B2B Day 15 East Harptree to Peasedown St John--Best Path, Dining in a Railway Car, and Books

For an OS map of today's walk (10.7 mi; 17.3 km; 752 ft total ascent), click here.

We had a fun breakfast at our Harptree Hideaway, with fruit, cheese, and little toaster waffles with jam. 

Breakfast at the Harptree Hideaway

We set out a bit later than usual, and went to the community shop in East Harptree before heading out. The volunteer in the shop had a niece in Toronto—he must be about the fifth person we’ve met who has family in Toronto. There is a lot more to Canada than Toronto!

The walk was generally good today. We climbed a hill fairly early on, but that meant we enjoyed a rest and the view at Prospect Stile, where it was cold and windy. 

One of the views from Prospect Stile, East Harptree church tower visible at the centre of the picture

We liked the church at Hinton Blewitt. We noticed that the pillars seemed to be leaning outward.

The Church at Hinton Blewitt

Our walk took us through a field, and then two meadows with a broad, mown path. They were absolutely beautiful, the best paths we’ve had, and we were thankful to the people who had mown such a lovely way for us to walk.

Such a great path, it's worth including two photos

We joined the road and went to the church in Cameley, and enjoyed it. It had been declared redundant, though they do have services on special Sundays throughout the year. It had many interesting features inside, including some medieval wall paintings. 

The Church in Cameley

 

One of the medieval paintings of sea creatures

After that, it was many footpaths through fields. The final one was a sweetcorn field with no visible path. The plants were short, so we successfully avoided stepping on any of the plants. After a short road walk, we stopped at the Railway Inn in Hallatrow. We got a seat in the railway dining car, which had been refurbished beautifully. We loved our meal, and it was fun eating in a railway car modelled on the Flying Scotsman. 

Dinner in the dining car at the Railway Inn

After emailing our hosts to say we’d be later than we had initially estimated, we walked briefly along a very busy road to the Book Barn. We knew it was dangerous to visit a bookstore, and it was. All of the used books in their browsing area were one pound each. Ken found several books which we ended up having us ship to our home, and Sara enjoyed browsing the rare book room. She was also happy to see the place where she had purchased a wonderful Brontë book online. The people there were really nice. 

The Book Barn--what could be more fun?

Because we stayed so late at the Book Barn, we walked fairly quickly for the rest of the day, along a former railway path, 

The former railway path

past some sewage works, and along a former canal tow-path. Our final path off-road was through some dark, dank woods. The rest of the walk was on the road. Early on, a man came out of a driveway with a mug full of one pound coins and said, “Are you alright?” (a typical greeting here). We were, but that seemed a bit curious. Just a little ways on, the road was above a wall in a field, and three dogs raced across the field and began barking wildly and jumping up and down against the wall, trying to get above it and get at us. Sara felt like we were in some kind of film. The road walking finished with a steep (steep, endless) uphill climb, and we arrived at 6:00 p.m. exactly, having walked about five miles in two hours (quick for us).

Our host Jane met us with some fresh eggs for breakfast, and kindly agreed to do our laundry. Our evening meal was tea and biscuits, basically, which we thoroughly enjoyed after a long day’s walk.

The Garden Room at Peasedown St. John