Walking the Wansdyke

Week off work and time to walk the Wansdyke. I have to take 5 days of holiday before the end of March, so an early spring holiday it is.

I’d never heard of the Wansdyke despite growing up only miles away and crossing it hundreds of times in car journeys. The fifty-mile earthwork runs from Savernake Forest in Wiltshire to Dundry, a village just south of Bristol, and is named after the Anglo-Saxon god Woden.

It was built by the native Britons, however, in an attempt to keep those iron-helmed Germanic invaders out of their ancient land. They failed.

Forty-five minutes of scenic countryside stood between me and this fresh adventure. I loaded Ginny into the boot and made my way through Hungerford and Marlborough. I passed by the Marlborough College kids in their blue-crested blazers and followed the signs to Devizes.

Parking up in Bishops Cannings, in a pothole-filled parking area near a rather less posh school, I let Ginny out of the boot to the sounds of screaming juniors playing football and netball. As Ginny exuberantly leapt around in her newly regained freedom, I wondered how these kids’ futures would fare compared to their neighbours over the hill.

Up by the farm just out of the village, I saw a brown arrowed sign for the Wansdyke path and trudged up the hill with Ginny bouncing on ahead of me. A half-rusted tractor rumbled past and we walked up to the corrugated barn that he had just left, glancing (and sniffing the manure in Ginny’s case) around for signs of a rowdy farm dog that might come careering out. Finding none, we bravely marched through the breeze starting to whip around our torsos, looking for signs of a man-made embankment.

The former frontier loomed above us a few minutes later and, opening the wooden gate, we bounded up to the top and began to walk along the dry and slightly overgrown grass. I was beginning to feel my pre-walk bottle of Coke Zero and, looking around sheepishly, ducked down the north side of the ridge to relieve myself whilst taking in the mist-shrouded fields of North Wiltshire. Ginny did the same.

Feeling markedly more comfortable, we continued to put one foot in front of the other and were interrupted by a rustling to our left. Six-foot wings were unfurling below us as their owner hastily took to the skies. A buzzard or a kite? I fancied it was the former but, before I could take a proper look, it was soaring into the blue, never to be seen by either of us again.

I looked across the freshly cultivated fields to my left, trying to imagine what it would have been like for the Britons well over a thousand years ago, not knowing what menace might be lurking beyond the horizon. Did people live here full time, or would it have been only scouting and sentry parties who came up here regularly, while their kinsmen lived further inside their territory, trying not to think too much about the rampaging West Saxon hordes?

We continued for a mile or two, through more gates and past another farm before turning back. The wind was now full in our faces and Ginny was having to fight to stay on the ridge line, being blown several feet off course and forced into a reluctant trot partway down and back up the bank a number of times.

A pair of middle-aged women in brightly coloured walking gear came staggering towards us, looking like they thoroughly regretted their life choices. ‘Lovely day for it,’ I heard myself call in a mock cheerful voice. They didn’t smile. I wondered which one of their ideas it had been.

I decided to take us a different way back and, after a wrong turn which Ginny hardly seemed to notice, we skirted the edge of the field full of heavily pregnant sheep, baaing in a muffled sort of way under the weight of their loads, and followed the treeline back to the village.

I’d spied the Crown pub on Google Maps earlier and, after some deliberation, decided we’d drive there rather than walk. It was over a quarter of a mile away after all.

Entering the cosy inn, I caught a glimpse of my hair in a silver-framed mirror to my right and hastily pressed my hand to it in a futile effort to tame the matted tangle. I reminded myself not to miss my planned barber’s trip for tomorrow.

The barwoman was a mousy-haired, middle-aged woman who asked me where we’d been.

“Just to the Wansdyke.”

“Oh nice, there isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Are you still serving food?”

“Yep.”

Good chat.

I grabbed a menu from the bar and settled down in the corner with my pint of Thatcher’s Gold, tying Ginny to the wooden table leg as I sat and thinking vaguely of picking up one of the leather-bound volumes on the bookcase.

The barwoman came over again ten minutes later and I ordered scampi and chips along with another cider. There was a barber-jacket-and-wellies-clad family sat in the far corner but, other than that, the pub was empty.

The barwoman came over a short while later with the breaded fish and thick-cut chips. I ate it greedily, pausing only to dunk liberally into the tartare sauce whilst the red-trousered family looked on in mild disgust.

After depositing Ginny into the boot, I thought I’d go and explore the farm shop that I’d seen signposted on the way to the pub. The shop was opposite a building called ‘the piggery’ and the strong aroma of shit told me that it was still a working one.

It was only a small affair but I grabbed a packet of faggots and a round of cheese named after my home town — would be rude not to — along with a gorgeous-looking brownie to act as my dessert.

I reckoned it had been a pretty successful first day of the holiday.

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. — Henry van Dyke