UK Camino Ingles: Day 4 - The English Way 15 miles

Day 4 of our Camino Ingles in southern England began and ended with SUN! Glory, Glory, Hallelujah! With another another long walk ahead of us, we met Jane at the Wheatsheaf Inn early so she could shuttle us around all the messy highways and dangerous backroads back to our end point yesterday in the little thatch-roof village of Dummer.  We took a little stroll around the village to admire the thatcher's good work, including their signature whimseys atop a few of the homes - ducks, geese, rooster, hound, and cat.  The old church of All Saints was closed (it was early!) but we loved checking out the different periods of architecture that combined over the centuries to create the present day structure. A part of it dates to the 12th century and while we guessed at the other building styles and periods, I loved how it was both old and new(er) all in one look. 

All Saints, Dummer village

Thatcher's whimseys atop the top

I haven't talked much about the reasons for our pilgrimage, and why we chose this route. I certainly don't want to assume I knew why my elder cousin had made such a long journey to walk seventy miles in England. I had my ideas but never came right out and asked. But my intentions were two-part. I was walking to participate again in the ancient practice of pilgrimage, this time as a sojourner and companion to another pilgrim. I was also walking to honor the idea of revival. Feeling revived by a fill day of sunshine, this was a good time to think about my intentions.

A very birdy estate lane 

So much mud, despite the blue skies

The recovery of religious pilgrimage to the English landscape has been nothing short of remarkable, especially to me coming from a country which has very little of its own pilgrimage tradition. Pilgrimage as a practice dates back thousands of years to include people walking with intention to sacred sites during the Iron Age through the Middle ages. Pilgrimage has been an important shaper of the British landscape from Celtic-pagan times through the Middle Ages. Many of the Christian traditions, holy sites, and shrines to saints are simply layered over pre-Christian  sites with "revised" meanings and Christian symbolism but in many cases the older pagan belief system shines right on through. It was great fun to find these multilayered pilgrimage sites.

St. Mary the Virgin (1190) 

Medieval floor tiles

When King Henry VIII ordered the Dissolution of the Abbeys and Catholic pilgrimage ritual in 1530s, the banishment of the sacred walk or sojourn was very hard for worshippers to let go of. Pilgrims protested in York by participating in the Pilgrimage of Grace, a mass defiance against Henry's order. Other regions revolted as well, including the mass demonstration of the Lincolnshire Rising. The king's response came hard and heavy. Pilgrims, priests, nuns, bishops, and monks were murdered during violent suppressions.  For a country as pedestrian as England, the banning of pilgrimage and the dissolution of the abbeys was a very bitter chapter of Britain's walking history. 

Interior of St. Mary the Virgin

Celtic crosses of St. Mary the Virgin churchyard

Since 2017 the Church of England has lifted restrictions on Christian pilgrimage and with it has come a flood of interest in recovering lost routes and restoring ancient sites. The British Pilgrimage Trust is one major organization leading this rival through historical research, support for route-reopening, and marketing of pilgrim services along the many paths that have been re-created or restored.. Their landmark book Britain's Pilgrim Places by Nick Mayhew-Smith and Guy Howard (2020) is jammed-packed with routes to choose from and places to visit and, at over 500 pages of site descriptions, maps, and 2000 years of history, it would take a lifetime to walk just what is featured here. (The St. James Way is featured on pg. 16) The Church of England, too, is encouraging the return of pilgrimage as devotional walking and remembrance travel. Revived interest in ancient histories and walking traditions has brought new interest to old sites like Hadrian's Wall (Roman) and those featured by English Heritage. 

Pilgrim's Tea at Candover Valley Community Store

A community's labor of love 

I love this history of revival and I love the landscapes that are being revived because of it. By Day 4 we had passed through so many nature reserves and conservation areas that are accessible by footpath. Folks we met enjoying their daily walks (mostly with dogs), birding, or riding, were excited to share with us news of a fish species returning, the restoration of bird species like the Red Kite or Crane, or their latest sightings of the Water Vole ( the top favorite). To walk from village to village, across a city, or cross-country on this restored route, immersed us in both the human and natural history and gave us ample opportunity to meet people and talk about what we were seeing and the changes they were experiencing on the land. The good folks at the Candover Valley Community Store chatted us up for some time! We not only received a pilgrim stamp which they were so excited to provide for us, but they served us a proper tea for our mid-day rest. 

