Wednesday 5 June 2013

SUPER BEWL

Sussex Border Path Leg 9

I've just sat down to post this note of our walk last week, only to find that I never posted any details of leg 8.  Ah well, perhaps I'll post those later.

We were very surprised, as we set out on this leg, to discover that the footpath actually passed through somebody's garden.  We've walked up people's drives before, and climbed apparently private fences, but this was a first.

But we were soon on a more recognisable footpath, running through an ancient hollow way.
  
Last month the bluebells hadn't begun to flower; now they had almost passed over.  But wait . . . what is that in amongst the bluebells?

Out of the woods, we were again on a country lane, although we had to wait awhile before progressing . . .

Here we came across a stubborn old mule.  And a silly ass.

Arriving in Woods Green, we had to sit and admire the view.  Nice village (but no pub!).

Ah, here's the pub - the Old Vine at Coulsey Wood, where Jeff didn't eat ham, egg and chips, which makes grading this pub rather tricky.  But I can say that it serves some unusual dishes, delicious and plentiful food, and some change for your pocket - maybe a 9 on the so-called hameggnchips scale.


But we had to move on.  Shortly, we encountered one of the signs of the times - an oast house with a vineyard.

 

More unusually, for these walks, we also started to see one or two fellow walkers.


This is the edge of Bewl Water, a reservoir built in the early 70s by damming a valley on the River Bewl, and now a major recreation spot.  The woods sound more like a firm of solicitors though. 


The reservoir is said to straddle the border between Kent and Sussex (which is what we are walking), but, curiously, I've yet to find a map which shows any part of the body of water in Kent.  Anyway, as we followed the path round the water, we began to come across more and more people out enjoying the area and, at last, the summer weather.


Until we reached the yacht club, which was swarming with people.


This is the view back across the body of water, as we turned off the perimeter path and left the crowds behind.


Arriving in time at the bus stop in Flimwell.


9 comments:

  1. A rather pleasant leg of the walk. In the second shot you appear to be walking through a 'ghost' woods!! I've looked at the larger photo of the bluebells, but still having trouble identifying what it is. Could it be a stag? Still trying to work out which one the 'stubborn old mule' is.....and which one the 'silly ass' is!! What kind if unusual dishes did the pub serve?

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    1. It was a tree trunk fashioned into a stag shape, Mitch. I was quite shocked when I first caught sight of it. The pub serves less common things like home-made steak and kidney pudding and spare ribs in gravy, but also had home-made fish cakes in some sort of fishy sauce (might have been smoked mackerel and prawn). There was also an Asian dish (can't remember what now), but anyway not just fish and chips or packaged pie.

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  2. Thanks for the report Neil. Despite have spent the first 20 years of my life only 20 miles up the road from Bewl Bridge I've never actually been there... so it was nice to see what I have missed out on

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    1. Just to rub it in, Ian, this was just a glimpse.

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  3. Keep walking and posting , I love to follow you .

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  4. We had a very nice walk. A bit muddy in places but I only fell over once.

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  5. I've walked through a few gardens in my time. Down in Shirley [a lovely village south of Ashbourne] the path runs across a lawn between the roses beds. Some friends said we can't walk across there but what they'd forgotten was that the path had been there before the house was built and the owner had subsequently plonked the lawn across the old path.

    I think I probably preferred Leg 8 to this Leg. What did you think Neil ?

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    1. Yes, as a walk, I preferred it too, Charlie. But it's always nice to look out over water (must be the southerner in me).

      Incidentally, I was looking around the Grayshott valley today and was told that the footpath was now closed because no one had walked the bit across someone's lawn for 2 years so it had 'reverted' to private ownership. I'd never heard of that before, but of course the lady who told me was also reminiscing about the pre-war years, so it might have happened a while ago. Anyway I didn't feel like climbing the fence just to test its validity.

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