Chapter 5: The South Downs and Down South
I was struck by the exceptional beauty of this little patch of England, and with a number of potential bags still out there, I set my sights on returning to the South Downs the following fortnight to hoover up some more. The region did not disappoint. S1814 Coneyhurst Hill had been given a fresh coat of white paint to distinguish it from the pillar-shaped National Trust donation box that shared its hilltop location. Another one with a fabulous view, too. S1813 Froggetts Farm was playing host to a herd of deer, who were grazing in the field containing the trig, but who quickly bolted as soon as I hopped the stile into it. S6411 Flexham Park was the subject of a YouTube video mere days after my visit, describing it as a lost trig. It’s not so much lost as very well obscured from view, being in a dense coppiced wood with no paths or clearings. Another one for which GPS is generally recommended, but for which the advice “keep going up” is all I needed – I was proud of finding it remarkably quickly, unaided by gadgets. I was less proud of myself for leaving my leather “battledress” in my car at S6437 Whiphill, which is exactly the sort of location which absolutely necessitated it. A very thick hedgerow loomed out of around five metres worth of head-high nettles and brambles at the edge of a field, and guess where the pillar is. Yep, bang in the middle of the hedge. October 5th 2021 being unseasonably sunny, I had suffered a bit at my first few pillars from the extra heat that came with wearing my long coat, which I’d thought might come in useful. Ultimately, having not needed it all day, by the time I reached Whiphill I figured I was better off leaving it behind. Mistake. Nettlewhacking in a t-shirt is not recommended. I only cleared a trail a couple of metres into the vegetation – just enough to poke a hole in the hedge with my stick to reveal the side of the pillar. Not my best set of photos, all told.
S5094 Warnham and S6402 Patmans were both beside driveways to farms, and both were steadily sinking into the ground; the former was a swift roadside bag, but the latter attracted the attention of the landowner, despite being on a public right of way. It seems horses are invariably curious about trigpointers, and with the Patmans pillar being beside a fenced off paddock, I thought I’d take a couple of selfies with the long brown faces that had appeared beside me. And as I did, there was a barking from down the drive, and a lady in a green jacket approached with her dog. She asked after my presence, but as soon as I mentioned the pillar she lost all interest – it was the fact I was interacting with her four-legged friends that brought her out. It became rapidly apparent that she was a devoted horsewoman, very protective of her animals (and quite rightly so). We passed the time of day for a short while as her dog went to investigate my car, but as my own equestrian knowledge is extremely minimal, the conversation petered out very quickly. I certainly didn’t want to talk about the trig, which had had its flush bracket covered by a small patch of tarmac, presumably in reaction to previous baggers digging it out. It’s a pity the number is now rather permanently obscured, but it sends a clear and firm message, and one I had no intention of arguing with. Unasked, I deleted all photos containing horses as I left.
Thakeham Welcomes Walkers proclaimed a rustic wooden sign at the start of a long driveway by the village hall. Sadly, it appears to be a total lie, as I was informed by a resident halfway up that it was actually private land, and would I please turn back. Although I’d seen no indication that I was trespassing, I applied Rule Two and complied. This remains the only occasion to date that I have ever been denied access to a pillar by a human. I was peeved, but not too much – it was nearing the end of the day when I attempted this trig; I’d already admired the beautiful scenery at the likes of S6372 Trotton, S6408 Hesworth, and S6289 Ambersham, and I had a whopping number of pillars under my belt again. By the time the sun set, my day’s total was fourteen. A day well spent.