We visited three churches along the Way of St. James on Day 4 - all of them special in their own unique way and history. The "old" St. Mary the Virgin was a tiny but ancient church built by Saxons originally. It was changed over time to include - then lose - its bell tower (bellcote) and long transepts so that now it is just a little hut of a chancel. We spent a good while in this old place, trying to decipher the wall paintings and architectural features important to Saxon stone masons. We next visited the "new" St. Mary the Virgin almost across the road in Preston Candover with its 19th century modern atmosphere - a soaring and colorful vault ceiling stenciled with floral designs. Our last church visit, the Church of St. James, was also a delight and we spent a lot of time here admiring the woven wheat corn dollies, a delightful connection to Celtic pagan traditions for end-of-harvest season. 

Cross harvested wheat fields

Down beautiful Beech-lined lanes

Church of St. James

The flower arrangements here were astounding

I have to admit that this day introduced to me a new hobby for when visiting England - to search for stone-scratched sundials on very old churches. We found three today and of course I took way too many pictures of them. Dating to to Anglo-Saxon times, these sundials were incised into the priest's door of Saxon churches. They served to tell the priest when mass times were by inserting a wheat straw into the center hole - the "hand" of the sundial - to cast a shadow on the prescribed lines of hours of mass. It became an obsession to go look for them. When I saw a large collection of them at the British Museum later on the following week (which I found in a book on Anglo-Saxon sundials) it was good to know I wasn't the only one who couldn't get enough of them. I did not buy the book. It was heavy. The author took way more pictures than I did. 

Pew-end wheat corn dollies were amazingly intricate

Pagan and Christian together

Sundials for mass times

Somehow we missed a turn and wound up walking a few extra miles until we strolled into New Alresford, a charming market town in the dark (!!) lit by streetlamps and the warm lights of interior rooms of shops and pubs. Though our official route map stated that the day would end in town at 11.5 miles, we noted that it was probably because of our good mood on this sun-splashed day that we didn't even notice we'd walk a few extra steps - errmmm - miles.  Anyway, our room at The Swan Inn in Alresford was a delight and the dinner so delicious. 

Notes:

The British Pilgrimage Trust works to re-establish pilgrimage routes and provide modern pilgrims with resources on lodgings and accommodations, places to eat, etc. while promoting local and cross-country pilgrimage as making good economic sense (as it was in the past!) for local villages and towns. This organization combines both pedestrian travel, bridleways, and biking networks in their routes

The ancient Celtic tradition of weaving wheat corn dollies was alive and well at the church of St. James! All of the corn dollies (corn being another term for grain) were so beautiful!  https://motherhylde.com/the-corn-dolly-origins-and-how-to/ and Eleanor Pritchard's wonderful https://www.eleanorpritchard.com/journal/2020/7/21/a10on8zvkgzvoavwsfwlw70bjz8ojt 

See also this Artistic Horizons blog piece on the incredible wheat straw weaver Fred Mizen (1893 - 1961) https://httpartistichorizons.org/2021/04/28/fred-mizen-1993-1961/

We came across several ancient churches under the care of The Churches Conservation Trust - my hands down favorite being Old St. Mary the Virgin in Preston Candover on Day 4. 

UK Camino Ingles: Day 3 - The English Way, 11.5 miles

With a long day ahead, Molly and I left our cozy Chapel B&B in Little London early in the morning in the mist, drizzle, breeze, and rain to continue our journey on the Camino Ingles. It was fun to look for all the medallions and yellow arrows placed along the way and they were much needed as our path intersected with many public footpaths, bridle paths, and trails that wayfinding was a challenge. All in all, however, the day was a fine one especially with an afternoon of sun to take in the views and the warmth.

 

Onward - in the rain

Benedictine Priory at Pamber

Our historic church stop for this section was a visit to the Benedictine Priory Church in Pamber, Monk Sherborne, which unfortunately was not open. Instead its imposing Norman exterior kept us gawking through the raindrops for a good while. Built around 1100, this heavy block of Norman stonework includes the tower, chancel, and turret stairs and is all that remains from the fortified "alien" French-speaking cell of the Abbey of St. Vigor in Normandy. Strategically located between the former capital of England in Winchester and the military headquarters in Windsor, this great priory was endowed by Henry du Port and his son, Henry I. The prior hosted many royal families and bishops who traveled between the ports onward to Winchester and Windsor. It survived the great suppression of alien houses in 1414, but suffered steady decline mostly due to lack of house sponsors, bad regional economics, and mismanagement of its farm estates. The Dissolution of the Abbeys did it in for good, sending the monks away back to France and dismantling the stone buildings for repurposing elsewhere. Local parishes kept some form of worship running here through the 1600s with community tithing for a single priest. 

