The Irishwoman who went up a hill…and nearly got stuck

Hatterall Hill. We were on that bit where it goes all vertical and dangerous, the bit where no sane person would venture.

We’ve had another lovely, long weekend in Wales, which included a climb up Hatterall Hill (aka THE HILL OF DOOM!). After walking for some miles, the last one being almost entirely uphill, we were very nearly at the ridge. We were promised spectacular views of England on one side of the hill, and the dark, glowering Black mountains of Wales on the other. So when we finally got there (after a particularly exhausting and completely pointless detour which is where everything started to go wrong), I noticed that Wales and England had swapped places. I suggested this to MrCat, but he wasn’t having it, despite all argument to the contrary.

“No, really. England is in the wrong place. It should be on the right, not the left”.

“I don’t think so”.

“No. No really. Look – that is a patchwork of gentle, green fields. That is your stereotypical English landscape. See those whopping great mountains over there, the BLACK ones? That’s definitely Wales. That is not, most definitely NOT, Hereford or Worcester. Actually, I don’t even think this is the ridge path”.

(pause)

“Let’s carry on, shall we?”

So we carried on. And by now it was 5pm, and we’d been walking for hours. And all of a sudden, we were on the edge of what appeared to be a precipice, with no path, no shelter, and no clue where we were. The wind was so strong it was impossible to breathe. I insisted we go back, MrCat used logic and said all would be well. But it would have meant walking along this tiny little path, clinging on to the side of the hill, as the sun sank lower and lower, with no idea whether it would meet the main path again or not. And if it didn’t, and it was dark by then, it would have been horrible. So I got panicky (MrCat later said he was quite impressed, as my panic translated into walking very fast, and very vigorously, at speed away from the edge of the hill). I wasn’t walking. I was stomping.

Shangri-la at the end of a long walk

Half an hour later we were back on the wrong path we’d been on before, but at least it was sheltered. In MrCat’s rucksack we had all we needed to survive a night in the open.

1. A bottle of water
2. A big bag of satsumas
3. A box of fondant fancies which, as every fule no, is vital for outdoor survival.

Five mintues after this, we finally found the Offa’s Dyke ridge path. It was about 2 metres away from where MrCat had decided to take his random, and ill advised, detour through the gorse.

I didn’t say anything. I just gave him “the look”.

The path down Hatterall Hill drops into the grounds of Llanthony Priory, another one of those beautiful monastic ruins so beloved of your blog host. As luck would have it, part of the cellar of the priory has been converted into a teeny little bar, where cold beer can be acquired by shell shocked walkers. It would have been rude not to buy some. It’s what the monks would have wanted.

Llanthony Priory – you can see the entrance to the teeny bar just on the left

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This week I have been mostly making an enormo-alligator from a 1970’s pattern book, and reading Seance.

A Nightingale Sang in East Wellow

Last weekend, the large cat suggested a walk around East Wellow because "it's where Florence Nightingale is buried". This is a man who shows scant interest in history, so I was shocked by this sudden conversion to the finest of academic pursuits. Sadly, my delight was short lived. This "Florence Fact" had come to his attention because Miss Nightingale, as well as being a nurse, was also a statistician. This was a complete revelation. I had no idea that she was numerically famous although I did know a reasonable amount about the Crimean war (and obviously, everyone has heard of Cardigan, Raglan and Balaclava, the latter being a particularly nasty form of torture inflicted on children during cold spells in the 70's). But he, being a mathematical sort of person, did. Who says maths and history don't go?!

King Alfred woz ere

Anyway, we set off, having not really had a decent walk for a few weeks, only to be met by a steadily increasing drizzle. It was just about tolerable in the churchyard of St Margaret of Antioch, where Florence is buried. I only found out this evening that the founding of this church goes back to the time of King Alfred and that the building itself contains a rather splendid medieval wall painting. So perhaps we shall be going back to have a closer peek.



Having taken a photo of the grave, which does rather stand out from the rest of the burial plots, the drizzle began to turn nasty, and on following the waymark for the beginning of our walk, we were confronted by this...

"You shall not pass!"

Well, I wasn't prepared to walk through that little lot. Having survived the infamous "Pea Field Fiasco" just outside Petersfield last year, I wasn't willing to risk a reprise with an even more menacing crop. Navigating Fangorn would have been preferable. So we returned to the car. And to be fair, it was absolutely chucking it down by then.

East Wellow is pretty and the church, even in the drizzle, looked interesting. With more time I think it would be worth exploring further. The roads are very narrow, though, so if you fancy visiting the Lady of the Lamp in her final resting place and having a walk afterwards, you may as well leave your car at the church as there's nowhere else you can safely park unless you have a motorbike or a very thin vehicle.

And a walk...

around Wensleydale, since you ask. Rather beautiful too, the high point being the diversion to the ruins of Jervaulx Abbey.

part of the ruins of Jervaulx

The "of history" part of this particular horse is the 16th Century bombshell known as the Henrician Reformation. This, of course, covers the dissolution of monasteries such as Jervaulx and Fountains, which we also visited.

view over the grounds - the sheep on the left is a spy from Lancashire

Fountains was beautiful, if a bit busy for my tastes, but Jervaulx was nothing if not tranquil. You pay if you want to, the leaflets and guides are left in a wooden porch with an honesty box, and then it's just you, some sheep and a fabulous ruin....

Jervaulx Wall

... and a tumbling riot of wildflowers, including white achillea (Yarrow), which I rarely see growing wild in Hampshire.

No doubt the monks would have used achillea for medicinal purposes as it was a common ingredient in dayes of yore, and judging by the amount of the stuff growing on the roadsides near the abbey it would have been a fortuitous place to incur a paper cut. Or scroll cut or whatever the medieval equivalent might be.

The walk continued on from the Abbey, with another diversion in the direction of the tea shop (nice Tunisian Orange cake slices, by the way), and away up into the Wensleydale countryside.

Pretty much this very walk, in fact. Or one which resembled it very closely. And one which I would recommend most heartily.