I wanted to stretch the boundaries of how far out I could travel in a day, so I looked at the motorways and where they led to. Exeter was just a simple trip down the M4 and M5 – a lengthy one, but one that I could cover at *ahem* 70mph nearly all the way. Could I plan a decent trigspedition around South Devon? It turned out that I could, and as it happened, it included one of my all time favourite pillars. S3907 High Peak looked impressive and intimidating and spectacular from the Trigpointing UK logs alone. It is sited at the top of a hillfort on the edge of the Jurassic Coast, a little way along from Sidmouth. The hillfort is mostly lost to coastal erosion now, but the pillar still stands, barely a metre from the unprotected cliff edge. In recent years, deforestation has cleared the side of the hill, allowing access up the side directly to the trig, on what has been named “The Steep Path”. It is very aptly named, and not only is it steep, but it is covered in loose stones, which make the ascent a little tricky. But it’s okay, because I’ve made it up Cley Hill, so I can make it up this one, too. Except, where that hill was large with a multitude of options, this one is short and has just the one direct route up the side. I looked down at my feet, and I put one in front of the other, quickly and purposefully, not allowing myself time to think. And I got to the information board near the summit, thinking this is a doddle really, and what on Earth was I worrying about? The last little stretch is a bit more treacherous, but it seems the National Trust have recognised this, and some basic wooden steps have been installed, complete with handrails, to lead right up to the top. They frame the pillar beautifully, actually, so I took my first photo from the bottom of the steps. And then at the top… well, you can kick in right here if you like, vertigo, but I’ve already made it, so sod you. I gingerly stepped up to the pillar to take my photos, treading very slowly and carefully around it, conscious that there wasn’t very much room to manoeuvre, and did I mention the unprotected cliff edge? That one right there, about a metre away, that dropped right down all the way to the sea. I felt dizzy. I sat on the top of the steps, back to the trig, to get my breath back and compose myself. And then I stood up again – still pretty warily, mind – took a deep lungful of air, and enjoyed the view. And what a view, all the way along the chalky cliffs, past Sidmouth, and straight ahead so very far out to sea. Okay, I was holding on to the pillar for dear life, but I was here. I’d walked about a mile along the coastal path from the car park to get here, and the views en route were pretty damn stunning, but from the top they were exemplary, and I felt like I had earned them.
I then proceeded to slide back down the hill on my arse. Turned out going up was the easy bit. I rested on a tree stump near the bottom before setting off back to the car. For added embarrassment, a family was about to climb up, just as I reached the path at the base of the hill. I dusted myself down and told them to enjoy the view. The kids scampered up the incline without a care in the world. Oh, to be young and invincible again.
It took me ages to find S3766 on Lympstone Common. It was a fairly large location, mostly wooded, with a maze of paths and trails that bore absolutely zero resemblance to the maps. I discovered a deep hollow full of cycle tracks; a herd of cattle mooching disinterestedly among the trees; and the edge of a quarry, marked with scary looking Keep Out notices. I was aware the pillar was beside a mast compound, but I couldn’t see the mast for the trees. I think I must have been searching for the best part of an hour before I found a wide track out of the wood to a desolate plateau which gave me a fine view of south Devon… but still no mast. I cheated, and looked up my location on my phone. Apparently, the mast was in the treeline right behind me. I turned around. Yep, not sure how I could have missed that at all. Skirting the perimeter eventually revealed the pillar, hidden in the shade of the trees beside a gorsey path. I made a great play of being lost and not sure how to get out of my location when I filmed a short video clip beside this pillar, in recognition of it being my 200th.
After the narrow country lanes and stunning coastal scenery of South Devon, my next couple of trips seemed a little drab by comparison, particularly under the cloudy November sky. I remounted my traffic-scuppered Marlborough roadtrip from the previous autumn, in the hope of a little more success. The thick, claggy mud at S2403 Hackpen Hill proved too much for my footwear, and sucked the sole right off my boot, leaving me limping for much of the day. Less idiotic people than me might have given up with this setback, particularly with an itinerary that took in the lengthy uphill walk at S2525 Tan Hill, the stony and uneven enclosure at S2415 Preshute, and the ridiculously waterlogged and muddy trails that criss-crossed S6210 Poulton Downs. My leather battledress bore the brunt of that one quite badly, and despite my best efforts to clean it up, it still bears a lot of splatter-marks from that location to this day.
I bought myself a couple of pressies over Christmas. As if there was any doubt over whether or not trigpointing was genuinely A Thing, the question has been settled for me by the existence of trigpointing merch! I inherited a glass cabinet from my grandparents which contains various ornaments and mementoes from their lives, and to which I’ve added a few more from my own. A white-painted miniature trig-pillar sits proudly on the bottom shelf. One day, I’ll plant a bonsai hedge around it. And having seen photos of someone in the Facebook interest group sporting a black t-shirt with the legend “Trig Point Addicted” framing the triangular map symbol for a pillar, I knew straightaway I needed one of my own. I only ever wear it when I’m out bagging, and it’s been worn on nearly all of my trigspeditions since.
