An unexpectedly free day gave me the opportunity to revisit a location I last went to in 2020, just as the world was starting to wake to the horrors of COVID but before we entered the first lockdown. Then I dragged the Current Mrs Timlett up to Great Ridge for a quick look that turned into a 10 mile walk. This time I planned the route properly and dragged my long suffering neighbour and walking buddy Stu along for the ride. The day before we walked the weather looked pleasant so I completely ignored the forecast. It was only the night before that Stu messaged me to point out that the forecast for Thursday was terrible. Two days later Storm Darragh hit. It’s little wonder that some of my friends call me the Rain God.
I’ve been to Great Ridge a few times since 2020 but I wanted to do a different walk and explore more of the history buried deep within. I also wanted to go back to Sherrington as the last time I visited the church was locked due to COVID restrictions. So I plotted a 7 mile walk that enabled us to combine the two.
An ideal place to start and finish this route would be Sherrington. However the narrow lanes in this sleepy backwater of a village make parking all but impossible so we parked on the track that ends on Stockton Down, making Sherrington a stop along the way. The photograph below shows my car parked up in a layby off the track.
The overnight rain prior to the day of the walk made our decision to wear wellies a good one. Whilst most of the walk is on reasonably dry ground there are places where we were very glad of our decision. One in particular towards the end will become apparent.
From the parking spot we went through the field gate where two rights of way are signposted with Park Bottom sandwiched in between. One of the reasons for deciding on this walk at the last minute was to do with beer. Stu and I are both fans of Stone Daisy Brewery on the Fonthill Estate. Most of the land around here is owned by the Estate and two of their three beers are called Park Bottom and Snail-creep Hanging, both in Great Ridge Wood. A pathetic but suitable reason for this walk.
Just after the field gate there are in fact four route options, one of them being a permissive path. However we wanted to follow the public footpath through the metal gate on our left. To the left of this was the small badge you can see in the photograph on the fence post indicating the permissive path which on this occasion we chose not to follow. Since permissive paths are not shown on Ordnance Survey maps I have no idea where it goes.
The footpath leads along a pleasant combe (or bottom if you’re proper Wiltshire) between Sherrington Down and Alsetting Copse. A flock of sheep were grazing in the combe shuffling along in front of us as we ambled past. By the time we got to the end of the combe we realised we had brought the entire flock with us! In front of us was a large Fonthill Estate sign showing a map of Great Ridge and cheerfully stating that we were welcome to use the public rights of way. This slightly irritated us – we have a right to use the public rights of way. It’s not something that is in the gift of the estate. The sign proceeded to set out the Countryside Code (no bad thing as it is not publicised enough) but warned us not to set foot off the rights of way. It also quite rightly stated that dogs should be kept on the lead, although the only two people we saw out walking all day had three dogs all of them off the lead.
We passed through the field gate just after the sign and followed the path along Longdean Bottom between woodland on either side. This was a pleasant stretch as the path climbed almost imperceptibly at first up towards the ridge high above. Where it bends to the right ignore the track to the left (it is not a right of way) and keep right to follow the wide path between woodland. The woodland floor to our left was carpeted with deep red leaves, now fallen as we enter winter. The trees here must have been a stunning sight a month or so ago at the height of autumn. A lot of branches, and in places compete trees, had fallen along this part of the walk. Perhaps they were victims of Storm Bert 10 days previously. We came across a derelict cabin, although it appeared to have collapsed long before the storm.
It was curious to see Lookout Towers marked on the map. These are observation towers used for the shoot, not usually shown on Ordnance Survey maps. This gives you a clue to their permanency and to one of the two main uses of this landscape – shooting (the other being forestry). Everywhere there are signs of the shooting industry and indeed our walk was accompanied by the sound of shot guns almost all day. Heaven knows how many pheasant were killed that day. If not for this, this would be a beautifully tranquil place with no human sound at all. In fact we were privileged to hear the unmistakable call of a Goshawk from somewhere above us on Great Ridge. They can often be heard here, although rarely seen.
The track became gradually steeper as we penetrated deeper into the wood. Conversation stopped as we breathed hard. Eventually we came to the top of Longdean Bottom where it crosses the line of the Roman Road. This is the old Lead Road from Mendip to Old Sarum and beyond. The bridleway that runs north-east to south-west straight as dye through Great Ridge Wood follows the line of the Roman Road and in places the ager can still be seen. Before turning north west we took a detour a few metres south of the junction to follow a broad track, crossing the modern day forest road, to see if we could make out the enclosure shown on the map marking the western end of a Grim’s Ditch. As you head along the track to the point where the enclosure is marked it can clearly be seen in the trees to the right – a shallow ditch and bank curving away into the trees. There is little sign of it to the left of the track where the Grim’s Ditch also lies a few metres further to the east into the wood.
