Dorset

Walk Details:
Date: 17/09/2005
Total ascent: 359m/ 1178ft
Total distance walked: 5.37 miles
Walk difficulty: 5.5/10
Enjoyment rating: 5.5/10
Best bits: Sea views from a surprising distance
Worst bits: Completely losing path to Lewesdon Hill
Walkers: Anth, Jim
Car Parking: There's a large layby on the B3164 at the foot of Pilsdon Pen, at grid ref ST 414 008

Top details (1):
Name: Lewesdon Hill
County top number: 98 of 204
Marilyn number: 22 of 1553
Grid reference: ST 43777 01164
Height above sea level: 279m/ 915ft
How nice was the top? 3.5/10
Views: 4/10
Description/Notes: The highest point of Dorset is an indeterminate point at the south-eastern end of the ridge of Lewesdon Hill. Lewesdon Hill is also a marilyn. Lewesdon Hill supplanted Pilsdon Pen as the county top of Dorset (and as the local marilyn) after re-surveying of the area showed it to be 2 metres higher.

Top details (2):
Name: Pilsdon Pen
County top number: 99 of 204
Grid reference: ST 41358 01147
Height above sea level: 277m/ 908ft
How nice was the top? 6.5/10
Views: 7/10
Description/Notes: The highest point of Pilsdon Pen is marked by a trig point. Pilsdon Pen used to be regarded as the highest point in Dorset, and as a marilyn, until re-surveying showed Lewesdon Hill to be 2 metres higher.

The Walk:

We were meant to be training up for the south west coast path, but the three marilyns and (especially) the two county tops we'd done today had barely made us puff. It was time for a proper walk. We decided to link together the current county top and marilyn (Lewesdon Hill) with the former one (Pilsdon Pen) in a circular walk that should include a decent amount of ascent.

We parked at the Pilsdon Pen car park. While we were putting on our boots, a car pulled in next to us. The couple inside didn’t jump out (or even open the windows) to enjoy the fresh air, nor pause to admire the views (which even from here, halway up the hill, were pretty good). No, instead they started reading newspapers and smoking. We wondered why they bothered coming here!

From the car park we could see the low, wooden point of Lewesdon Hill. Despite being halfway up Pilsdon Pen we had decided to scale Lewesdon Hill first, so as to avoid a demoralisingly long walk back to the car after the final hill. This meant the somewhat disconcerting experience of starting a walk to a county top by heading downhill; in this case on a minor road heading south off the southern slopes of Pilsdon Pen for about a mile. I don’t mind this sort of road walking so much – we only saw one car in that distance, and they pulled up to ask us if the mobile phone they’d found was ours! We had visions of them driving round all the roads of Dorset looking for the owner.

We were due to turn off the minor road to follow a long distance path called the Jubilee Trail, but on arrival at the turning found a piece of red string had been tied across the entrance. There were no signs up actually saying that the path was closed, and we wondered if the string was a gambit by the a farmer to discourage people from using the path across his/her land, without doing anything illegal like actually blocking the path. If that was the case, it wasn’t going to discourage us. We ducked under the string and continued on our way.

We were now on a track that looked like it got quite boggy in winter – reeds and other semi-aquatic plants lined the route, and it was already a bit muddy underfoot. Despite this, it wasn’t as chewed up as such paths normally are, and in places was even getting a little overgrown – we wondered if this was the impact of the string.

The tree-lined track soon emerged into a field where a meeting of paths on the map was indicated by a signpost. There was, however, no sign whatsoever of a path on the ground. Whether or not the string had discouraged anyone, it was clear that the Jubilee Trail was one of our less used paths – I wouldn’t like to try & through-walk it if it’s all like this. For the next few fields we had to navigate purely by squinting at the far side of the field and trying to spot where the next stile or signpost was.

The navigation difficulties got far worse in Higher Coombe Coppice. According to the map the path was supposed to enter the woods, cross a stream and emerge triumphantly at the far side. Not this path – we found a way into the woods ok, found a way across the tiny stream… but found the far side of the wood barricaded by barbed wire. We wandered up and down for some time before giving up and squeezing through one of the wider spaces between the wire strands. Outside the woods there were no paths at all, but the fields were grassed with no animals grazing and open gates leading between them and heading in the right direction. Progress was suddenly easy but we were worried about the lack of path or any signs for one – we checked the GPS, which said we were in the right place, and were a little puzzled.

Looking around for landmarks to navigate by bought us no really joy, until a few fields on we saw a long arm of woodland descending of of Lewesdon Hill, & worked our way round the edge of a ploughed field to reach a track running past Brimley Coombe Farm. Suddenly we were back in signpost-land, and quickly found a path turning left into the woods of Lewesdon Hill.

It was a short but very steep ascent, and warm in the calm between the trees; by the time we reached the crest of the hill we were red-faced and out of breath. After all the trouble we'd been through we were disappointed to find the hilltop covered with view-restricting woods. Fortunately the summit was narrow enough and the hillside steep enough that you could see out between the trees into the open air. Thus to the south we could see (for the fourth hill in succession today) the sea - not bad given that it was a good seven miles away. To the west was our next target, the curiously flat-topped Pilsdon Pen.