Well, I couldn’t stop now I’d bought a t-shirt, could I? Where shall I visit in 2022?
February 5th started out being such a sunny day, and I eased myself into the new year with a couple of easy roadside bags and gentle hill climbs around Gloucestershire, as a bit of a prelude to S2432 Leckhampton Hill. I’d wanted to bag this one for a while – it stuck out among pillars for being garishly painted in pink and yellow checks, like a stack of concrete Battenburg cakes, but more importantly, it was on a cliffside hillfort by a rocky stack known as the Devil’s Chimney, which offered many scenic paths for ramblers, a few incredible views across the valley below, and all manner of hill furniture, most notably a toposcope near the cliff edge detailing the names of the places you can see from there. This location was going to be the highlight of the trip, I was sure. It started raining unexpectedly as I drove to the nearby car park, and as it looked like settling in for quite a while, I donned my leather coat to protect me from the elements. Said coat reaches down to my shins, and is actually missing a couple of fasteners lower down. Not a big issue when it comes to protecting me from a light rain shower, but a major problem when the wind picks up, tears the remaining fasteners apart, and opens out the whole garment like a big black sail, billowing in a storm. As I was trying to take photos of the toposcope, I found myself struggling to control the coat, flapping furiously in the breeze, and trying to drag me along with it. Not an ideal position to be in when stood near a sheer drop without a barrier. I did the only reasonable thing I could under the circumstances: I filmed a piece to camera.
Lesson Nine: Filming videos wears down the battery in your phone. Get a portable charger.
S5150 Haresfield Beacon is a thing of beauty – not only does it sit on an undulating grassy hillside with a spectacular view, but it’s a rustic brick-built pillar of the type which is all too rare here down south. It was only the second one I’d found, and I had got lucky by visiting it on a day where the hillside it resides was unusually uninfested with cattle. A great opportunity to take lots of photos which, now the rain has finally stopped, will surely look spectacular. My heart sank when my phone didn’t respond – I’d always assumed a full charge at the start of the day was more than enough to sustain it for an entire trigspedition. Luckily for me, it had gone into an emergency shutdown before completely running out of juice, and I was able to revive it enough to take a handful of very hastily snapped selfies, but the speedily-taken results were merely acceptable when they should have been impressive. Moreover, it was only halfway through the afternoon, and I had designs on Robinswood Hill up the road, and maybe a couple of others as well – I didn’t want to abandon this trip so prematurely. But without a camera… if I’m gonna yomp up all those bloody hills, I want evidence, dammit! I still had nine more pillars under my belt, but what with the wind and rain at Leckhampton and now this, I felt quite dispirited as I headed back for an early bath.
