Martin Down to Garston Wood and return

We were on holiday further west in Dorset, mostly walking on the Jubilee Trail, but today was our daughter’s birthday, so we’d met up with her and other family members at Cranborne Manor Gardens (fortuitously open on Wednesdays) this morning, so it seemed an ideal opportunity to do this short walk. We’ve visited Garston Wood RSPB Reserve before at this time of year and walked along the “Shire Rack” to the north of the Reserve;  it is definitely the time to be here to see the bluebells and wild garlic at their best (though today, for some reason the wild garlic was more impressive than the bluebells). The weather had been warm and sunny all week and – and amazingly for April – today was a little warmer than ideal for walking.

It was about midday by the time we'd parked at the Martin Down car park at SU036202, which we have used a few times previously. However, we'd had a snack at the Cranborne Garden Centre, so we weren't in a rush for lunch. We crossed the A354 and took the track on the other side, passing the place where we'd had lunch with our grandson after walking from Broad Chalke. On that walk we had approached along the edge of the wood, but today we kept straight ahead, into the woodland. 

This wood didn't have bluebells or wild garlic, which was a bit disappointing, and there was also less shade than I'd expected. However, from the point near "Kat's Grave" where we left the wood, passing a group of male walkers who had stopped to one side of the track, our onward track had hedges on either side; it was shady and attractive. Chettle Mead Copse was an absolute mass of wild garlic; delightful! We turned left on a path that meandered through the Copse.

The way out of Chettle Mead Copse was not as shown in the map.  The map implies that you turn left in the wood then emerge and continue straight ahead on the left hand side of a field boundary, but we actually left the wood and only then turned left, before heading to the right on the right hand side of the field boundary. A group of six deer stood very still, partly concealed by the crop, before moving on and then stopping again. 

Near Cobley Farm (as marked on the OS map) there was another section which was not quite as shown on the map. The map shows the path going into a wood before turning left and walking near the edge of it; however, to go into the wood, we'd have gone into someone's garden, so we turned left before the wood and following alongside it. We reached a road and took another track almost (but not quite) straight across. We walked across open countryside, sometimes on grassy paths and sometimes, especially around West Woodyates Manor, on a much more definite track, passing cottages.

We were now heading almost due west, and after passing alongside another wood (past "Horse Leys Pit (dis)" we reached the road we've used previously to access Garston Wood and a short distance to the left we reached the car park (SU004195) and entered Garston Wood, which is marked on the map as Pribdean Wood, We'd been looking for a while for somewhere to stop for something to eat and to change my socks. We passed a man sitting on a folding chair, but we had not been sufficiently organised to bring chairs with us!!! Instead we found a pleasant spot to sit on the ground to eat our nuts and fruit. Then we retraced our steps to the Martin Down car park. It would have been nice if there had been an ice cream van here, but there wasn't! Instead we drove back to our cottage.