Ashland Avatar: UK 2012 Issue 1

It's a Tuesday morning and Lesley is here to clean house and keep Dad company, wahoo! Not that I really mind keeping him company, he certainly is mentally sharp. Mind you I also don't mind that I am not responsible for the housekeeping either. There is definitely an age gap going on here though, don't think I can take too many more "Murder She Wrote" and crime dramas. Having said that I hope I'm doing as well at 89 as he is.

We are taking the opportunity to go for a walk, somewhere that would probably not be appropriate for Dad. Digging around on the bookcase we found a series of pamphlets on walks in Leicestershire, so will exploit this resource. One of the unique things about the UK is their footpaths. In England and Wales a public footpath is a path on which the public have a legally protected right to travel on foot despite the fact that most cross what in US terms would be private property. Those "no tresspassing" signs you see everywhere just don't cut it here. Ranchers and farmers beware, we are coming across yours fields and there is nothing you can do about it. As long as the path is travelled at least once in a year it remains legally accessible to the general public, and the ramblers association ensures that that happens. You often see a field that has been plowed or sown with a crop and sometimes going right through the center is a area that has not been disturbed . . . that's your footpath. I have a great picture from out last trip where we walked through a field of cattle and they just stand there looking at you, don't tell the cow tippers they're so docile.

10 a.m., blue skies and high clouds and the temperature is about 4 centigrade (another learning opportunity). The wind picks up as we set out but instead of saying it's bloody cold I'll call it fresh. We take the car over to Ratby (if you're a local it comes out "rat beh") and park in the library parking lot. Visions of Ashland, they are closed on Tuesdays!!

The following is the text of the walk with, hopefully some pictures inserted.

Walk 1: (3 miles), allow 1 1/2 hours

The walk begins at the Ratby Memorial (This is a war memorial and almost every village has one). Turn right on Burroughs Road. On your right you will see The Plough Inn.

Originally a farm, an inventory in the County Records for 1695, shows that ale was already being brewed here.

View across the fields

Stile

Turn diagonally right across two fields. The path then turns left to a narrow footbridge leading onto the farm track. If you have time to linger, you might spot watercress in the brook. In the spring there are lilac-pink flowers of Lady's Smock. Across to the left on the field slope you can see the ridge and furrows of the ancient strip field system. (I tried taking a picture but you really can't see anything. In "olde times" the serfs - is that politically correct- had a strip of land perphaps 10 feet wide that extended in this case up the hill. The furrows demarked the transition from on field to the next.)

Turn right and follow the track until it dips to the right. At this point carry straight ahead and climb the bank to a bridlegate.

Go through the gate and continue with the hedge on your right.

In the field across to the right is the ancient Bury Camp. This is an Iron Age Fort with a single entrance which dates from around 100 BC. (I defy you to identify anything here except a field which a bunch of cattle have plowed up.)

Head to the woodland. The first bit of the wood has examples of old coppice, probably dating from the 18th century. Then you emerge into a newly planted woodland.

BREAK FOR HISTORY LESSON

COPPICE: a thicket or dense growth of small trees or bushes, esp one regularly trimmed back to stumps so that a continual supply of small poles and firewood is obtained.

In the days of charcoal and iron production in England, most woods in ironmaking regions were managed as coppices, usually being cut on a cycle of about 16 years. In this way, fuel could be provided for that industry, in principle, forever. This was regulated by a statute of Henry VIII, which required woods to be enclosed after cutting (to prevent browsing by animals) and 12 standels (standards or mature uncut trees) to be left in each acre, to be grown into timber.

Black Thorn Hedge

Blue Bells in bloom

Continue with the ditch on your right and through a gate to reach a bridleway junction. Turn right over the bridge and the path skirts the edge of Ratby Burroughs.

The path continues along the top of the bank until you reach a farm track that borders the woodland. This bank and the adjacent ditch are remnants of a medieval deer enclosre. To the left you can see the farm buildings of Old Hays Farm. The present farmhouse from 1773, but the moat and original farmstead dates from the 13th Century and are a Class 1 Scheduled Monument, with the earliest reference being 1280.