April saw me return to the New Forest via Bournemouth – an abundance of pillars to the east of that town provided easy pickings, and gave me an opportunity for a quick paddle in the sea by S2569 Hengistbury Head (followed by an unwanted paddle in the waterlogged field at S4375 Winkton Common). My return trip took me a short distance from Wilsford Cum Lake, and knowing at least one person in my network would find it amusing, I stopped for the obligatory selfie by the village’s sole remaining signpost. Childish? No comment, but as I pulled away, another driver pulled in to do the same. A few days afterwards, I drove down to Winchester to see a band, and not one to miss an opportunity, I detoured via 11621 Farley Mount. This pillar is sited next to a monument on a hill – an impressive white painted folly erected in honour of a winning racehorse with the unlikely name of Beware Chalk Pit, whose story of recovery after finding said chalk pit the hard way is told on a large metal plaque inside the structure. A free Saturday afternoon in May led to a mini-trip to bag half a dozen (comparatively) local pillars I’d not previously visited: S2422 Badbury Hill was opposite a very beautiful wood absolutely carpeted in bluebells; S6425 Bury Hill was a nettle-infested hedge-dweller near the picturesque village of Buscot, where I sampled the wares at a quaint little tea room; and S6312 Little Clanfield was seemingly lassooed by a vicious-looking length of barbed wire. I bemoaned this act of concrete cruelty in a short video, noting as I did that I had now reached 250 pillars. I’d promised my wife I’d stop when I reached a nice round number, so I called in at S4538 Cradle Farm on the way back. This one is on a Pick Your Own plantation a little west of Abingdon, which I’d failed to bag twice before and had no expectation I’d be lucky on the third attempt. But as I strolled down the footpath, I saw the gate had been left open, and not a soul was in sight. The pillar sat among a row of canes at the top of the field, completely unattended. Result! No, sorry dear, I’m up to 251 now, so I’ll just have to keep going till I reach 300…
Many trigpointers are ramblers and use the pillars as landmarks or destinations on lengthy hikes. I enjoy the walks – mostly – but I’m just as happy to let my car do the footwork, and it’s nice to get a couple of easy roadside pillars amongst the middle-of-nowhere hilltoppers. I’ve had a couple of online comments from folk who feel driving to trigs is in some way cheating. I shrug these off – it’s not a competitive sport (although one chap does maintain a roll of honour for those who’ve found a thousand or more), and the only rules I abide by are my own. I enjoy driving through the back roads and seeing all the pretty villages almost as much as taking in the views from the hills, and I wouldn’t go to these places at all if all the pillars were physically challenging. Bluntly, I’m a lazy, overweight physical wreck, but I’ve found a reason to get out and about, and I try to mix the hikes with the drive-bys so I get a variety of experiences on each trigspedition. Sometimes I’ll score a high number of easy bags in one day, it’s true. June 2nd 2022 was not one of those days, and I imagine a small number of ramblers were delighted when I put in a lot of uphill legwork to the west of Eastbourne.
Starting at the famously stunning tourist spot of S1834 Beachy Head (a ridiculously easy pillar, being not just roadside but nearly car-park-side), I sought out the similarly-named S3985 Willingdon Hill and S3986 Wilmington Hill in swift succession. The former was accessible from a hillside path behind a housing estate which emerged onto a wide expanse of grassland. Not an especially lengthy walk, nor a particularly challenging climb, but enough to get the heart pumping. I’d bought a new white t-shirt the day before, which I chose to wear here, and was most annoyed when some loose-bowelled feathery vermin decided to permanently mark it whilst I took my usual photos at the pillar. The latter was a more significant walk, of about a mile across a gently inclining grassy track which led over the top of the famous Long Man carved into the chalky hillside below. The scenery from up here was particularly beautiful, and I sat on an embankment for a while on the way down, just enjoying the peace and quiet, and sharing my thoughts with the hill’s resident butterflies. I’d come back here quite happily. S3981 Cliff End was aptly named, and involved an even lengthier uphill trek from a heavily-used path that led to the beach below. Having enjoyed the panoramic view of the coast from the route to the pillar, I allowed myself another little diversion to the pebbly beach for a quick paddle. And then came a proper hike, as I abandoned my car on the roadside verge beside the heavily overflowing car park at S4004 Frog Firle. I’ve no idea how the place got its name – Sheep Firle would be very understandable, but no amphibians of any description were sighted here. Frog Firle is an easy bag – it’s roadside, and there’s a gate from the car park into the field which removes the need to scramble over the barbed wire fence that runs between pillar and verge. But there are two other pillars that are most easily reached from this location, too. And I’m stretching the meaning of “easily” for both of them. S3975 The Comp is at the edge of a wheatfield, buried in the tall and lush vegetation that separates the field from a rather dense and gloomy wood. There’s a wide bridleway that runs alongside the field, but offers no access into it; the aforementioned wood, however, has an entry point from the path (I say ‘entry point’; I mean, of course, ‘bit where the barbed wire fence is below crotch height’), and with a little hacking and slashing, the field can be entered and the trig bagged. It’s not an especially pleasant one to find, and it offers no views of any sort, but it’s directly on the way to the third pillar and it seemed silly to pass it by if I was going to walk all the way to that. A right of way through a lengthy sheepfield leads to the bridleway – at least half a mile, if not more, and from The Comp there’s another couple of miles to walk to find S4042 Denton Hill. The track is wide and stony, and there’s little by way of variety along its route – it goes mainly straight, and after leaving the woodland, offers a fine view of the rolling hills beyond for literally miles. And not a road in sight – you can’t get anywhere near this one by car. It requires doubling back into a pair of fallow fields, and there’s a bit of a climb to the top where the pillar sits tight against a barbed wire fence, but it enjoys the same fabulous view that you can see from the path, and it was worth every footstep. I’d estimate about six miles there and back, which is about as substantial a walk as I’ve ever undertaken on a trigspedition. My only disappointment was returning to my car to find my wing mirror had been struck off by a passing vehicle, but it was easily repaired in time for my next pair of roadtrips, which would prove to be suitably epic and numerically very satisfying.
