Paul, Chris, Sarah and I stayed overnight at the excellent Ivy pub in Wragby. Overnight rain dried up quickly by 9 am, Paul and I explored Wragby and visited the local Georgian church. We met the wonderfully friendly vicar, Mark, who looks after six churches! A very busy man.
After a hearty breakfast at The Ivy, we drove back to the delightful village of Tealby to commence our walk. More Wolds ups and downs were encountered plus thick beds of nettles. Very pleasant walking ending in Ludford at a garden centre which appeared closed and neglected but was in fact still open (just about). Nothing available in the advertised farm shop though.
RAF Ludford was the wartime base for Lancaster Bombers and there is a memorial to the 700 plus airmen who never returned, on the Main Street. There is also a memorial on the outside wall of the only remaining pub, the White Hart, where we had a last drink on this section of the Viking Way.
I have really enjoyed it so far, both the walking and the company; only succumbed to two blisters which are not at all painful!
Sunday 25 September 2016
Who said Lincolnshire was flat?
My sister has a "useful" app on her phone which tells us how many steps we have walked and (allegedly) how many miles we have walked. The latter is slightly suspect as the mileages are significantly at odds with the published mileages for the Viking Way. If the phone is accurate (and who am I to argue with Apple technology) the official guide consistently underestimates the distance walked. On Thursday the official distance was 14 miles; the phone said 17. On Friday, the distance was 8 miles and the phone said nearer 10. Yesterday the distance was 9 and the phone said about 10.5. We shall see if today's 10.5 miles turns out to be 13.
Another function of this app is to measure height climbed. Unhelpfully it does so in "floors", not a unit of measurement with which any of us are familiar and my sister does not know what a "floor" is. We do know that the ascent of Skiddaw is 191 floors.
On Thursday we only climbed 2 floors, and on Friday only 4. Yesterday we ascended forty-odd floors. This was not a complete surprise, as yesterday's route took us past the highest point in Lincolnshire, the 550 foot high Normanby Top. Such elevation in a flat county gave us stupendous views across to Lincoln Cathedral, twenty miles away. To earn this we had climbed up the Nettleton Valley, and we continued through the sort of up and down country familiar to anyone who has walked the Yorkshire Wolds Way.
Our route did not lack entertainment: after two days of meeting only the occasional dog walker, we had plenty of company - a troop of scouts; several groups of Duke of Edinburgh award teenagers, easily recognised by their map cases, tents and overstuffed rucksacks; and a solitary walker, dressed for December rather than September, whose hobby appeared to be taking pictures of himself. We encountered, for the first time, a herd of Lincolnshire Longwood sheep, an endearingly furry looking variety, on a farm near Risby.
Just after the sheep we met a friendly Hereford bull, standing motionless as a variety of walkers passed by. A party just ahead of us, alarmed by the appearance of this creature, decided to deviate off the path to keep their distance. This was a mistake, as the route they chose led into an unexpected bog. I didn't expect, in rural Lincolnshire, to see anyone repeat my brother-in-law's Pennine Way trick of disappearing thigh deep into mud, but I was wrong.
Another function of this app is to measure height climbed. Unhelpfully it does so in "floors", not a unit of measurement with which any of us are familiar and my sister does not know what a "floor" is. We do know that the ascent of Skiddaw is 191 floors.
On Thursday we only climbed 2 floors, and on Friday only 4. Yesterday we ascended forty-odd floors. This was not a complete surprise, as yesterday's route took us past the highest point in Lincolnshire, the 550 foot high Normanby Top. Such elevation in a flat county gave us stupendous views across to Lincoln Cathedral, twenty miles away. To earn this we had climbed up the Nettleton Valley, and we continued through the sort of up and down country familiar to anyone who has walked the Yorkshire Wolds Way.
Our route did not lack entertainment: after two days of meeting only the occasional dog walker, we had plenty of company - a troop of scouts; several groups of Duke of Edinburgh award teenagers, easily recognised by their map cases, tents and overstuffed rucksacks; and a solitary walker, dressed for December rather than September, whose hobby appeared to be taking pictures of himself. We encountered, for the first time, a herd of Lincolnshire Longwood sheep, an endearingly furry looking variety, on a farm near Risby.
Just after the sheep we met a friendly Hereford bull, standing motionless as a variety of walkers passed by. A party just ahead of us, alarmed by the appearance of this creature, decided to deviate off the path to keep their distance. This was a mistake, as the route they chose led into an unexpected bog. I didn't expect, in rural Lincolnshire, to see anyone repeat my brother-in-law's Pennine Way trick of disappearing thigh deep into mud, but I was wrong.
Friday 23 September 2016
Nettled
As we walked today from Barnetby to Caistor, we encountered little sign of the Vikings, save in the endings of place names: Searby;Clixby, Ownby; Grasby. This should have been a day of churches: the Way passes 5 which are worth a visit. Unfortunately we were frustrated to find four of those five locked. In Barnetby we visited the main church of St Barnabas. This is a modern (1920s) brick built church but was reputed to have a medieval lead font. The church was locked but a nice lady who was doing a class in the adjacent church hall let us in. She correctly informed us that the lead font had been taken away to a museum, in London, she thought. (A reading of the church guide suggests that it is actually in Barton on Humber, where we were yesterday.) She could not assist us in getting into the much older church of St Mary's at the other end of the village: this is looked after by the Churches Conservation Trust and the local man who held the key had just died - his funeral was last week. Phone calls were made but the current whereabouts of the key remained unclear. So as we left Barnetby we were able to look at the outside of St Mary's, very secluded, up a track, with a large graveyard, but we could not go inside this Domesday church.
