On 3rd January 2021,
a 13 year old autistic boy, Olly Stephens, was stabbed to death in a field in
Reading. In late 2025, his parents set
up a charitable trust in his name, and shortly afterwards my wife and her
friends were involved in a concert to raise awareness and funding for
them. The event was a great success, and
my wife was given a small token – a painted pebble – which contained a link to
the trust’s social media site. Knowing
that I’ve come across painted pebbles on pillars before, she asked me to take
it with me on my next trip and leave it somewhere suitable, where it might be
found and passed on...
April 2026. Cannock Chase is a large area of forest on
the wrong side of Birmingham which seemed to be home to some particularly
spectacular concrete infestations, and the more I looked into mounting a
trigspedition there, the more impatient I became to get back out on the road
again. In particular, a very long road
called the M40, which made for a rather dull and tedious drive, but I soon woke
up once I’d left it behind and started pestering pillars again. After a quick detour via Ashby De La Zouch to
say hello to a certain Peruvian bear from my childhood, I found myself parking
beside a tree whose trunk had been painted to make it look like the little folk
had taken up residence inside. This
flight of whimsy set me in good spirits for a long walk through the flourishing
woodland towards S2263 Coton Park. I had
doubts when I put this trig on my shortlist, as I wasn’t sure I’d find my way
through the woods particularly easily.
Never have I been more wrong – the right of way is comprehensively
fenced off from the trees, with an overabundance of notices telling me to keep
to the path and that the woods were strictly private. I think the landowner might have shares in a
signwriting business. However, the
Officially Designated Walking Route corralled and ushered me to the far end,
where a short and uneven fieldside trail opened out into someone’s driveway, at
the end of which lay a clearing beside a mast compound. Ignoring the technology, I looked out over a
dew-soaked meadow surrounded by blossoming trees which glinted shiny dappled
white in the early morning sun, and got my camera out for a particularly
photogenic tree whose branches sheltered and embraced the trigpoint. OK, that’s one-twelfth of next year’s
calendar decided, then. Straightaway the
tiring long-distance drive was worthwhile, and the day had barely begun.
The sun was fully in
the sky and bestowing a warm golden glow across S2297 Grove Farm by the time I
hopped the gate into the sheepfield it sat atop. Unlike Coton Park, the PROW to this trig was
an absolute bugger to make out, as it began in the grounds of a garden centre,
narrow and hidden amongst the displays of plants and greenhouses. I felt a lot more uneasy walking around this
establishment than I did when I committed most of my actual trespasses –
probably because the place was still closed at this time of the morning – but I
eventually saw the small and unassuming sign showing the way down the overgrown
track behind the nursery and out towards the fields. Nobody saw me traipsing around the garden
centre, more’s the pity – whilst I felt a bit out of place, I’d have loved to
have had someone to ask and point me in the right direction, but never
mind. I did see the shepherd riding
around in the trig field, though, presumably giving the pillar’s woolly
neighbours their breakfast. He can’t
have missed me, but he didn’t come over so I can only assume that concrete
chasers aren’t as unwelcome here as they were at Miswell Farm on my previous
trigsploit.
A couple of miles
north of Tamworth, S2260 Highfields sits beside a PROW that runs along the
edges of a series of undulating cropfields that rise and fall for about a mile
between the pillar and the nearest road.
It provides a substantial stretch of the legs, offering along the way a
fine view across the valley. Its
out-of-the-way location gave this pillar a sort of peaceful tranquillity – a
startling lack of noise that you only get when there are no humans anywhere
near. I bagged this pillar and sat next
to it for a few moments, taking in deep lungfuls of clean fresh air and
drinking in the serenity of the place, as the cares of the world melted
away. Bliss. Yes, I think I’ll leave Olly’s pebble
here. The sight hole at the base of the
pillar looks ideal; it’s hidden behind a clump of nettles, and you’d be very
lucky to discover the pebble if you don’t know it’s there. I left a note on the Trigpointing UK website
revealing its existence, and requested that should another trigpointer find it,
they take it to a pillar even further afield.