S5094 Warnham and S6402 Patmans were both beside driveways to farms, and both were steadily sinking into the ground; the former was a swift roadside bag, but the latter attracted the attention of the landowner, despite being on a public right of way. It seems horses are invariably curious about trigpointers, and with the Patmans pillar being beside a fenced off paddock, I thought I’d take a couple of selfies with the long brown faces that had appeared beside me. And as I did, there was a barking from down the drive, and a lady in a green jacket approached with her dog. She asked after my presence, but as soon as I mentioned the pillar she lost all interest – it was the fact I was interacting with her four-legged friends that brought her out. It became rapidly apparent that she was a devoted horsewoman, very protective of her animals (and quite rightly so). We passed the time of day for a short while as her dog went to investigate my car, but as my own equestrian knowledge is extremely minimal, the conversation petered out very quickly. I certainly didn’t want to talk about the trig, which had had its flush bracket covered by a small patch of tarmac, presumably in reaction to previous baggers digging it out. It’s a pity the number is now rather permanently obscured, but it sends a clear and firm message, and one I had no intention of arguing with. Unasked, I deleted all photos containing horses as I left.
Thakeham Welcomes Walkers proclaimed a rustic wooden sign at the start of a long driveway by the village hall. Sadly, it appears to be a total lie, as I was informed by a resident halfway up that it was actually private land, and would I please turn back. Although I’d seen no indication that I was trespassing, I applied Rule Two and complied. This remains the only occasion to date that I have ever been denied access to a pillar by a human. I was peeved, but not too much – it was nearing the end of the day when I attempted this trig; I’d already admired the beautiful scenery at the likes of S6372 Trotton, S6408 Hesworth, and S6289 Ambersham, and I had a whopping number of pillars under my belt again. By the time the sun set, my day’s total was fourteen. A day well spent.
I wanted to stretch the boundaries of how far out I could travel in a day, so I looked at the motorways and where they led to. Exeter was just a simple trip down the M4 and M5 – a lengthy one, but one that I could cover at *ahem* 70mph nearly all the way. Could I plan a decent trigspedition around South Devon? It turned out that I could, and as it happened, it included one of my all time favourite pillars. S3907 High Peak looked impressive and intimidating and spectacular from the Trigpointing UK logs alone. It is sited at the top of a hillfort on the edge of the Jurassic Coast, a little way along from Sidmouth. The hillfort is mostly lost to coastal erosion now, but the pillar still stands, barely a metre from the unprotected cliff edge. In recent years, deforestation has cleared the side of the hill, allowing access up the side directly to the trig, on what has been named “The Steep Path”. It is very aptly named, and not only is it steep, but it is covered in loose stones, which make the ascent a little tricky. But it’s okay, because I’ve made it up Cley Hill, so I can make it up this one, too. Except, where that hill was large with a multitude of options, this one is short and has just the one direct route up the side. I looked down at my feet, and I put one in front of the other, quickly and purposefully, not allowing myself time to think. And I got to the information board near the summit, thinking this is a doddle really, and what on Earth was I worrying about? The last little stretch is a bit more treacherous, but it seems the National Trust have recognised this, and some basic wooden steps have been installed, complete with handrails, to lead right up to the top. They frame the pillar beautifully, actually, so I took my first photo from the bottom of the steps. And then at the top… well, you can kick in right here if you like, vertigo, but I’ve already made it, so sod you. I gingerly stepped up to the pillar to take my photos, treading very slowly and carefully around it, conscious that there wasn’t very much room to manoeuvre, and did I mention the unprotected cliff edge? That one right there, about a metre away, that dropped right down all the way to the sea. I felt dizzy. I sat on the top of the steps, back to the trig, to get my breath back and compose myself. And then I stood up again – still pretty warily, mind – took a deep lungful of air, and enjoyed the view. And what a view, all the way along the chalky cliffs, past Sidmouth, and straight ahead so very far out to sea. Okay, I was holding on to the pillar for dear life, but I was here. I’d walked about a mile along the coastal path from the car park to get here, and the views en route were pretty damn stunning, but from the top they were exemplary, and I felt like I had earned them.
