LIFETIME of WALKS by DEREK HARWOOD

There were blackberries along most of the walk, especially around Bew Hill Farm. Bullocks stampeded in the field to the house near Church Honeybourne. The path was impassable in the woods alongside the railway after Lower Barn. We had to divert, passing Pebworth Fields Farm on the left. Den had two bootfulls of mud, his trousers were very muddy. There were lots of brambles across the path. I parked my car in Pebworth Village by the church, in the small car park behind the bus shelter. We visited the church, then walked south down the lane, past the cemetery to a bend where two footpaths continued south, one either side of the hedge. We chose the sunny side, where we soon found the first bushes of ripe blackberries. We stopped many times while passing Bew Hill Farm to eat the bountiful ripe blackberries. We continued straight ahead to a lane where the stile was overgrown with brambles, and turned right towards the railway. We crossed over the cattle grid just before the railway bridge into the lane, with a house at the other end of the field. We walked down a tarmac lane towards the house and soon noticed bullocks in the field, all looking at us. As we approached they eventually panicked, with one bullock breaking the fence to enter the adjacent field. The other bullocks followed shortly afterwards through a wide gap in the hedge, slightly further down the field. We continued in fields alongside the railway to a wood where the pond water level was very high, as high as the path, making the path very boggy. The matter came to a head where Den walked across a swamp almost up to his knees! Things got worse, so we decided to retrace our steps to the entrance to the wood and change our planned route. We soon decided we were on the wrong side of the hedge and ditch so Ken and Laz returned to the wood to find a small bridge, while Den and I carefully negotiated the steep-sided ditch to jump over the stream. Den and I waited for Ken and Laz to return, then we all continued into Broad Marston, passing an apple tree laden with fruit and a house with a narrow alleyway to Broad Marston Road. We took the lane opposite the priory, with very picturesque thatched houses. We turned left off the lane down an alleyway between houses and into a wood. We took a left turn into the wood towards Pebworth, through the gate at a cul de sac with a badger on one gatepost and a fox on the other. We turned left at Friday Street to the Masons' Arms, then right on Chapel Road towards School House, then left at Front Street, back to the car park. Another wonderful south Warwickshire/Worcestershire walk devised by Laz. Well done Laz.

Location Map: - www.streetmap.co.uk
Pebworth

Hazards: None.