At Bigby there is church with a huge tomb to Sir Robert Tyrwhitt and his wife, with all 22 of their children carved around the base, together with a rood beam carved in Oberammergau, but we saw neither of them as the church was locked and the nearby keyholder out. At Searby the church was locked with no hint of the whereabouts of a keyholder. At Grasby there were people outside the church, waiting for someone with a key to let in a group of schoolchildren, but the need to reach our destination prevented us from waiting.
We finally succeeded in getting into a church at Clixby. This was a CCF church, with an open sign in the churchyard. (A passing cyclist had assured us that we would find it open, because Marjorie who lives opposite always opens it when the weather is fine.) Only the chancel of this 13th century church survives. The interior is unspectacular but pleasing: the usual sedilla and piscina. There is an impressive octagonal 15th century carved font, brought from another church at Low Toynton.
The locked churches all usually share a vicar, and a parish newsletter pinned in the porch at Bigby referred to a longstanding vacancy for this position. There was a plaintive reference to a locum vicar possibly becoming available in a nearby parish. The sea of faith is ebbing from the shores of Lincolnshire.
Curiosity of the day was the Somersby monument, an elegant carved pillar erected in 1770 to celebrate 29 years of conjugal happiness by Edward and Ann Weston of Somberby Hall. We could not find out the significance of 29 years: they were both still alive when the pillar was put up.
The sections of the Way which run near villages, seem fairly well walked, perhaps by local dog walkers, but much of the route is only lightly used. At this time of year this results in an overgrowth of nettles. If the Vikings came this way in September, I hope they did not make my mistake of wearin shorts.
At Bigby there is church with a huge tomb to Sir Robert Tyrwhitt and his wife, with all 22 of their children carved around the base, together with a rood beam carved in Oberammergau, but we saw neither of them as the church was locked and the nearby keyholder out. At Searby the church was locked with no hint of the whereabouts of a keyholder. At Grasby there were people outside the church, waiting for someone with a key to let in a group of schoolchildren, but the need to reach our destination prevented us from waiting.
We finally succeeded in getting into a church at Clixby. This was a CCF church, with an open sign in the churchyard. (A passing cyclist had assured us that we would find it open, because Marjorie who lives opposite always opens it when the weather is fine.) Only the chancel of this 13th century church survives. The interior is unspectacular but pleasing: the usual sedilla and piscina. There is an impressive octagonal 15th century carved font, brought from another church at Low Toynton.
The locked churches all usually share a vicar, and a parish newsletter pinned in the porch at Bigby referred to a longstanding vacancy for this position. There was a plaintive reference to a locum vicar possibly becoming available in a nearby parish. The sea of faith is ebbing from the shores of Lincolnshire.
The sections of the Way which run near villages, seem fairly well walked, perhaps by local dog walkers, but much of the route is only lightly used. At this time of year this results in an overgrowth of nettles. If the Vikings came this way in September, I hope they did not make my mistake of wearin shorts.
Thursday 22 September 2016
Beet it!
Day 1 of the Viking Way is about the longest of the whole trip, 14 miles from Barton on Humber to Barnetby. That said, it is flat, easy walking for the most part, and today we were blessed with almost perfect weather: mild sunshine & a light breeze.
In the morning we positively skipped along, from Barton, past South Ferriby, and onto what the walk directions described rather over-enthusiastically as the high plateau of the Wolds. Images of something out of a Western were soon replaced by the reality of several large fields of stubble, slightly higher than the surrounding countryside.
This being Lincolnshire, we had to take our pleasures in the unspectacular. There was plenty of interest: a vast flock of Canada geese lifting off from a field and landing on the shoreline of the Humber; the conveyor linking the chalk quarry at Middlegate with the cement works which it serves; the rapidly changing colour of the Humber as this morning's cloud & mist cleared away.
After lunch our pace slowed, and even my ability to be entertained by the landscape began to flag when we spent an hour walking through a series of vast fields of beets. Concealed under this intensive agriculture were the remains of an airfield, Elsham, used by the Royal Flying Corps during WW1 and Bomber Command in WW2, but there was nothing visible.
Again there were small sights to enjoy: hundreds of seagulls descending on the worms turned up by a ploughing tractor; a small orchard with crab apple trees laden with fruit; and finally the Whistle and Flute in Barnetby, the only surviving pub in the town & a very welcome sight after 6 hours of walking.
In the morning we positively skipped along, from Barton, past South Ferriby, and onto what the walk directions described rather over-enthusiastically as the high plateau of the Wolds. Images of something out of a Western were soon replaced by the reality of several large fields of stubble, slightly higher than the surrounding countryside.
This being Lincolnshire, we had to take our pleasures in the unspectacular. There was plenty of interest: a vast flock of Canada geese lifting off from a field and landing on the shoreline of the Humber; the conveyor linking the chalk quarry at Middlegate with the cement works which it serves; the rapidly changing colour of the Humber as this morning's cloud & mist cleared away.
After lunch our pace slowed, and even my ability to be entertained by the landscape began to flag when we spent an hour walking through a series of vast fields of beets. Concealed under this intensive agriculture were the remains of an airfield, Elsham, used by the Royal Flying Corps during WW1 and Bomber Command in WW2, but there was nothing visible.
Again there were small sights to enjoy: hundreds of seagulls descending on the worms turned up by a ploughing tractor; a small orchard with crab apple trees laden with fruit; and finally the Whistle and Flute in Barnetby, the only surviving pub in the town & a very welcome sight after 6 hours of walking.
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