I then proceeded to slide back down the hill on my arse. Turned out going up was the easy bit. I rested on a tree stump near the bottom before setting off back to the car. For added embarrassment, a family was about to climb up, just as I reached the path at the base of the hill. I dusted myself down and told them to enjoy the view. The kids scampered up the incline without a care in the world. Oh, to be young and invincible again.
It took me ages to find S3766 on Lympstone Common. It was a fairly large location, mostly wooded, with a maze of paths and trails that bore absolutely zero resemblance to the maps. I discovered a deep hollow full of cycle tracks; a herd of cattle mooching disinterestedly among the trees; and the edge of a quarry, marked with scary looking Keep Out notices. I was aware the pillar was beside a mast compound, but I couldn’t see the mast for the trees. I think I must have been searching for the best part of an hour before I found a wide track out of the wood to a desolate plateau which gave me a fine view of south Devon… but still no mast. I cheated, and looked up my location on my phone. Apparently, the mast was in the treeline right behind me. I turned around. Yep, not sure how I could have missed that at all. Skirting the perimeter eventually revealed the pillar, hidden in the shade of the trees beside a gorsey path. I made a great play of being lost and not sure how to get out of my location when I filmed a short video clip beside this pillar, in recognition of it being my 200th.
After the narrow country lanes and stunning coastal scenery of South Devon, my next couple of trips seemed a little drab by comparison, particularly under the cloudy November sky. I remounted my traffic-scuppered Marlborough roadtrip from the previous autumn, in the hope of a little more success. The thick, claggy mud at S2403 Hackpen Hill proved too much for my footwear, and sucked the sole right off my boot, leaving me limping for much of the day. Less idiotic people than me might have given up with this setback, particularly with an itinerary that took in the lengthy uphill walk at S2525 Tan Hill, the stony and uneven enclosure at S2415 Preshute, and the ridiculously waterlogged and muddy trails that criss-crossed S6210 Poulton Downs. My leather battledress bore the brunt of that one quite badly, and despite my best efforts to clean it up, it still bears a lot of splatter-marks from that location to this day.
I bought myself a couple of pressies over Christmas. As if there was any doubt over whether or not trigpointing was genuinely A Thing, the question has been settled for me by the existence of trigpointing merch! I inherited a glass cabinet from my grandparents which contains various ornaments and mementoes from their lives, and to which I’ve added a few more from my own. A white-painted miniature trig-pillar sits proudly on the bottom shelf. One day, I’ll plant a bonsai hedge around it. And having seen photos of someone in the Facebook interest group sporting a black t-shirt with the legend “Trig Point Addicted” framing the triangular map symbol for a pillar, I knew straightaway I needed one of my own. I only ever wear it when I’m out bagging, and it’s been worn on nearly all of my trigspeditions since.
Well, I couldn’t stop now I’d bought a t-shirt, could I? Where shall I visit in 2022?
