Ackling Dyke and Gussage St Michael on circuit from Chettle

We were staying in a very pleasant cottage (The Malthouse) in the village of Shroton, confusingly also known as Iwerne Courtney. This is only a couple of miles from the Jubilee Trail at Stourpaine, but before walking in that area, we wanted to "fill the gap" between Harley Gap on Ackling Dyke (which we had reached last June) and Chettle (where we walked from with a heavily pregnant Helen and Tom on our first day on the Jubilee Trail, back in 2020). It didn't take us too long to drive to Chettle, and we were only the second car in the layby near the Village Hall at ST953134. We set off walking around 8.30am. It was a misty morning, so not great for photography and a little damp underfoot, but otherwise dry and not too warm, so good weather for walking.

Today, we headed past Chettle's village shop, which appears to be famous for its pies and has a clever and amusing way (shown above) of indicating the correct location of its post box. We turned right along a footpath which took us across rolling countryside with some misty views. After crossing a couple of minor roads, we were heading towards Minchington when, unexpectedly, I heard the sound of a stream ahead. Seconds later, we realised that not only was there a ford here (with a footpath over the water) that doesn't feature on the map, but also the stream was flowing right over the lane in the direction in which we wanted to go - with no footbridge in that direction. We thought we'd have to wade through, but fortunately the water at the edge of the road was sufficiently shallow to walk through without difficulty. 

A few hundred metres further on, the Jubilee Trail turned off the lane to head north, just by what appears to have once been two pretty thatched cottages, now joined in the middle to make a single dwelling. However,  this was the point where we were leaving the trail so as to create a circuit, so we continued straight ahead on the lane. Hardly any vehicles passed us, which was just as well because the lane was so narrow that it was a tight squeeze for anything larger than a car to pass even a pedestrian. We passed another interesting post box; this one  bore a notice telling potential users that birds were nesting here, and please could they use a different post box.

We took a right-hand fork just before Gussage St Andrew, and even had we walked through the hamlet, we'd not have realised that the chapel here (which would - we have it on good authority - have been locked in any case) contains rare 12th or 13th Century wall paintings. We crossed the A354 and continued on our narrow lane to Gussage St Michael. We'd had a distant view to the church here from the circuit that we completed when on the previous leg of the Jubilee Trail, and I'd wanted to visit it. On one level it turned out to be nothing special, and there was scaffolding around part of it, but we'll remember the visit for the friendliness of one of the church wardens, who let us in, and another member of the PCC who he'd been chatting to outside, and with whom we had another short conversation as we left the village. The church is quite small inside and, unsurprisingly for such a small village,  they don't have their own team of bellringers any more , but the Benefice has a team who will be visiting all the churches to ring the bells in celebration of the coronation of Charles III in a week's time.

After visiting the church we continued through Gussage St Michael and on towards Gussage All Saints. About halfway between the two, and now with views ahead to Gussage All Saints Church, which we had sat close to last year when eating our lunch), we reached Ackling Dyke.  Ackling Dyke was a Roman road which ran from Old Sarum (Salisbury) to Badbury Rings, and was built to impress! We climbed steadily for a couple of miles, with good views opening up behind us. Eventually we reached the woodland near Harley Gap which is where we'd left the Jubille Trail when we were here last year. Today, we turned left to rejoin the Jubilee Trail, watched by some cows in a field.

We were now on Gussage Down, with the trig. point of Gussage Hill visible to the left, a misty view down to lower land to the right, and occasional bumps betraying  ancient Earthworks. However it was a distinctly modern large lump fo concrete that provided a suitable seat on which to sit to eat our lunch.  The landscape included lots of the colour yellow, from oil-seed rape, dandelions and, here, fields with  a large number of cowslips. There were not many people about, but we were passed by a couple of cyclists close to our lunch spot.

We descended towards the A354, and the track the other side of the road was something of a disappointment; it was a straight tarmacked drive leading to Chapel Down Farm. A blue car was parked at the end as we began our walk along the drive, but soon came past us then parked near the Farm and only turned round to retrace its route when we had nearly reached the farm. More amusingly, a post van came down the drive, then back...then it came down the drive again, and back. We dried to think of all sorts of rational explanations for this behaviour, but the only plausible scenario that we were left with was that the postman had forgotten to deliver something.

Past Chapel Down Farm, our route turned right at a cross roads of tracks, and we were disappointed to discover that we remained on the one tarmacked track. However the walking was now more varied and more pleasant; we descended past  the thatched Sycamore Cottage to Dean, a pretty little place. After crossing a minor road, we followed on the left of the hedge boundary by a field of oil-seed rape. The yellow colour was attractive, but the smell of oil-seed rape sometimes makes me feel ill and today was no exception. After 400-500 metres we passed to the other side of the hedge and took a path diagonally across a crop field. We were passed by two cyclists coming the other way; rather them than me to be cycling on such a bumpy path and I'm not sure I approve of cycling across a crop field - but the cyclists seemed pleasant and thanked us for standing to one side to let them pass.

If the approach to Chapel Down Farm had been a disappointment, the next section was a very pleasant surprise.  At "Straight Lane" we turned left, onto a delightful path which ran along a narrow strip of woodland. We left the woodland behind and crossed farm land to emerge back by the two cottages that have been joined together to form one larger dwelling. As we did so, we clearly surprised a woman who was walking down the lane with a trolley. It turned out she was the owner of the cottages and she was incredibly friendly, even offering to show us her garden.  She inherited the cottages from a relative some years ago and at that time they were joined together by a single passageway; it is her who has had a kitchen built between them.

All that remained of today’s walk was for us to retrace our steps along the Jubilee Trail to Chettle. The views along the way were no longer quite so misty, but Chettle was rather busier, especially around the shop, where people were sitting outside eating the famous pies; we wouldn’t have wouldn’t have found a parking place quite so easily had we arrived now. We stopped for an apple, then drove first to the Udder Farm Shop for bits and pieces for our daughter’s birthday tomorrow, then into Shaftesbury where (after a walk to Gold Hill) we did the more mundane food shopping at Tesco.

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