Fungus Foray in the Quantocks

The quest for the elusive Amanita Muscaria continues. I know they are found on the Quantocks in Somerset so off to them we went.

Parking the car by the Blue Boar in Triscombe, we donned the wet weather gear and braved the rain to head up on to the hills. Despite  the rain it was a pleasant start to the walk. Not too cold and with no wind the rain was falling gently straight down for a change.

We had just turned off the lane on to the common land when we disturbed a few of the local  residents. They are very well camouflaged against the hill side - can you see the stag and his harem?

No fungi so far so we carried up the hillside to the old drovers track along the ridge. This is a very old track indeed - a 13th CE document calls it Alferode which conjures up visions of King Alfred riding along here ( before of after he famously burnt the cakes?).

The track meanders along the ridge with spectacular views  in all directions and at last I spotted a fungus...

and soon afterwards some more. These were fascinating, emerging from a rift in the trunk like a series of rungs on a ladder. Definitely one I will need to look up later.

Alferode was getting busier, we must be getting near the car park at the top. The track itself is now quite sunken and edged with a raised bank on which many old beeches were growing. The view down these reminiscent of the bones of a rib cage with the way the trunks split and curve inwards.

At last the Triscombe Stone  - quite small this one. Only some 2 ft or so high this is believed to date from the Bronze age and to be a marker stone on the old pathway.  Unfortunately a modern car park now adjoins it - I guess the modern version of a travellers' meeting place?

This was almost the final objective. All that remained was to climb to the highest point in the Quantocks and admire the view from Will's Neck. And a very nice view too if  rather impeded by the rain clouds. The coast was just about visible through the murk but even with binoculars the Severn Bridges were too shrouded to be seen. The back dots in the sky are ravens.


The route down was much quicker - straight down in fact. Very very steep in places and not helped in the woodland by a layer of slippery leaves on top of a layer of mud. Gave real meaning to the term "treehugger"! Still I only managed to sit down once.

As for finding Amanita? No luck at all. The search continues. 

Uffing and Puffing at Uffingham White Horse!

Yet another wet Sunday- I can see a theme developing for Summer 2011! The white horse at Uffingham has long been on my list of places to visit. This is the oldest chalk cut figure in the UK and has been dated as approximately 3000 years old. The hill below with a flat top, Dragon Hill has legendary associations with St George and is said to be where he killed the famous dragon (!).

The car park is below the horse so it is a medium  climb up the hill to get close. The horse itself is very hard to photograph. There are no spots where the whole horse can be seen so you need to take aerial shots.

That's a bit out of budget for me so follow this link to the National Trust page which has some lovely pictures as well as some details on Dragon Hill which it seems I completely neglected to photograph despite climbing down to it and the horrible long steep climb back up!

 Directly above the horse is the remains of the Uffingham Castle, a large iron age fort.

 This is the highest point in Oxfordshire and we had some fabulous views of the rain storms heading our way. At least it gave us the chance to see what was coming.







 Dodging the raindrops we walked along the Ridgeway, a chalk by way leading to Wayland's Smithy. This is a long barrow in which the  remains of 14 people were found. The burials have been carbon dated to between   3590-3550 BCE which is a very short period of time.

The barrow is actually two, a later and much larger barrow was built on top and this is what we can see today. The white horse had been busy but we had the barrow more or less to ourselves other than for a couple of people trying to track down a reported crop circle near by. I hadn't been looking out for one so wasn't able to help.

There are many legends associated with the barrow.  The name Wayland is said to derive from Wolund, a Germanic smith and metal working God.

This  name was bestowed on the site by the Saxons about a 1000 years after it was built and subsequent foklore has it that if a traveller's horse loses a shoe he should leave the horse ovrnight at the Smithy along with a silver coin. In the morning the horse will be shod and the coin gone. Whether this tale is based on a still older folk memory of rituals and offerings at the site can only be the subject of conjecture but is interesting food for thought.

It is a truly lovely setting. Although it is surrounded by farmland it is enclosed by mature trees which lend it a secluded and peaceful air. Well worth a visit.