Lincolnshire & Lindsey

Walk Details:
Date: 4/12/2005
Total ascent: 8m/ 26ft
Total distance walked: 0.84 miles
Walk difficulty: 1.5/10
Enjoyment rating: 2/10
Best bits: Gorgeous effect of early morning sun glowing through the clouds behind the radar tower
Worst bits: Parking the car in liquid mud
Walkers: Anth, Jim
Car Parking: You can squeeze onto the verge at TF 124 961, near the entrance to the radio tower – if you don’t mind parking in liquid mud!

Top details:
Name: The Wolds
County top number: 104 & 105 of 207
Marilyn number: 26 of 1553
Grid reference: TF 12111 96472
Height above sea level: 168m/ 551ft
How nice was the top? 2/10
Views: 2/10
Description/Notes: The highest point of the county of Lincolnshire and the former county of Lindsey is marked by a trig point. It’s also the highest point of the Lincolnshire Wolds, and a marilyn.

The Walk:

We’d come up to Lincoln for a long weekend with my wife Ali and her sister Fiona to see the self-proclaimed biggest Christmas market in Europe. We’d spent the previous couple of days exploring the market and the city. I’d loved the market on the Friday; enjoyed the atmosphere, been stunned by the amazing cathedral and drunk far too much mulled wine. But then Saturday came, and with it the coachloads of tour parties. The market was too busy to move, a one way system was in operation for pedestrians, and Jim and I lost interest in it altogether. The girls were returning to Lincoln today to continue to feed their voracious shopping addiction, whilst Jim and I borrowed Ali’s car and headed out to feed our voracious walking addiction. Mmm…handbagging versus hillbagging… tough choice!

Today was going to be a big day for us. It was possibly the last chance we had to beat our existing personal record of 10 county tops, but as it was close to being the shortest day of the year we felt that we would be rather pushed for time and light. Matters weren’t helped when I failed to set my alarm properly and overslept slightly (fortunately Jim knocked at mine & Al’s door and woke me up). As a result we didn’t get out until gone 7.30am, and had already lost some precious daylight by the time we arrived at our first top.

The road had climbed steeply up onto the Wolds, but on top they were just a huge flat plateau. We could see from the contours on the map that this wasn’t going to one of the most interesting tops we’d ever tackled. This was the case for most tops we’d visit today, and therefore we’d decided – in the interests of our record attempt – to keep our walks at each top to the bare minimum. We therefore parked as close as we could, to the south of the top outside the entrance to a large radar tower. Unfortunately the verge here had been turned into liquid mud – presumably by large vehicles turning into the radar installation (although just possibly by county top, marilyn and trig-baggers parking here!). We were going to have to treat Ali’s car to a car wash before we returned to it.

We walked back along the road a short way, hopped over a gate and walked up the east side of a long field. The trig point marking the county top and the top of the marilyn was marked as being within the northern field boundary. We walked along and must have presented a curious sight, squinting into the hedge. We soon saw that the trig was actually just into the next field to the north. We headed slightly west until we found a gap in the hedge that we could squeeze through, then walked back down the other side to the trig. A set of footprints in the edge of the ploughed field showed that another bagger had been here recently too! Popular top, this one…

Returning the way we’d come, we were treated to a stunning meteorological effect. The low morning sun had slipped behind a large, but thin cloud. The entire cloud had lit up as an enormous firey orange ball, against which the radar tower was nicely silhouetted. It’s things like this that make it all worthwhile. The main thing though was that the top had taken very little time and we were able to head swiftly off to the next top in our record attempt.