Bon voyage, Olly. I collected a
plain white pebble from the newly turned over field as I left.
I felt a small pang
of regret as I bagged S2259 Regent’s Wood that I hadn’t kept Olly’s pebble for
here. A few metres from a roadside car
park, this woodland-dwelling white-painted pillar sits next to a sapling planted
as a memorial, and is surrounded by tributes and mementoes. It’s in a very pretty little clearing, and
it’s another pillar that’ll be a frontrunner for a 2027 calendar, should I
produce one. But on reflection, it’s got
cyclists going past it quite often, and you can hear the noise from the car
park easily enough. And it’s already
being used as a memorial for someone else.
No, I’ve made my choice, and I’m quite happy with it.
Finally, I reached
Cannock Chase itself for the last two pillars of the day, around which this
entire roadtrip had been planned.
Neither disappointed. 2990 The
Butts was mounted on a large plinth and sited at the crossing of several
footpaths on the edge of a heath. It
offers an excellent view across a desolate but beautiful landscape which
contrasts with the winding woodland paths that wend their way from the car park
to the trigpoint. And on a different
edge of the same wide heathland, 11490 Brocton Field is a gleaming white pillar
a short distance from the road that sits in a specially laid base of small
pebbles. It’s overshadowed by a large
erratic boulder a few metres away that is similarly mounted (albeit on a much
larger base of pebbles) for no readily available reason, but somehow that’s
enough to make it a tourist-attracting local landmark. Whatever reason it’s been spruced up, both it
and the pillar adorn a very pretty location that’s easy to visit and offers
another exceptional view across the valleys of the National Forest. It’s as good a way as any to end a successful
trip, and it fired me up to venture out again as soon as I could.
Before my next
outing, though, I bought a ticket for a friend’s gig in the beautiful and
oft-mispronounced town of Frome. I loved
walking around this quaint little place, and the show that evening was
excellent and to my mind more than justified the trip down the M4 and through
the beautiful city of Bath, which I’d previously visited for trigging purposes
all the way back in Chapter Three. I
generally don’t mention the pillars I’ve failed to get, but S3228 Bathampton
Down particularly irked me because I wasted a lot of time five years ago trying
to use the awkward and annoying parking app which was the only method of payment
for the university car park, only to find that the golf course the pillar was
situated on was so busy (this being very soon after the Covid lockdown was
lifted) that I couldn’t get anywhere near the dratted thing. Well if I’m passing that way again, I guess I
ought to have another crack at it – maybe I’ll be lucky the second time
around. The main road runs to the north
of the golf course, whereas the university is to the south of it, and I found a
couple of small cul de sacs nearby that had no parking restrictions on them,
which saved me having to spend any money or wrestle with any frustrating mobile
phone apps just to leave my car. The
path up this side of the hill to the course wasn’t especially long, but it was
an exhausting uphill trudge and I was gasping for breath by the time I reached
the edge of the green. Regardless, being
let out of the house in 2026 was a lot less of a novelty than it was in 2021,
so there were a lot fewer golfers around this time, and I was free to wander
off the path into the scrub to bag the trig.
One golfer critically failed his dexterity roll and sent his ball flying
into the branches of the tree above the pillar whilst I was there – whether he
was aiming for the hole or taking exception to me I don’t know, but either way
his ball missed me and he failed to find and retrieve it. As I made my way back to my car, I saw a very
different game being played on the hillside at the edge of the course, as a
bunch of leather and chainmail clad warriors were happily roaring out battle
cries and whacking each other with swords.
An iron-clad maiden with long blonde hair charged fearsomely towards a
terrified leather-clad fighter in a determined attempt to demonstrate that she
was in no way a helpless damsel in need of rescuing. I’d heard tell of Live Action Role Playing
(LARPing) sessions years ago, but never seen one in full cry before, and
frankly it looks a right hoot! As I
yomped back down the hill again, I wondered which of the three hobbies being
practised on the course that afternoon was the most ridiculous. I concluded it was probably golf.