From Grant (2000) "The Alien Benedictine Priory of Monk Sherbourne" (See Notes)

The rain weakened into a pattering drizzle and a brisk breeze began to blow in, pushing the shelf of clouds that had been hanging over us for three days to the east. Little patches of blue sky began to show as a break between storms appeared. We continued on, following the blue and yellow medallions across the countryside, through a farm, and on to a golf course where we were entertained by numerous groups of men braving the weather for rounds of golf. We sat huddled on a friendship bench above the ninth hole and were greeted by smiling golfers as they teased and laughed with their mates for our entertainment. We swallowed some Ibuprofen and snacked a little but soon were cold again so time to keep moving.  

Follow the scallop shell

Holloway 

Keeping to the farm road instead

Familiar yellow arrow in the roughest rough

Snack break, Vitamin I, and entertainment

This morning's walk was one to endure rather than completely enjoy that is until we came upon a kebab van/ food truck along a busy highway. Then, with hot food in our tums and warm tea (for Molly) and a Diet Coke (for me) we were energized for the afternoon. As we maneuvered carefully along muddy field edges the sun began to shine and our moods were lifted! Hello, sun! 

Kebab van and a lovely hot meal on the curb

Our first hour of sun!

Sun dappled holloway

In bright sun we passed near the town of Basingstoke and across the bridge over the railroad where we got an engineer of a double diesel shunter to give us a two-toned horn as he passed beneath us. We dedicated our first trainspotting and tone salute to our favorite trainspotter Francis Bourgeois (of social media fame) and shouted out "Brilliant!" in his honor. 

Through lovely Basingstoke

Trainspotting and a tone!

Before long we had passed along the edge of town and out into a residential suburb of Basingstoke that featured our longest trail section of the day for several miles on a restored Roman road. It now serves as a hike and bike path and was busy with walkers taking advantage of the sun. Like all Roman roads, it was straight as an arrow and knifed alongside the busy town until we reached the charming little thatched roof village of Dummer. Here we had to wait for our ride to take us across a crazy busy section of highway and busy (dangerous) backroads to our lodging for the night at the Wheatsheaf Inn. Thanks to Jane and Peter of Walking Holiday (see Notes) who shuttled us when we needed rides to distant lodging and transferred our luggage (not our backpacks) between stays. Their help on this trip was invaluable. 

The Roman Road

End point for the day to wait for ...

...Jane and the company new ride!

This is my opportunity to give the new Camino Ingles guide and transfer company Walking Holiday a huge shout out. Our trip was planned and supported by Peter and Jane, two of the local folks whose knowledge of the Camino Ingles was of such great help to us. I normally do not use guide and transfer services when I hike preferring instead to do my own trip planning while I try to live out of a single backpack, but for this trip we decided with our lack of knowledge about this new route and having to take extra clothing, boots, raingear, and warm clothes to cover two seasons along with the route's current lack of on-trail lodging options, we'd better consult with Peter. Best decision! Thank you Peter and Jane for the support and excellent service. Highly recommend. 

Fish and chips at the Wheatsheaf Inn was heavenly (Molly had lamb pie)

Notes:

Moira Grant (2000) "The Alien Benedictine Priory at Monk Sherbourne, Hampshire from the Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries." Hampshire Field Club Archaeology #55. 

https://www.hantsfieldclub.org.uk/publications/hampshirestudies/digital/2000s/vol55/Grant.pdf

This BBC article brought so much attention to the newly re-established Camino Ingles in southern England that everyone we talked to referred to it, especially Peter and Jane and the guys at The Plough Inn who worked with the author, Jessica Vincent, to provide background on the many villages and landscapes it traverses, its churches, and hopes for a boost to local economies. 

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230611-st-james-way-the-return-of-the-uks-medieval-highway

Here's to Francis the Trainspotter and our first horn tone - brilliant! We had fun watching his videos snug in our beds at night, learned a lot about Britain's love of trains, and how to wave appreciatively for a happy honk.

PA Horse Shoe Trail: Brecknock Loop, 5 miles

Half of today's hike followed the Horse Shoe Trail from the Adamstown, PA, public park and ride lot to follow the yellow blazes southeast towards the Berks and Lancaster County line then looping back on paved backroads for a total of five miles.  It felt good to stretch those muscles again after a week of not hiking ten or more miles a day as we did in the UK. 

