Chapter 14: Hedge Fun

Still keen to bag Little Ouse, I plotted a return to Cambridgeshire for early May.  However, when I reviewed my longlist of baggable pillars, I struggled to find an efficient route which would take me near England’s lowest again.  Instead, a pleasant drive round the south of Cambridge appeared to be taking shape, with a couple of high-numbered pillars alongside farm driveways (10453 Monks Hall and 10671 Fowlmere) practically bookending a trip that promised an in-depth exploration of a wide variety of the county’s greenest hedges….

11155 Littlebury Hedge is an easy roadsider, and its hedge has conveniently parted around it, seemingly to allow access to rockbothering lunatics.  On the other side of the road, a stretch of woodland offers a tempting ramble through a carpet of bluebells, so it’s a damn shame about all the Keep Out notices that encircle it.  I admired the flowers briefly from my car instead.  Sadly, S4368 Heydon demonstrates the necessity for such signage, as the hedge this pillar squats in has been spoiled by the antics of multiple fly tippers, whose piles of industrial rubbish ruin a short walk from an otherwise very pretty village.  But at least these two had handy laybys for ease of parking - 11604 St. Aylotts discourages visitors by being at the far end of a very narrow track with no passing places or parking opportunities at all.  With its lack of views and its awkwardly positioned Flush Bracket, St. Aylotts in its tall, imposing hedgerow was one of the less rewarding bags of the day.  Far more fun was S5956 Limlow Hill, perched in a recess deep inside a very wide leafy hedge.  The foliage had yet to encroach sufficiently on the pillar as to completely obscure it, but I was glad to be bagging it this early in the year, as a summertime visit would undoubtedly necessitate a pair of pruning shears.  The walk up to this pillar was via a PROW which crossed diagonally across a gently inclined field, and offered a scenic view all the way back down again.

Elsewhere, a dusty farm track leading from a recently built housing estate led beneath the M11 and up across a series of bright yellow rapefields, which dominated the longest walk and the prettiest view of the day.  This was S4520 Parsonage Farm, located (not in a hedge) at the back of a field a few metres off a PROW which was evidently a popular route for horse riders.  The chain of electricity pylons and the rumble of the motorway both proved insufficient to spoil the landscape, and I took a few moments before setting off back to my car to appreciate Mother Nature’s magnificence once again.  On any given trigspedition, there’s always one pillar which reminds me why I keep doing this, and reassures me that this hobby isn’t quite as insane a prospect as it may appear.

S5950 Croydon Hill was sat next to a hedge rather than inside one, and was accessed by a very pretty footpath which led down a verdant avenue of blossoming trees behind Croydon village – one of the easiest and most enjoyable pillars of the day.  And then, by way of balancing the books, came S5059 Orwell.  This pillar is at the top end of a lengthy gated farm track which runs through a very posh looking estate.  I estimated it was a few metres shy of a strip of woodland at the far end, which separates this farm from a vast ploughed field on the other side of the hill.  From the aerial view on Google Maps, there appeared to be a gap through the wood opposite the far end of said track… and a wide PROW ran for about a kilometre or so around the eastern edge of the farm, which meant I could follow the Right Of Way uphill before cutting back across the treeline to the west, and nip quickly onto the track as it emerged to bag the pillar.  A lengthy route, but one which should negate the need for any encounters.  What could possibly go wrong?

There was no gap.  Just solid woodland all the way across, and very densely-packed woodland, at that.  Densely packed behind a barbed wire fence and a verge full of nettles.  I’d yomped a klick uphill and half as much again on an uneven, deeply rutted field edge, only to find there was no way through.  Well, not unless I wanted to throw my battledress across the lowest part of the wire and crash unprotected through several metres of tightly-packed trees with low-hanging branches that were poised ready to attack me from every angle, hoping against all odds that there wasn’t another barbed wire fence to scale at the other end, only to then make a wild guess where the track with the trig might be found based on nothing but blind luck… and then do it all again on the way back.  That would be a stupid and ridiculous idea, and would only reinforce the impression that this hobby really *is* as insane a prospect as it appears.  Dejected, and having expended so much energy to get so far round the field, I reluctantly concluded that turning back without bagging the pillar was the only sensible course of action.  And that’s exactly what didn’t happen, because I’m a stubborn bugger of questionable sanity who doesn’t give up so easily… and I came away with the trigpoint selfies – and tree-branch scratches – to prove it!

A fortnight later, I struck out towards Leicester.  When I’d started looking online for pillars in the area, I had no expectation of exactly how successful this particular roadtrip would be.  However, as I was planning out my route, it became swiftly apparent that about half the pillars on my longlist were easy roadside trigs which I could almost bag from the driver’s seat of my car.  What I’ll generally do to prepare for a trip is draw up a longlist of a couple of dozen pillars, then read the logs for each of them on the Trigpointing: UK site and narrow it down to a shortlist of pillars that look like achievable bags.  The less walking involved, the longer the shortlist.  On this occasion, there wasn’t a lot of walking or narrowing down to be done at all.  S1636 Cold Harbour; S4611 Paudy Crossroads; S4659 Wymondham; S4691 Willoughby; S4886 Rempstone Hill; S4887 Hose Hill; S4911 Eastwell…  roadside verge-squatters, all.  Pull up, take selfies, move on - simples.  OK, this was far from the full story, but they certainly hiked up the day’s total with barely any extra effort required, and they more than compensated for nightmares like S4907 Six Hills...   