May 2026, and I made
the most of the sunny Bank Holiday weekend to visit Devon and Somerset and
bring my total number of pillars into the 700s.
I drew up an itinerary which would give a hidden forest-dwelling pillar
the distinction of being my 700th, and thus enable me to film the
traditional video clip in a quiet, secluded and attractive piece of woodland,
which would make up for my 600th being a hastily-bagged noisy
roadsider which required some very inadvisable parking.
I began the day by
venturing down the first of many rough single-track roads which no doubt played
a large part in my having to pay out huge sums of money to fix my car’s broken
suspension a few weeks later. This
particular road petered out into a stony byway across which a large wooden gate
ensured further progress would be on foot.
The uphill walk to S3745 Culmstock Beacon was an enjoyable one, though,
as the track was wide and easy to follow, and in the cool early morning of an
otherwise unseasonably hot day, I was joined by a number of dog walkers
including one man with a pair of very friendly Dachshunds who jumped up on my
thighs as I squatted down to say hello.
I’m generally very sociable towards anything with four legs that doesn’t
moo. The pillar is sat beside a curved
stone-built hut with a hole in its roof that used to support a beacon. I took a selfie from inside and pretended I’d
fallen down a well. An ornate bench was
sited nearby, offering a grand view across the countryside below, and the
pillar itself was comprehensively armoured with a four-sided metal information
board that covered its top half. Three
sides talked about the beacon and the hill, and the fourth gave a potted
history and description of trig pillars, with the obligatory cross-section
diagram. I do like seeing pillars earn
their keep in their retirement, not least because it means they stand less
chance of being removed. Having got the
day off to a good start with an easy, enjoyable and noteworthy pillar, I
awkwardly turned my car around and set off to find the next one…
…where I was straightaway thwarted by a large and curious herd of four-legged
beasties that did go moo. No thank you,
I learned that lesson back in Chapter Nine.
So S3903 Blackborough Common and S3904 Black Down rose up my list to become my
698th and 699th pillars, respectively. The former was on a wooded hill which towered
over a small village. Parking under a
shady tree beside a church, I followed a steep footpath through the woods to
the summit, and eventually found the pillar sheltering under a bush a little
further along. A very enjoyable walk,
but one where the only view was of trees and bushes… and a sculpture of a mushroom, which had been
carved out of a log and placed beside the footpath at the steep section. The latter trig, no longer destined to be my
700th, was somewhere in the woods beside Broad Road, a highway which
was presumably named with extreme sarcasm, and could easily win the award for
Least Accurately Named Road In England. The
most recent logs on the Trigpointing UK website had described a pillar sat in
the shade below a couple of trees that were a small distance off the main path,
but which were visible from it and had a trail leading to it. Unfortunately for me, those logs had been
written at a far less verdant time of year.
As the footpath began to slope downwards, I doubled back on myself and
examined the verges and the undergrowth with a concentration that attracted the
interest and comment of a coupe of dog walkers coming the other way. “Have you lost something?” Yes, a four foot high block of concrete, I
didn’t reply. Disappearing between the
faintest of gaps between the bushes, I was very glad to be wearing my long leather
battledress, and that it was still early enough in the morning for it not to
make life too sweltering. I wasn’t so
much following a trail as pushing my way through the least resisting plantlife,
but after a while it thinned out a bit and I could just about make out a dark
shape on a hump beneath the trees on the far side of a clearing. It was further off the beaten track than I’d
anticipated, and absolutely covered in moss, but I was still elated to have
found this pillar at the first attempt in the full bloom of spring. I later reviewed the rest of the comments on Trigpointing
UK, which would have given me a far more accurate appraisal of this trig’s
hide-and-seek prowess – other baggers have needed return visits and/or GPS! An occasional little challenge makes trigpointing
fun, though, and I was very happy as I tried to find some decent angles from
which to take my customary selfies.