There are several enclosures such as this marked in Great Ridge Wood and indeed we were headed for another shortly afterwards. As you will read in a moment being a small enclosure I assumed this was likely to have been a simple animal pen consisting of a single bank and ditch. Enclosures have been used throughout history but the existence of several Iron Age hillforts and settlements along the ridge may be an indicator of their history.
The Grim’s Ditch is more puzzling. Earthworks bearing this name can be found right across England and Wales, a name coined by the Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxon word dīc was pronounced "deek" in northern England and "deetch" (dīċ) in the south. The origin of the word Grim is less clear but the Anglo-Saxons used it to name features of a mysterious or unknown origin. It may also have been the Saxon alias for the god Wōden. Some think the old English name for Wansdyke was Woden’s Dyke.
If you are interested in learning more I would recommend you follow the YouTube channel of amateur antiquarian Allotment Fox. He made a video about this part of Great Ridge and this particular Grim’s Ditch which you can see by clicking on the link below:
He proposes three alternative purposes for this ditch – 1. A communications ditch behind the front line hillforts found along the ridge looking down onto the Wylye valley – the Wylye was the boundary between the Celtic Durotriges and Belgæ tribes before the invasion of the Romans; 2. A road; 3. A boundary marker.
Great Ridge has a long history of being a ridgeway. It was a trade route long before the Romans built the Lead Road as evidenced by the number of settlements along the ridge. The wood as we see it now is all that remains here of the great Selwood forest. It later became a royal hunting forest dedicated to hunting deer which may explain why the Ox Drove later became the main transport route, diverting the road to the south away from the king’s deer.
But back to the walk. Right by the track and the enclosure is a sapling tree with a plaque marking the point where a much older tree once stood. The notorious Highwayman Jack Hag was hung from this tree after being caught in the wood where he lived. You can read the story on the plaque in the photo below. It’s said the wood is haunted by Jack’s ghost. I’ve been here on my own on a late afternoon and I can believe it!
After poking about in the trees by the track to get a better view of the enclosure, and failing to find the Grim’s Ditch, we returned to the junction where our route would take us north-west. Within a few minutes we came to the second enclosure for which we were looking. Unlike the previous one this one has an entry on the Historic England website. Information about this specific enclosure is scant but a general observation is made – “Enclosures provide evidence of land use, agricultural practices and habitation from the prehistoric period onwards. They were constructed as stock pens, as protected areas for crop growing or for settlement and their size and function may vary considerably depending on their particular function.” This enclosure is noticeably larger than the previous one so perhaps it had a different function – perhaps a small settlement?
The track passes through the enclosure and comes to a big junction of forest roads and rights of way. The Wessex Ridgeway turns to the right taking the form of a wide forest road but we carried on straight ahead through the woods. Shortly after we found an ancient and contorted tree to the left of the path on which to sit and have lunch. The shoot was obviously doing the same thing and for a while the only sound we could hear was the bark of a nearby Muntjac deer that we had seen dart across the track, an eerie sound on a dark evening I would imagine.
Suitably replenished we re-joined the track which then joins the Wessex Ridgeway from the right, the few drops of rain becoming more persistent. We followed the Wessex Ridgeway out of the forest onto open downland across Corton Down with views far to the west where we could see distant Alfred’s Tower at Stourhead through the gloom. At some large barns we joined a metalled road where we turned right.
We followed this road, along which I walked on my 2020 walk, but this time we stuck to it rather than branching right across fields towards Park Bottom as I did previously. I wanted to see two burial mounds marked on the map further along the road.
Passing a large barn on our right we could see a very prominent mound in the field to the left. This was not what I was expecting. I’d read about this bowl barrow which dates from the late Neolithic/early Bronze Age (2400-1500 BC) but I did not expect it to be so prominent. I assumed we would struggle to see it and that it would be ploughed out by now. But it is surrounded by a fence to protect it. It is known as the Boyton Field barn monument and was partially excavated by Cunnington in the 19th century when he found a cremation burial. It is very much intact and more archaeology remains to be found. On the other side of the road is an older long barrow dating to the early/mid Neolithic (3400-2400 BC). This burial mound is completely overgrown and the shape can only just be determined amongst the brambles. It has been partially excavated, presumably by Cunnington as it lies so close to the bowl barrow, but no details are known. The monument may be the `Maeden Beorge' described in a charter of AD968.