In actual fact Lewesdon Hill wasn't too bad a hill. It’s a short narrow curving ridge dropping away steeply on both sides; maybe the closest thing we’d seen in southern England to an arête! With trees all around though, there was no feeling of exposure whatsoever.

We had almost as much trouble with the path off of Lewesdon Hill as we’d had with the approach path. The path off of the north-west end of the short ridge was wide and clear at first, but soon petered out in tall undergrowth. We eventually forced our way through to a clearer area under trees surrounded by earth banks, which we thought might be antiquities of some sort. There was still no sign of a path, but after a brief bit of exploration we discovered a track over the earth bank to the right. This was Lewesdon Hill Lane, which we had been due to join anyway so it had all turned out alright in the end

Running down Lewesdon Hill Lane was our second long distance path of the day, the Wessex Ridgeway, which forms part of a chain of long distance paths stretching across the country from the Dorset coast to the Wash. This path suffered the opposite problem to the Jubilee Trail. Where the Jubilee Trail was underused to the point of invisibility, the Wessex Ridgeway had been turned into a muddy morass by motorbikes. It’s a real shame that a National Trail for walkers has been ruined in this way by other users. Perhaps a piece of red string would be useful here…

Soon we caught up with a couple of middle-aged walkers, and walked along with them for a while. They came from Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire, and were in the process of walking the Wessex Ridgeway in sections of two or three days at a time, and were due to complete it the next day. They were seasoned long distance walkers, having completed the majority of the south west coast path, but hadn’t really come across hill-baggers like us before and were interested in our “county top bagging”. Having crossed the B3164 Jim and I continued to follow the Wessex Ridgeway down Sheepwash Lane whilst our brief companions turned into their overnight campsite at Courtwood Farm.

Half a kilometre on the Wessex Ridgeway took a sharp left into the fields around Lower Newnham Farm. Once again the path vanished, and not for the first time in our lives we were glad we had an OS 1:25,000 scale map, so we could see which side of field boundaries we were meant to be, and which direction we were meant to take across the large pastoral fields. Whilst the path was signposted, we only saw signs sporadically, and it would be easy to wander off course without a map. As the path passed between the buildings of Lower Newnham Farm we did just that. I’m always nervous passing through faryards anyway – you feel very much like you’re invading the farmer’s privacy. In this case, the lack of clear signposting meant us taking a speculative right turn between buildings down what looked like the main route. A very loud dog soon warned us it wasn’t, and by returning from whence we came we eventually managed to find a small sign directing us out the far side of the farm. We left to the sound of the farmer chastising his dog for barking, which we felt was a little unfair given that the hound had merely been doing its job.

The flat-topped Pilsdon Pen now dominated the view ahead, its steep slopes daring us to climb them. We accepted the dare, but first of all stopped for some water and a bit of Kendal Mint Cake on a stile next to Specket Lane. We were delighted to discover some of those plants with pink flowers and exploding seed pods next to the road. The seed pods were perfectly ripe, and we set about flicking and squeezing them, trying to send a stream of high-velocity seeds at the other person. This ploy backfired on Jim, when an ant on one of his seed pods was fired into his own water bottle.

The map showed the path running straight up the hill, but it appeared to have been diverted slightly. After a much-easier-than-it-looked ascent through two fields the path suddenly turned right and led us along the hillside into the next field, then turned left and up through some slight woodland to emerge unscathed and happy on the flat plateau at the top. Steep on all sides and flat on top, Pilsdon Pen made the ideal site for a hill fort, and the iron age settlers lost no time in building one. Walking through into it, it was a bit of a whopper, encircled with double earth banks that were covered in pretty pink heather and yellow gorse. I found to my amusement that in the low evening sun we could stand on the inside bank and cast amusing shadows down on to the second earth bank.

The trig point was at the southern end of the fort, and Jim decided to climb onto it, rather amusingly getting stuck in a crawling position halfway up. The views were, like all the Dorset marilyns, stunning. To the south a jumble of low green hills stretched seven miles south to the deep blue of the English Channel. To the east the wooded point of Lewesdon Hill dominated the views. We could see for miles in all directions in the perfect weather.

A surprisingly short descent took us back to the car. As we approached the car park, an information panel (oddly sponsored by Barclays Bank) informed us that Pilsdon Pen was “traditionally” regarded as the highest point in Dorset. While this alluded to the fact that Lewesdon Hill was higher, it also hinted at our secret thoughts – we were wishing that Pilsdon Pen was actually taller than Lewesdon Hill because it was a much nicer hill.

After a cup of tea and a muffin we headed off home. We had planned to stop at another marilyn on the way back – maybe Long Knoll or Win Green – but it was getting too dark. Anyway, our tally of 4 county tops and 4 marilyns didn’t seem too bad a haul for a day. It was a long drive back up the A303, but we were cheered on the way by the sight of an enormous 20-foot high wicket that some innovative farmer had built out of straw bales to celebrate England’s victory in the Ashes.

Before today, we had been getting a bit hacked off with county top bagging, following a year spent trying to get all the low-lying (and thus often boring) county tops done and out of the way. However, the Dorset hills, whilst low-lying, had been superb, and fully restored our faith in the sport. Hurrah for the gorgeous county of Dorset!