Indeed, nearly all
the pillars I was able to bag on this trip gave me a great deal of
enjoyment. S1709 Dumpdon - once I’d
performed a seven-point-turn across a massive great pot-hole to enter the
acutely-angled car park on the even-less-broad road that served it – was in the
middle of a grassy plateau offering a fine view, and the hillside I had to climb
up to reach it was extremely pretty in the midday sun. S3739 Herne Hill was highlighted on an
information board beside the well-kept footpath that ran from a housing estate and
around the wooded hill it served. The
pillar itself was atop a small ledge beside the path, with a set of steps specially
erected next to it, and a handy bench for trigbaggers to catch their breath and
take in the view of the hillside field the pillar looked out on. I really love seeing the pampered and fussed-over
trigs. And S3970 Staple Hill was served
by a large free car park and accessed via a long walk through the dappled shade
of a well-maintained forest. This trigpoint
was also off the path, but was much easier to locate than Black Down, and was
adorned by a large, unpainted pebble. Pillars
like these are a genuine joy to bag, and make for a very pleasant countryside
walk that I might otherwise never have thought of taking. But sadly, none of these were my 700th.
S3744 Luppitt Common
is a damaged pillar with a plastic replacement cap, and is half-buried in a roadside
embankment, which would make it tricky to photograph at the best of times, even
without the thick gorse bush which overwhelms it on one side. Even though I managed to dig out most of the
Flush Bracket, I simply couldn’t get a photo of it that was either straight, in
focus, or showed its number. I wasn’t so
much parked up the road as pulled in to the side with my hazards on, and I was continually
worrying that one of the many, many speed-limit-ignoring drivers that hurtled
down the road mere inches from me wouldn’t be able to slow down in time to
avoid my trusty Ford Focus. And all the
while I was ankle deep in spiky thistles, trying to keep my balance on a narrow
and uneven verge, trying in vain to take a half-decent photo of this most
unaccommodating of trig pillars. It was,
without doubt, the Absolute Bugger Of The Day.
No part of bagging this pillar was in any way enjoyable. But because I had a failure earlier that
morning, Luppitt Common moved one place up my list to 700th
place. I attempted to keep my balance
long enough to record a video. The
traffic noise was incredible, and I fumbled my words. I tried again, but then couldn’t swing my
camera round to show the actual trig. I
changed my position and had a third attempt… and this one was mostly successful
– the traffic held off, I managed to show the pillar, I got my words out okay… and then right as I was finishing, some bugger
in a camper van comes haring past me at speed, and roars a hello to me out of his
window. Completely startled, I jumped a
mile high and let out a primal scream of frustration in return! Yes, I still have this footage; and no I’m
not showing it to anyone! How hard is it
to just record a simple piece to camera?
I bet this doesn’t happen to Rufus Gazelle. I got my breath back and completed it on the
fourth take, before heading quickly back to my car and getting the hell out of
there. I’m chuffed to have bagged my 700th
pillar, but I dearly wish absolutely any other trigpoint I found that day had
been that milestone instead.
There are about eight or nine thousand users registered on either Trigpointing UK or Harold Street, the two biggest websites for concrete chasers to log their trig bags on, and a lady on Facebook has started going to the trouble of pulling together a spreadsheet every three months which lists everyone on either site who has bagged 100 pillars or more. When she issued the latest update about a week after my trip to the West Country, I was very happy to see my total of 707 pillars made me the 125th most prolific trigpointer in the UK. I don’t take this hobby especially seriously – it’s really a thing for proper hikers and ramblers and mountaineers, not a fat indoor-type desk jockey like me – and to be that high up the list and among such excellent and worthy company… suddenly this ridiculous little pastime is turning into an achievement I’m genuinely proud of. But I do feel like a bit of a fraud being so high up that list. I think to make up for it and properly earn my place, my next pillar should be something spectacular, involving a lot of walking up a big hill.
I’m gonna go up the freakin’ Wrekin…
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