Images from today’s route
This section of my route proved a little disappointing for two reasons. First, I was rushing because the weather forecast was for heavy rain all afternoons, so the 12 miles were something of a route march to finish at Netheravon before lunch. And secondly, I was following parts of long distance trails (the Sarsen trail, the White Horse trail but mostly the Pewsey Avon trail) which were confidently marked on maps and for the most part on gateposts, but were in fact mostly on roads or little used paths almost impassable in places. The Avon trail follows as closely as is possible the river, but it is rarely visible, usually a few hundred yards off between heavily wooded banks.
Setting off early from Pewsey, I noted that the river here is scarcely more than a stream, an inch or so deep, at least at this time of the year. But this is probably off the track for the ancient route of the Ridgeway. The Avon goes west and soon I rejoined the probable line of the route to Stonehenge. Coming over the ridge yesterday you are immediately in sight of the village of Alton Barnes on the spring line, which is where the community that built the many monuments around Knap Hill and Milk Hill must have lived. As I noted yesterday, a tributary starts from a spring there and then leads down to meet the Avon at North Newnton, where the river becomes wider and deep enough to float small rafts and I suspect this was the pilgrimage route. Looking on the map I found that several lengths of the route across the hills and around the village are labelled Ridgeway, so there was a local understanding that this was the ancient route.
After some quite difficult sections of the trail around the Manningford villages, almost overgrown with mare’s tails and brambles wet from yesterday’s rain, there was a good footpath to Upavon. I had originally planned to stop there for lunch but with the bad weather ahead I kept going, also missing out the loop to Casterley Castle and continuing ahead on the road instead, which was probably a mistake. I continued through several pretty villages including East Chisenbury, with a fine old pub, the Red Lion. The public footpath here runs through the grounds of the the Priory, a fine Georgian building with a spectacular avenue and a high earth dyke at its perimeter. At the next village the Swan In is also a fine looking pub, now run by the local community. At Coombe I crossed the river and made my way to Netheravon, which I reached by 1pm just before the rain started.
The Dog and Gun turned out to be a very good pub, almost to country house standard and I ended up having lunch there, having arrived early, before my room was available, then dinner and breakfast in the morning – all to a very high standard and with a comfortable night’s sleep despite the lashing rain.
The number of old coaching inns along this road show that it continued to be an important route long after the neolithic!