The Six Hills pillar is beside a woodland clearing accessed from a short roadside footpath.  Sounds ideal, right?  Having parked on a rather grotty bit of concrete on the opposite verge, I donned my battledress, crossed the busy main road, and approached the wood. As the footpath was around the other side from where I’d left my car, I scouted around for a track through the wood that didn’t involve getting up to my knees in brambles.  Supposedly, the easiest point of access was behind the roadsign for Six Hills, and this may well have been true in winter, but it certainly wasn’t true in mid-May.  But a path had been cleared a few metres along, albeit a very narrow one which resembled a small tunnel through a multitude of overhanging branches.  Nevertheless, paths have to lead somewhere, right?  Knowing that there was a clearing in the middle of the wood, I figured it had to emerge there.  I had my way in…  except I didn’t.  Keeping my hand at the level of my eyes, and whacking vines and branches and nettles as I pressed on, I followed this faintest of trails through the undergrowth to its conclusion: a dead end.  A wide and low concrete structure on the ground appeared to have a manhole in it leading… well, I had no intention of trying to find out.  It wasn’t what I was looking for, and it didn’t get me anywhere near the pillar, so I turned around and tried again.  Seeing no other viable options, I returned to the roadsign and resigned myself to crashing and thrashing my way through the brambles and stingers.  It wasn’t exactly West Knoyle, or even Orwell, but it was still more effort than I’d like to have put in, and gave me more scratches than my ankles wanted to take.  Nevertheless, I successfully emerged into a clearing of long grass, spotted the pillar hiding in the shadow of a tree, and took a moment to mop my brow and catch my breath.  Perhaps I should have sought out the roadside footpath marked on the map, even if it did mean going the long way round.  At the back of the clearing, a waymarker pointed down a wide grassy track leading away from my entry point, and I followed it until it also culminated in a dead end.  Come on, this is supposed to be an actual PROW – where is it?  Seemingly left unmaintained for years, it apparently ran through the wood at the end of the track, but was now so overgrown that it proved an even harder hack than my way in, as I scrambled over fallen trees and circled round piles of rubbish, still whacking at encroaching branches as I went.  I could hear the traffic on the main road, but the thickness of the vegetation offered no easy way out.  I ultimately burst through the treeline, sweaty and dishevelled, just a couple of metres away from a broken and half-buried stile that marked the start of the footpath, which was completely overwhelmed and inaccessible to all but the most determined.  I should have gone back where I came in.  Sometimes, the routes marked on the maps bear no resemblance to the situation on the ground, and this was certainly one of those times – Six Hills easily became my least favourite pillar of the day.

Fortunately, it was atypical.  The tone had been set by 2964 Charnwood, sat on a rocky outcrop in a National Trust site, which offered a generous car park (payment by cash only) and some basic facilities that I very happily took advantage of.  The location was dotted with medieval-style wooden carvings, with a beacon and a toposcope installed nearby for added interest.  Sadly, the first was off-limits at time of visiting, and the second was – along with the pillar – enclosed in a rocky field that was a little too infested with Highland Cows for my liking.  They appeared docile enough as they mooched along, but with the trig being very much in the open, and with my encounter at Bradley Knoll very much at the forefront of my mind, I let them get well clear of the trig before I gingerly bagged it, and I let them have the toposcope to themselves.  It’s a pity, because the Charnwood trig’s view and immediate location were both impressively attractive, and no doubt if the place were bereft of bovines I’d have been relaxed enough to enjoy it properly.  Regardless, this pillar still got the day off to a cracking start.

As the day wore on, so the roadside pillars dried up, and the afternoon presented me with more opportunities to stretch my legs.  Launde is a beautiful little village, and driving through it feels like you’ve wandered onto a well-kept private estate by mistake, with its narrow, unmarked lanes and wandering livestock.  The walk up to S2089 offered some very scenic views from the fieldside footpath.  S2091 Wood Close sits beside a gate separating two sheepfields, across which access is permitted via a short byway.  A wooden gatepost has been unhelpfully hammered in directly in front of the flush bracket, but we’ll forgive this minor inconvenience as it’s an easily bagged pillar that marks the Rutland county top.  S4661 Brockleys Farm is a very pampered trigpoint – certainly the best-kept hedge-dweller I’ve yet seen – as it sits in a specially laid gravel bed and has been given a fresh coat of gleaming white paint.  Not sure whether this is for the benefit of visiting trigpointers, or the curious horses in the paddock opposite.  S6767 Egleton is approachable from a short path over a level crossing to the east, or a longer but prettier path, uninfested by locomotives, from the west.  Both directions lead to a secret gate hidden in a bushy treeline, from which a wide field edge runs up a gentle incline to a pillar which enjoys a very expansive view all the way across Rutland Water. 

Best of all, however, was S4680 Burrough Hill, which sits on the ramparts where a large fort once stood proud atop a steep gorse-covered hillside.  Burrough Hill is very much a tourist attraction, and is served by a convenient-but-expensive car park, for those unable to find the small-but-free layby beside the woodland footpath on the other side of the hill.  Being a particularly glorious day, and a particularly attractive location, I spent half an hour or so just drinking in the beauty of the place in the mid afternoon sun, once I’d taken my selfies with the pillar and the toposcope on the adjacent ridge.

By the time I’d climbed down from S4832 Langton Caudle just as the sun was starting to set, I’d achieved what I couldn’t manage in the Fens – a new personal best of 20 trig pillars, all in one long 16-hour roadtrip.  How would I ever top that?  I’ve no intention of even trying – I think that record is absolutely here to stay.  I genuinely thought about calling it quits at that point, and finishing my trigsploits on a high note… but then I looked at my statistics on the website.  I’d bagged and logged a grand total of 597 pillars, most of which I’d found on 49 dedicated trigspeditions.  Come on, just one more roadtrip to make it a nice round 50, and bag my 600^th trig.  It has to be done, right?