Trail Post, Rt 568

West view towards Adamstown Ridge

I've said it plenty enough already, but I'm not in love with the Horse Shoe Trail. It's important enough to me, however, to want to hike sections of it when I can and work towards its completion with the AT - a hiking project that I started after completing the Camino de Santiago in 2016. Autumn colors and a confetti parade of leaves drifting non-stop across the trail (and road) made today's hike a pretty one. There was enough sedimentary stone visible above the fresh layer of leaves to tell me that I'd been hiking on an ancient river delta with all the aggregate small gravels and sand cobble. Dressed and finished as faced building stone this stone is reddish in color but in nature it weathers out as grey green.  

Time for some more road walking

Weathered aggregate red stone

Very low water level 

With deer season upon us there were lots of stands, blinds, and ladders to spot and I hope I was visible as well, dressed in my hunters orange sweat jacket and KTA orange ball cap. I stopped frequently to admire the layers of color from patchy blue sky to the yellows, orange, and reds of a Mid-Atlantic woods in October. Even on the road walk sections that completed my loop I stopped to watch the leaves cascade in blankets across the pavement and listen to the wind in the treetops. There was blessed little traffic today on those shoulderless backroads which is often not the case with the road sections on my HST loops. 

Peak color

Ammo box trail register

Recent hikers

I stopped to check a trail register and read the comments left by hikers. Kind folks left thank-you's to the trail maintainers and private property owners across whose land permission is given to use this trail. Coming down off off the hills I found a beautiful roadcut that featured an intrusion of igneous rock which is often buried in these hills except for these cuts. The pulling apart of Pangea and its rifting of sedimentary bedrock allowed magma to squeeze up into the thinned crust near the surface where it cooled and hardened in place. There are no true volcanoes in these parts although local land legends often claim the cone-shaped knobs of hills to be extinct volcanoes. 

Hunting blinds ready for deer season

Field edge corn stalk

Field edge path 

Road cut exposure of an ultramafic intrusion 

I completed my five-mile loop at the park and ride where I'd parked my truck in Adamstown then scouted by truck the next section that carries the trail northwesterly across the Adamstown Ridge and towards the iron hills of northern Lancaster County. Till next time, HST...

UK Camino Ingles: Day 2 - The English Way 10 miles

It rained on and off throughout our second day walking on the Camino Ingles, Reading to Southampton, but with peeks of blue sky and having met so many kind people we completed this section back at the little Chapel B&B in good form. When we had showered and gotten warm, we walked the short distance up the road to the absolutely charming, old fashioned (cash only) pub, The Plough and met the best folks who cheered us on.

Start where we left off, St. Mary's Sulhamstead

Stone masons mark 

Old yew in the churchyard

We picked up where we left off at St. Mary's in Sulhamstead and did, as invited to do so the day before, visit the interior of the church and paid our respects to a family's departed dad whose funeral was planned for the afternoon. It was an honor to stand beside the flag-draped casket of a British veteran. We left a note of condolences in the guest book and thanked the family for allowing us to explore the church before the service.

The owners of The Baobob, Gavin and Rachel

Me and Molly taking a pilgrims rest at the Boabob

 

We cruised into the old Saxon town of Mortimer and paid a visit to the new-ish pilgrim's rest and shop, The Baobob. The owners were so enthusiastic to have their stamp ready for our pilgrim's passport and prepared a take-away scone for our second breakfast on the trail. They absolutely support the new pilgrimage trail and love to see it getting used more and more. "We love meeting people from all over the world and we hope it continues to build in popularity and local support!"

Follow the markers through town...

...through the heart of the community.

Crossing boundaries

A little more rain, a lot more mud

No surprise, it started raining again this time with a little wind and a cooler temps through meadows, pastures, through holloways and wooded sections. We found deer tracks everywhere and stopped a lot to watch and listen for birds. Mud caked to our boots and I stopped here and there to kick it off on a rock or fence post. Through gates and over stiles, we made our way along this old path as thousands of pilgrims must have done hundreds of years before us. 

Small species of deer - the Muntjac.

Footbridge

Holloway

More holloway action

A holloway is an old sunken road lined on both sides by old hedges where the hedges have grown over the road to form a tunnel. My cousin loved walking through these and as we walked we counted the number of plant species growing in the hedges to arrive at it's general age. Not only are these old hedges important for boundary and fence lines, but they are biologically, historically, and culturally important as well. Some hedges are dated thousands of years old and host a variety of native bees, wildflowers and flowering trees, shelter badgers and hedgehogs, and so much more. History was the theme for the day as we walked along the ancient hedgerows and into the Roman ruins of Silchester. 

