our journey up to and along the spine of the gently rolling downs was full of interest. We saw men flying remote control gliders near the top of the hill. For some time we walked on a historic coach and drove road, noticing several old stone markers from the eighteenth century that gave the distance to Sarum (Salisbury) and London. At the top of the hill there was a bull that had gotten out of its pasture (the other cattle were still inside), but it was so interested in eating the previously out-of-reach grass that it wasn't at all interested in us or the other people who had their dog running off its lead (!). We learned that "pillow mounds" were ancient human-made rabbit warrens to cultivate rabbits. Later, after we dropped down from the ridge towards our destination, West Knoyle, we saw two hares in a field, leaping together and then posing for us in silhouette. We got to see the church in West Knoyle just as they were cleaning up
after a flower festival. We then relaxed at Manor Farm, another lovely B
& B.
30,463 steps, 22.847 km, 937.2 cal
OS getamap measured distance: 10.35 mi (16.66 km)
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| Walking the Oxdrove Way |
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