February 5th started out being such a sunny day, and I eased myself into the new year with a couple of easy roadside bags and gentle hill climbs around Gloucestershire, as a bit of a prelude to S2432 Leckhampton Hill. I’d wanted to bag this one for a while – it stuck out among pillars for being garishly painted in pink and yellow checks, like a stack of concrete Battenburg cakes, but more importantly, it was on a cliffside hillfort by a rocky stack known as the Devil’s Chimney, which offered many scenic paths for ramblers, a few incredible views across the valley below, and all manner of hill furniture, most notably a toposcope near the cliff edge detailing the names of the places you can see from there. This location was going to be the highlight of the trip, I was sure. It started raining unexpectedly as I drove to the nearby car park, and as it looked like settling in for quite a while, I donned my leather coat to protect me from the elements. Said coat reaches down to my shins, and is actually missing a couple of fasteners lower down. Not a big issue when it comes to protecting me from a light rain shower, but a major problem when the wind picks up, tears the remaining fasteners apart, and opens out the whole garment like a big black sail, billowing in a storm. As I was trying to take photos of the toposcope, I found myself struggling to control the coat, flapping furiously in the breeze, and trying to drag me along with it. Not an ideal position to be in when stood near a sheer drop without a barrier. I did the only reasonable thing I could under the circumstances: I filmed a piece to camera.
Lesson Nine: Filming videos wears down the battery in your phone. Get a portable charger.
S5150 Haresfield Beacon is a thing of beauty – not only does it sit on an undulating grassy hillside with a spectacular view, but it’s a rustic brick-built pillar of the type which is all too rare here down south. It was only the second one I’d found, and I had got lucky by visiting it on a day where the hillside it resides was unusually uninfested with cattle. A great opportunity to take lots of photos which, now the rain has finally stopped, will surely look spectacular. My heart sank when my phone didn’t respond – I’d always assumed a full charge at the start of the day was more than enough to sustain it for an entire trigspedition. Luckily for me, it had gone into an emergency shutdown before completely running out of juice, and I was able to revive it enough to take a handful of very hastily snapped selfies, but the speedily-taken results were merely acceptable when they should have been impressive. Moreover, it was only halfway through the afternoon, and I had designs on Robinswood Hill up the road, and maybe a couple of others as well – I didn’t want to abandon this trip so prematurely. But without a camera… if I’m gonna yomp up all those bloody hills, I want evidence, dammit! I still had nine more pillars under my belt, but what with the wind and rain at Leckhampton and now this, I felt quite dispirited as I headed back for an early bath.
April saw me return to the New Forest via Bournemouth – an abundance of pillars to the east of that town provided easy pickings, and gave me an opportunity for a quick paddle in the sea by S2569 Hengistbury Head (followed by an unwanted paddle in the waterlogged field at S4375 Winkton Common). My return trip took me a short distance from Wilsford Cum Lake, and knowing at least one person in my network would find it amusing, I stopped for the obligatory selfie by the village’s sole remaining signpost. Childish? No comment, but as I pulled away, another driver pulled in to do the same. A few days afterwards, I drove down to Winchester to see a band, and not one to miss an opportunity, I detoured via 11621 Farley Mount. This pillar is sited next to a monument on a hill – an impressive white painted folly erected in honour of a winning racehorse with the unlikely name of Beware Chalk Pit, whose story of recovery after finding said chalk pit the hard way is told on a large metal plaque inside the structure. A free Saturday afternoon in May led to a mini-trip to bag half a dozen (comparatively) local pillars I’d not previously visited: S2422 Badbury Hill was opposite a very beautiful wood absolutely carpeted in bluebells; S6425 Bury Hill was a nettle-infested hedge-dweller near the picturesque village of Buscot, where I sampled the wares at a quaint little tea room; and S6312 Little Clanfield was seemingly lassooed by a vicious-looking length of barbed wire. I bemoaned this act of concrete cruelty in a short video, noting as I did that I had now reached 250 pillars. I’d promised my wife I’d stop when I reached a nice round number, so I called in at S4538 Cradle Farm on the way back. This one is on a Pick Your Own plantation a little west of Abingdon, which I’d failed to bag twice before and had no expectation I’d be lucky on the third attempt. But as I strolled down the footpath, I saw the gate had been left open, and not a soul was in sight. The pillar sat among a row of canes at the top of the field, completely unattended. Result! No, sorry dear, I’m up to 251 now, so I’ll just have to keep going till I reach 300…
Many trigpointers are ramblers and use the pillars as landmarks or destinations on lengthy hikes. I enjoy the walks – mostly – but I’m just as happy to let my car do the footwork, and it’s nice to get a couple of easy roadside pillars amongst the middle-of-nowhere hilltoppers. I’ve had a couple of online comments from folk who feel driving to trigs is in some way cheating. I shrug these off – it’s not a competitive sport (although one chap does maintain a roll of honour for those who’ve found a thousand or more), and the only rules I abide by are my own. I enjoy driving through the back roads and seeing all the pretty villages almost as much as taking in the views from the hills, and I wouldn’t go to these places at all if all the pillars were physically challenging. Bluntly, I’m a lazy, overweight physical wreck, but I’ve found a reason to get out and about, and I try to mix the hikes with the drive-bys so I get a variety of experiences on each trigspedition. Sometimes I’ll score a high number of easy bags in one day, it’s true. June 2nd 2022 was not one of those days, and I imagine a small number of ramblers were delighted when I put in a lot of uphill legwork to the west of Eastbourne.