From here we continued along the road, a bridleway, for a short distance until the right of way forks left and becomes a grassy track. After a few hundred metres we came to a stile over the fence on our left. In the Wylye Valley below we could see Sherrington nestling peacefully in the landscape.
Whilst the route I had plotted took us over the stile across the field and then down a slope to the valley you have the option to continue along the bridleway which provides a more gradual descent to Sherrington. But we chose the footpath over the stile where we shortly came to another stile into Open Access land. Here the footpath descends very steeply across strip lynchets that line the slope.
This slope is hard on the knees and ankles if you’re old like us but the views along the terraces on the side of the combe make it worthwhile. As we approached the bottom of the slope we came across what remains of a bowl barrow – now just a small mound on the hillside. According to Historic England there are two here but we could only make out one.
Passing through the boggy mess at an open field gate and crossing the field we crossed the minor the road that runs along the Wylye Valley between Wilton and Warminster. Following the footpath we came to a narrow wooden bridge across a pond with bucolic views of the 17th and 18th century cottages at its edge, and a couple of swans paddling along in the rain. The name of the thatched cottage at the end of the pond in the photograph at the top of the page, Cress Cottage, gives a clue as to the earlier use of the ponds by the side of the lane.
Following the lane to the left of Cress Cottage we soon came to the Church of St Cosmas and St Damian (neither of whom I had previously heard). This was the perfect spot for lunch as it provided shelter from the now persistent heavy rain. Whilst the church dates to the 14th century it was substantially rebuilt in 1624.
Above the porch door you can make out the arms of Thomas Lambert of Boyton and the date 1624. What immediately strikes the visitor are the plastered walls with their painted Biblical inscriptions and prayers, one with the date 1630, which were uncovered and restored in 1939. I don’t know whether the Victorians were responsible for plastering them over or perhaps the puritan reformers in the 17th century (although this seems unlikely if one of the paintings is dated 1630) but either way I always wonder at what lies beneath the plaster walls in so many of our churches.
I’ve included a few photographs of both the interior and exterior of the church including the door in the north wall that always captivates me. I also made a short video. If you listen carefully you will hear the rain and my welly squeaking!
Next to the church is the Medieval motte castle and moat, and Sherrington Manor. Elaine wrote about this in a previous Hidden Wiltshire blog in 2022. You’ll find a link to it in this blog. On leaving the church we followed the lane back to the valley road at the eastern end of the village. We crossed it to join an at first indistinct footpath which passes alongside a pretty thatched cottage. However we had to keep our gaze fixed firmly to the ground as a local dog owner has thoughtfully left evidence everywhere of their daily walk along the path. I say local bearing in mind there is nowhere to park in the village so whoever it is must have walked there.
Just after the cottage by a large barn is a crossroads of rights of way. The one on the right is the bridleway that we left earlier by the stile before we descended the steeper slope to Sherrington. But we continued straight ahead here and we were soon to regret this decision. As we reached a pair of metal gates by Sherrington Dairy there was an overwhelming stench of ammonia. As we passed through the gate we found ourselves ankle deep in mud, and slurry from the farmyard flowing like a river along the footpath. As Stu and I both volunteer on a working farm with cattle we are used to the smell of slurry but this really was awful. This is where we were glad we had worn wellies.
We could have back tracked to the alternative route to our left at the aforementioned crossroads which would have led us down to the road up to Great Ridge where the car was parked. But this would have involved a lengthy detour in the now heavy rain and we were committed. So we ploughed on through the swamp. Eventually the going became easier but the footpath was littered with black plastic. This was not litter left by walkers who always seem to get the blame. This combined with the weather soured our mood somewhat but we were determined not to let this ruin our day.
Arriving back at the car we agreed that this had been an enjoyable and interesting route, Wiltshire once again delivering a great variety of downland, woodland, ancient history and views although this is a far from natural landscape. Where is these days? But drier conditions and sunnier weather would have made it even more enjoyable. Overall the walk was 11.2 kms/7.3 miles on mostly level ground with only two steep sections.
Thank you for this fascinating walk. Will look to try in drier weather though !.
Your photos are v interesting and help the imagination.
One thing I noticed, from your video of the Church - a mirror opposite the entrance. Is it unusual to have one in a Church ?
Jeremy