Very historic inn, the Crown at Bishops Waltham. The beams sag, and the supporting posts are so old and worm-eaten that I feared for my safety until I realized that the real work was being done by later partitioning walls, and that the wooden posts had been retired, as it were.
One of Crown’s famous guests was Admiral Villeneuve, who commanded the French fleet at the Battle of Waterloo. He was among 200 French prisoners who were sent to Bishops Waltham after the French defeat. The bedrooms are named after ships in the fleet. I was in the Intrépide, a ship I remember from reading Patric O’Brian.
After my sorry experience of road walking, I did today what I should have done yesterday: I consulted the British Pilgrimage Trust (a valuable source for English pilgrimages) for information about the Pilgrim’s Trail — Winchester to Portsmouth. There I found a map of the trail which could very conveniently be loaded onto Google Maps on my phone.
The app led me on a little side road out of town where I was horrified to see the sidewalk disappearing in front of me, without even a verge I could leap onto to escape oncoming cars. But then to my left I noticed the sign “Public Footpath”. And on the post was a waymarker: Hampshire Millenium Pilgrim’s Trail. And thither my app led me.
The path stretched across an open field with majestic oaks silhouetted against the sky. Dogs were running wild, their masters and mistresses lagging behind. Dog owners are always willing to pass the time of day. “It’s too hot,” said one, surprisingly for it was only about ten degrees. But then she was English.
Found all over England, these public footpaths, and the less common bridle ways, are ancient paths connecting villages and hamlets, and remain legal rights of way, providing they are used. Local ramblers’ societies diligently walk them to keep them open. When they have fallen into disuse and cross a field, farmers have been known to keep a bull in the paddock to discourage walkers. Some of the footpaths I saw today were well trodden; others were overgrown and difficult to pass.
It would have been impossible to follow the trail without the app. Indicating only the beginnings of footpaths, the waymarkers were not ubiquitous like the yellow arrow. And in the forest of Bere, trails spun off in every direction, unsignposted.
In this forest, the former plain-language editor in me was delighted to see a sign in the plainest of English.
Clean up your dog’s poo.
Active voice, 2nd person. Short and simple words. A short and simple sentence. So different from one I remember in Victoria:
Excrement deposited by your dog must be removed.
My idyllic ramble came to an end at the little village of Southwick, where the allied commanders had developed their plans for D Day. After that it was serious road walking along the bitumen when I could, and hopping on to the verge to escape the traffic when I couldn’t. I developed a dance step: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, step up, step down, one, two, three, four, etc.
Little need be said about the last ten kilometres through the suburbs of Portsmouth and on to the ferry port, a steady plod along city streets, navigating with difficulty various underpasses to avoid motorways. The pedestrian does not come first in Portsmouth.
Tomorrow morning I disembark in the little village of Ouistreham, where we spent a year in the nineteen eighties.
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