A day of two halves again. I woke up at 7am naturally after a really good sleep. I’d arranged already to skip breakfast as rain was predicted after noon, so I was up on the Downs by 8am, on a clear, bright, cold day, with only a man and his friendly labrador for company. Climbing up the flank of Dragon Hill, you can look back on the White Horse’s hinterland, the deep dry valley called the Manger and strangely flat-topped Dragon Hill with mysterious earth workings all around it. A steep footpath took me above the hill figure and suddenly there it was just a few feet below me, its beady eye looking out over a vast landscape of the vale and blue ridges beyond the Thames valley.
The oldest hill figure in Britain is clearly visible from several miles away, as I saw later from the train on the way home.
From here I continued up the final rise to Uffington Castle, another well preserved iron age fort, smaller than Segsbury but with a double ring of fortifications. It is also just beside the Ridgeway along which I now continued.
A hint of autumn today with high in-your-face winds, sunny periods with skudding clouds. Trees are already turning brown and shedding, especially horse chestnuts which seem to have suffered badly this dry summer. But a good day for a brisk walk – as long as those ominous clouds far in the west stay away.
Soon I came to Wayland’s Smithy, a very large Bronze Age long barrow, much bigger than those I had visited previously. It has been heavily excavated in the past but now restored to give some idea of the structure, with big sarsen stones flanking an entrance to a passage grave. All in a beech copse of mature trees. Very evocative and apparently used by modern pagans.
I continued in route march mode, wanting to beat the rain, the track sometimes dipping and rising, at others mostly level. Then there is a sudden drop down to a road. Much of the rest of this day’s walk is pretty grim. The official Ridgeway path joins a busy very narrow road across Wanborough Plain, with no concession to walkers. A long bridge crossing the M4 is even worse, with crash barriers having been sited on the narrow pavement forcing walkers into the road. Then the route goes a short way along an even busier road, before – finally some peace – taking a footpath up to Liddington Hill and its castle. This is thought to be one of the oldest in the UK, with evidence it was built in four phases starting in the Bronze Age in the 7th century BC. The Ridgeway turns south here but I took another route down the south flank and along another busy narrow road – where I was hit by the first wave of the rain and discovered my waterproof jacket wasn’t. Luckily just ahead was the Three Trees cafe and farm shop where I had a very good late breakfast. From here I called a taxi rather than wait for the rare buses, to Swindon station, only about 12 minutes.
These last few miles are by far the worst section of the Ridgeway. I will look at alternative routings for the webpage as I can’t really recommend it as a safe route.
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