Nine Barrow Down

Walk Details:
Date: 17/09/2005
Total ascent: 90m/ 295ft
Total distance walked: 1.86 miles
Walk difficulty: 3/10
Enjoyment rating: 6/10
Best bits: Amazing panoramic sea views
Worst bits: Sad sight of a dead trig point
Walkers: Anth, Jim
Car Parking: We parked in the lay-by on the B3351 at SZ 005 818

Top details:
Name: Nine Barrow Down
Marilyn number: 19 of 1553
Grid reference: SZ 00806 81195
Height above sea level: 199m/ 653ft
How nice was the top? 3/10
Views: 7.5/10
Description/Notes: The highest point of Nine Barrow Down is an indeterminate point in a field

The Walk:

To be quite honest, Bournemouth and Poole county tops had not really given us the hill training that we felt we needed before tackling the South West Coast Path later in the month. It was time to hit the Dorset marilyns.

First up was Nine Barrow Down, at the far eastern end of the long ridge that traverses the Isle of Purbeck. Passing the impressively sited but otherwise fairly banal ruins of Corfe Castle on the way (Jim was more impressed with a nearby viaduct), we ended up parked in a lay-by at the foot of our target. The lay-by was clearly positioned there for the spectacular view it afforded across Poole Harbour. I wound up Jim by deliberately parking behind a holly bush in the one space in the lay-by without a view. I mollified his resultant animosity by pointing out that the views would undoubtedly be better from the top of the down.

The B3351 is a busy road and we didn't much enjoy walking a couple of hundred yards eastward along it to reach the nearest footpath up the down (confusing expression that!). Once on the footpath, though, it was easy walking first on a well-worn track between rough pasture, and then onto a narrower path amongst airy woodland.

In the woods, Jim started to exalt his socks. Not an obvious topic for conversation one might think, but he had just bought a pair of "1,000 mile socks" which were guaranteed to be blister-free for a year. He seemed to be rather proud of them, and the conversation concluded with the somewhat blasphemous proclamation: "Some people praise the sun, others believe in God. I have faith in my socks".

Soon emerging from the woods, the path dog-legged up the hill to join the path along the ridge. Now we're not fans of dogs, and are happy to avoid their legs, so we invented our own more direct route towards the summit. This did involve crossing a couple of field boundaries, but the farmer had helpfully put wooden hurdles at the most obvious crossing points - it almost seemed like (s)he wanted walkers to go that route. Anyway, we soon found ourselves walking along the Purbeck Way, running just to the south of the crest of the ridge as it rose to peak at Nine Barrow Down.

We knew that the summit trig point marked on the map must be somewhere in the field rising gently to our left, but our attention was instead grabbed by the view emerging ahead and to our right. On this clear morning you could see for miles, and couldn't decide whether to look at the stunning sweep of Swanage Bay below us, or ahead past Ballard Down to the Needles and the Isle of Wight.

We still had our main task to complete though, but the Purbeck Way was descending off the down before we found a gate into the field containing the summit. The gate was guarded by an old fellow, and so we had to pretend to stand around and admire the view some more (not much pretending was required). It was during this enforced halt that I noticed a square concrete structure in the field to our right, and wondered whether it was the remains of a pillbox or another defensive structure. Jim, however, immediately spotted it for what it was - a sadly defunct and destroyed trig point (at grid ref SZ 00846 81103).

We went into the field to pay our last respects. It was possibly the only time we'd be able to climb onto the bottom of a trig point, but it gave no joy. The sight of one of these guardians of the British landscape just tossed carelessly aside like this was heartrending. It was at least as depressing as the one we'd seen vandalised on Werfa a sad sign of the lack of respect for tradition and our landscape that pervades Britain today. Surely it is high time that these starkly beautiful landmarks with their haunting silhouettes were afforded some sort of official protection?

The venerable chap had now left and we were able to nip over a gate into the summit field. It was only a short stroll to the hilltop, where the once mighty trig point had been superseded by that more modern and distressingly common piece of hilltop clutter, the radio mast. Just a tiny portable one here, but we'd much rather have had the trig.

Our sense of loss was ameliorated somewhat by the astonishing panorama - this tiny hill packed views to beat those from hills four times its size, and offered an impressive endorsement for Alan Dawson's championship of relative as opposed to absolute height - hurrah for the marilyns! With open water visible in three directions, and our next marilyn (Swyre Head) to the west, it was simply magnificent, and we span on the spot for a while allowing our eyes to drink it all in. If only the trig point was still there though…

Using our short cut, it didn't actually take along to return to the car, but with Jim still going on about his socks it seemed much longer. An ice cream van had arrived at the now packed layby, but we felt it was a bit too early in the day and we had too many hills to bag…