Ruins of a Roman amphitheater 

Where gladiators and battle beasts entertained 7,000 people

Tower entrance 

Arena entrance for gladiators 

We visited the old Saxon-Norman church of St. Mary the Virgin situated right inside the old Roman walls of Silchester and found a stamp for our passports then sat (shivering) in the church to read about its very long history. It was really cold! We moved outside to the slightly warmer bench and ate our scones and some fruit but quickly decided we needed to keep moving to stay warm so opted to do the entire 2 kilometer walk around the outside of the Roman city walls. We even saw earthworks of the older yet Iron Age ruins of the hilltop fort over which the Romans built their city of Silchester. The winds picked up and we waked faster, but stayed warm as long as we were moving.

Saxon-Norman church of St. Mary the Virgin

Woodwork dating to the 900s above us

Huge walls! 

Flint rubble built walls scavenged for the dressed exterior stones

One of five corners to the city within that held a tower

Earthworks emerged on the western flank of the exterior wall

As we completed our walk around the Roman city ruins, the rains returned and we pulled our hoods and beanies close down over our heads. Some road walking a few miles brought us to an old coppiced woodlands managed sustainably by woodworkers for hundreds of years. Coppicing for stave and pole production, pollarding for limb beams, shoots for wicker and hurdles (woven walls), and waddle and daub building were all made possible by the careful attention woodworkers gave to a stand of trees that could supply a community with wood and natural materials for generations. 

Coppiced tree

Coppice mound and trench

Walking beside a stave-supported hedge repair (right)

Water burbled through the woods in trench-cut streams leaving straight, long mounds of coppiced trees growing between. The woodworkers are still at work here as we followed the path along a section repair for an old hedge made with newly cut staves. These support water shoots and sapling trees freshly planted to fill in gaps and openings in the older hedge. I remembered my Uncle Russ and his work in hedge building and repair back in West Virginia, a very old tradition of fencing and boundary-making brought with English immigrants to the Appalachians. I still have his old billhook and draw knife he gave me years ago, though I now work with a newer billhook when laying down younger trees along my own fence lines. Its a wonderful way to work with live wood and so thankful I learned from him so many years ago. What I would give to see his big tough hands wrapped around that old caulked Hickory handle one more time.

Anglo-Saxon/Norman St. James in Bramley

Medieval wall paintings and iconostasis

St Thomas Beckett slain by knights of Henry II

Saxon barrel ceiling

Light was beginning to fade as we walked into Bramley and visited the well-lit St. James church where we picked up another stamp and lingered about to admire the fantastic Medieval wall paintings so well preserved all around. More kind folks to talk to and a great conversation with another group of pilgrims who were local and doing the whole walk as day hikes, one hike per week. This was a very beautiful church and I wished we'd had more time to stay but our B&B was still a few miles away and it was getting dark. Did I mention it was raining?

Back to our warm and dry Chapel B&B

Absolutely my favorite pub visit of the entire walk

Mike and Jim - a very small world, indeed

Through the cemetery and four soggy pastures and we arrived in the tiny village of Little London and walked right in to our delightful Chapel B&B for our second night's stay. After a shower and clean, warm clothes, we decided to walk up the road to The Plough pub for a beer. We were absolutely in love with this old place and stayed probably longer than we should have but the conversation beside the woodstove kept us in place for a while. We received a huge stamp (the biggest stamp on the Camino Ingles) from the pub onwer, Mr. Brown, who was so happy to have pilgrims walk in the door.  Families and friends were gathered in each of the cozy rooms chattering away while the cash-only pints and half-pints of ales, bitters, and ciders were served over the counter. We even found a connection to home as Mike's brother plays organ for our local St. John's church and lives in Glen Arm, MD, only thirty minutes from where I live in Delta, PA. Small world! 

The Plough still stands and serves customers after 300 years

Cash only and old fashioned service on tap

We completed ten wet and muddy miles on the Camino Ingles this day but were kept warm and cheerful with all the wonderful conversations with folks we met along the way. But honestly, our visit to The Plough won the day and if you decide to walk this path someday you will be forever sorry not to have stopped for a refreshing beverage and woodfire chat. Dogs and families welcomed. Sorry, but they have no social media presence and rely on word-of-mouth beyond the small village of Little London to draw in new visitors. 

Notes:

Silchester Roman City https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/silchester-roman-city-walls-and-amphitheatre/history/

St. Mary the Virgin, Silchester https://www.silchesterchurch.co.uk/

National Church Trust, St. James, Bramley https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/church/st-james-bramley