Starting at the famously stunning tourist spot of S1834 Beachy Head (a ridiculously easy pillar, being not just roadside but nearly car-park-side), I sought out the similarly-named S3985 Willingdon Hill and S3986 Wilmington Hill in swift succession. The former was accessible from a hillside path behind a housing estate which emerged onto a wide expanse of grassland. Not an especially lengthy walk, nor a particularly challenging climb, but enough to get the heart pumping. I’d bought a new white t-shirt the day before, which I chose to wear here, and was most annoyed when some loose-bowelled feathery vermin decided to permanently mark it whilst I took my usual photos at the pillar. The latter was a more significant walk, of about a mile across a gently inclining grassy track which led over the top of the famous Long Man carved into the chalky hillside below. The scenery from up here was particularly beautiful, and I sat on an embankment for a while on the way down, just enjoying the peace and quiet, and sharing my thoughts with the hill’s resident butterflies. I’d come back here quite happily. S3981 Cliff End was aptly named, and involved an even lengthier uphill trek from a heavily-used path that led to the beach below. Having enjoyed the panoramic view of the coast from the route to the pillar, I allowed myself another little diversion to the pebbly beach for a quick paddle. And then came a proper hike, as I abandoned my car on the roadside verge beside the heavily overflowing car park at S4004 Frog Firle. I’ve no idea how the place got its name – Sheep Firle would be very understandable, but no amphibians of any description were sighted here. Frog Firle is an easy bag – it’s roadside, and there’s a gate from the car park into the field which removes the need to scramble over the barbed wire fence that runs between pillar and verge. But there are two other pillars that are most easily reached from this location, too. And I’m stretching the meaning of “easily” for both of them. S3975 The Comp is at the edge of a wheatfield, buried in the tall and lush vegetation that separates the field from a rather dense and gloomy wood. There’s a wide bridleway that runs alongside the field, but offers no access into it; the aforementioned wood, however, has an entry point from the path (I say ‘entry point’; I mean, of course, ‘bit where the barbed wire fence is below crotch height’), and with a little hacking and slashing, the field can be entered and the trig bagged. It’s not an especially pleasant one to find, and it offers no views of any sort, but it’s directly on the way to the third pillar and it seemed silly to pass it by if I was going to walk all the way to that. A right of way through a lengthy sheepfield leads to the bridleway – at least half a mile, if not more, and from The Comp there’s another couple of miles to walk to find S4042 Denton Hill. The track is wide and stony, and there’s little by way of variety along its route – it goes mainly straight, and after leaving the woodland, offers a fine view of the rolling hills beyond for literally miles. And not a road in sight – you can’t get anywhere near this one by car. It requires doubling back into a pair of fallow fields, and there’s a bit of a climb to the top where the pillar sits tight against a barbed wire fence, but it enjoys the same fabulous view that you can see from the path, and it was worth every footstep. I’d estimate about six miles there and back, which is about as substantial a walk as I’ve ever undertaken on a trigspedition. My only disappointment was returning to my car to find my wing mirror had been struck off by a passing vehicle, but it was easily repaired in time for my next pair of roadtrips, which would prove to be suitably epic and numerically very satisfying.
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