Monday 3rd June 2024 - Milton Quarry

On the way back from Wells on Sunday, I had passed St Thomas’s Church, which bore a poster for a Trio Paradis concert on Monday, playing an assortment of flower-themed music.  Trio Paradis are a classical musical trio of pianist Jacquelyn Bevan, violinist Lisa Betteridge and cellist Linda Stocks, who play concerts of an eclectic range of pieces of music on a theme, usually in churches with coffee and cake available, for whatever donations people can afford.  They are probably the band I have been to see most frequently, even compared with greats like Steeleye Span.

I had asked PDB11 whether he was interested, but he was expecting a delivery of materials for making into a new kitchen worktop on Monday, and suggested we go to see them at St John’s in Midsomer Norton on Friday at 12.30 instead.  This looked more manageable than the St Thomas’s concert, which began at 11, meaning that I would probably need to leave the house by 7am if I wanted to walk there.

At any rate, I set off for Wells around 7.30.  On the way, I stopped to chat with a friend who gave me an update on the condition of our neighbour who had recently gone into hospital, and offered me a cash donation for whichever of the charities I was sponsoring seemed most to need it.  After we had discussed the problem of famine and how important it is to offer people a sustainable way of making a living instead of just giving emergency handouts, but also the emergencies faced by refugees, I decided to split his donation between Tree Aid and UNHCR.

Leaving Oakhill, I followed the same route across Roemead Farm and Maesbury Castle that I had taken when coming back on previous afternoons.  I was surprised to find how different even a familiar route could look when taken in the opposite direction.  When trying to find a path instead of coming down to it from the hill fort, it was easy to take the wrong one, and pick the clearly visible track along the side of a field rather than the faint depression in the grass leading towards the Castle. 

When I’d found the right path, I proceeded along it fairly slowly, as I was photographing not only flowers, but also a fascinating, funnel-shaped cobweb in the grass. 

Surely we didn’t have funnel-web spiders – tarantulas – in Britain?  I texted PDB11, who explained that we don’t (most of them live in Oceania, Asia or South America), but do have agelenidae, funnel-weavers, which seem to be spread across virtually the entire planet except the Arctic.

By the time I reached Wells, I urgently needed the loo – and I had just reached St Thomas’s by a few minutes after 11.  Churches that have café concerts generally have plumbing, so I ducked in, hurried to the facilities, from where I could dimly hear ‘Meadow Flowers’ by Rued Langgaard (as I later discovered it was when the churchwarden very kindly lent me his programme - as usual, the concert was so popular that there weren't quite enough programmes to go around).  I returned in time to pay a donation and listen to the rest of the concert – of which I particularly enjoyed ‘Deserted Garden’ by Florence Price and ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ by Fats Waller.

I was also struck by the sadness of Francis Poulenc’s setting of Guillaume Apollinaire’s poem ‘Bleuet’ - which, as they admitted, was a cheat, since it’s an anti-war poem and nothing to do with flowers, but was tenuously connected as bleuet literally means ‘cornflower’.  The poignancy of soldiers in battle being mown down like flowers caught by the reaper’s scythe goes back to Homer, long before the poppies and cornflowers of World War 1 poetry.

After the concert, I bought some of the few pieces of cake remaining from pre-concert refreshments, and went on my way into Wells.  Getting the compass was easy, especially as Trespass had a sale on, and Boots was nearby so I could pick up the suncare lotion and slather it over myself – though the day had turned unexpectedly overcast.

I followed what was now the West Mendip Way out of the city, through the Blue School.  It seems strange, in these times, for a public footpath to go through a school, but not nearly as surprising and heartening as to see a secondary school with a playground which was a grassy field where some pupils sat and chatted while others ran around shouting and played noisy games of football or cricket.  When I was in school, primary schools had tarmac playgrounds, but secondary schools didn’t expect anyone to play, unless you were a serious member of a sports team (in which case you were training on the sports fields, not having an impromptu kickabout) or indoors at a meeting of the chess club.

I meant to follow the West Mendip Way through the woods of Milton Hill to Wookey Hole, and then up through Ebbor Gorge before turning for home.  However, by the time I reached Milton Hill, I was starting to get lost.  First I took a wrong turning through the gorge of the quarry, a path between impressive cliffs on either side.  This made me feel slightly nostalgic for the days when I climbed it without a qualm, as I couldn’t do this when I was (a) on my own, with no-one to call an ambulance if I got hurt, and (b) on a schedule, having delayed quite enough for one day.

I tried to get back onto the West Mendip Way, took another wrong turning, and found myself following a compass bearing to the cliff edge over the quarry.  Seen from above, it was much more intimidating, especially as I hadn’t intended to be there at all.  There was a small cross made of twigs near the edge, probably someone’s memento to a friend who had (accidentally or deliberately?) died there.  A piece of cardboard for a marker read ‘Life’s a bitch then you die, though sometimes life’s a bitch then you keep living!’

I definitely wanted to keep living, so moved further from the edge and tried to make my way along the track, but somehow the paths I tried to follow through the woods kept bringing me back to the edge.  By the time I retraced my steps down to a safely low level, at the edge of a wood, I was hopelessly lost, until, with the help of a kindly fellow walker, I managed to identify the farm I was facing as Model Farm.  I tried to follow the East Mendip Way from there, got lost walking around in fields and country lanes (which is less terrifying than being lost near a cliff-edge, but still frustrating), and eventually found Model Farm again, and walked through it and onto a track that led me to Tynings Lane and eventually to Old Bristol Road.

By this time, I just wanted to go home. I was going to be late as it was, but thought I could make it by 8pm.  As long as I followed minor roads and well-marked footpaths, that was a simple matter of keeping going.  I made it to Pen Hill and along Haddon Drove, and then, I thought, there was another  footpath leading from a farm on the edge of Bath Road over to Broomclose Corner.

There wasn’t.  The public right of way was marked on the map, but the farmer didn’t do public rights of way.  I couldn’t see any way to get through, or around the edge of, a densely packed field without damaging the crops, so instead I took a minor road down to join Old Frome Road.

At this point I gave up.  I was capable of walking home, I thought, but it would be 8.30 by the time I arrived, it would take me a while to map my route, and by the time I’d finished, I wouldn’t have any free time to relax with PDB11 before falling asleep.  I phoned PDB11 and asked him what he would prefer, and he said he’d prefer to see me sooner, and was happy to drive out and collect me from Masbury Farm, just past the place where the road crosses the old railway.

So this is what we did.  I had walked not quite 16 miles this day.  But a total of 54 miles over the first three days still isn’t too bad.  It’ll be shorter on Tuesday, as I have other commitments – so maybe I need to treat Tuesday as at least a partial rest day.