Willand

Visiting Ali's mum again in Willand, Devon and fighting a man-cold. The sort that creates possibly literally litres of phlegm which still lingers a week on. With that and dreary weather I did less barefoot running than other times. My first included part of my favourite water meadows - one can hardly go to Willand and miss this, winter or man-cold or not.

First run 6.95 miles

The second included a bit of detective work to prepare for possible future runs should I return in warmer weather.

Second run 8.1 miles

Sampford Peverell footpaths

There are some interesting looking cross-country foot paths north of Sampford Peverell (a quaint name) which I want to explore. The A361 "North Devon link road" forms a barrier too dangerous to cross on foot, so I wondered how the marked footpaths managed it. Because it was drizzling and cold the whole time, and my body was not 100% either, I missed the possible crossing (a tunnel?) at the green arrow, but made it along the Grand Western Canal tow-path to the red arrow where I was pleased to see they had included a footpath by the side of the A361 as it crosses the canal.

I took a few photos which I relegate to the end of this post.

The third run took me across the Irish Sea with my S5 smart. With former GPS devices I have owned I have found it difficult to maintain a GPS fix without putting the device as close to the window as possible. With the S5 I was pleased to see it kept tracking even when I had the device on my lap from which position I could read an e-book. A rather satisfying short story Second Variety by Philip Dick. And strictly (or "properly" if you are a Swallow and Amazon addict) I was not running barefoot this time.

Tracking all the way

Maximum speed 381.64 mph, maximum altitude 7105m, total distance 225 miles. Rather better than my usual runs.

Grand Western Canal

First light (as far as my cameras was concerned) on the Grand Western Canal tow-path. I'm running on the verge because the path itself it too gritty. But the verge must have included some stinging nettles if my feet told me correctly later in the day. Note the dog walker in the distance. The walker is brandishing a flash-light, no surprise - strange that most folk can't see in the half light! But the dog has a harness with lights on it! An excellent idea.

Sampford Peverell

more canal

more Sampford

I like these lighting effects...

First bus (I guess) leaving Sampford

Goods train through Tiverton Parkway station

Path of former Culm Valley light railway

My last photo comes with a question should P or J be reading this. Doubtless they will recognise the location, close as it is to where they live. From the main road the former railway route is nicely paved with that solid white line down the middle until you get here. The path continues through brambles but soon becomes impassable to bare feet, and yet street lamps continue along it. My question is - does it now lead anywhere, or just come to a full stop at the boundary of this housing estate?

Culmstock Beacon

Track #3 - Culmstock Beacon - 23.07km

Last year I talked about doing this route and, with no engagements bar breakfast before the 11am service at St Mary's and with my cold in abeyance, I set off shortly after 0600 for my last barefoot run in this trio, armed with android OS map, Forerunner 15 and cell-phone. My previous estimate had been 15 miles - in fact I had to make a slight detour at the end to top 14 miles. The average speed was 4.85 mph including stops, with altitude from 68m along the river to 250m at the beacon. Total duration just short of 3 hours.

Culm water meadows

Through Uffculme water meadows

I'm enjoying reading The Old Ways by Robert MacFarlane who writes "Footpaths are mundane in the best sense of sustained by use, they constitute a labyrinth of liberty in a privatized world of barbed wire and gates, CCTV  cameras and 'No Trespassing' signs. It is one of the significant differences between land use in Britain and in America that this labyrinth should exist. Americans have long envied the British system of footpaths and the freedoms it offers, as I in turn envy the Scandinavian customary right of Allemansratten (`Everyman's right'). This convention - born of a region that did not pass through centuries of feudalism, and therefore has no inherited deference to a landowning class - allows a citizen to walk anywhere on uncultivated land provided that he or she cause no harm; to light fires; to sleep anywhere beyond the curtilage of a dwelling; to gather flowers, nuts and berries; and to swim in any watercourse (rights to which the newly enlightened access laws of Scotland increasingly approximate)." and later quotes Nan Shepherd who in 1945 wrote "with a burn that must be forded: once my shoes were off, I am loathe to put them on again. If there are grassy flats beside my burn, I walk on over them, rejoicing in the feel of the grass to my feet; and when the grass gives way to heather, I walk on still. Dried mud flats, sun-warmed, have a delicious touch, cushioned and smooth; so has long grass at morning, hot in the sun, but still cool and wet when the foot sinks into it, like food melting to a new flavour in the mouth." which sentiment both Robert and I heartily agree with. And so I reveled once again in running through the Culm water meadows

Culm water meadows

These meadows I had to share with a surprising number of cows. For caution's sake I slowed down so as not to frighten them and made it through without being trampled on.

Hunkin Wood to Culmstock

You can clearly see the path of the long past Culm valley railway in the map above. My track in red crosses it at the picture below where I saw the most tangible evidence of the railway. Otherwise all I saw was faint suggestions of the course in the field boundaries and vegetation.

Culm valley railway bridge

Aberdeen Angus? as I approached Culmstock

The quaint road bridge at Culmstock

Strange place to see a totem pole

Water meadows past Culmstock, destination in view

Having crossed the river, the path I follow only faintly embosses the grass

from Culmstock to the beacon

The path is definitely ascending as I reach Pitt Farm which turns out to be perhaps the dirtiest farm I have encountered. Where my path turned northwards a tractor had been deposited across the track doubtless to help channel the cows to their morning milking. I wondered what colour the milk would be: they had left a veritable river of cow-muck through which I had to pick my way. Thankfully wet grass is wonderful for washing one's feet!

I can assure you it was worse than it looks!

Rights of way are maintained so well in England

Half way up

Here be boggy ground - thankfully I had no shoes

Mission accomplished!

Views from the top

Willand is out there somewhere

Inside the beacon

Here's how it worked

Neighbouring beacons

When one has no flask of tea, no sandwich or Crunchie bar, there's not much else to do once one has taken a zillion photos to prove the feat. To lay down and rest would be disaster - I'd probably never get up again! So I started back cautiously by following the track north for while.

Riot of gorse and heather

And did plain boring minor-roads all the way home. But I did meet a horse and its rider and was able to out-run it.

1952

It was the year Queen Elizabeth II ascended the throne (the coronation was the following year). The year the Big Bang theory was first proposed. It was not long after the transistor was invented, the precursor to all modern electronics. The first roll-on deoderant. And it was the year I was born.

Our family's coronation display

Our old van kitted up for the procession

How I loved that old van. It was purchased for building work, but every summer my parents would clean it out and my father would build beds and fold up tables and it would take us to our holiday destination and house us whilst there. There was a shiny round button on the floor, about an inch in diameter, that operated the starter motor. It had a removable skylight and we children would stand on a chair with our heads out of the skylight whilst my father drove. Such activity would be classed as horribly dangerous now-a-days. But we did not die. Rather, we enjoyed it oh, so much. I remember a standard meal of tinned ham, tinned peas and tinned potatoes. And tea with evaporated milk in. At night whilst my father was still driving, I remember lying in bed watching, out of the rear windows, the lights of passing cars. And sitting on the tailgate whilst my mother would tell Isobelle and Dizzibelle stories. They lived with their father Lord Longnose in a castle in the centre of a dark forest. Doubtless they had a mother too but I cannot remember her name.

They say that's me beside my sister

So what, you say?  For me I don't remember much before 1952 but everything from that time on seems to me to be "recent". In one sense I do not feel any different to how I was back then. Although tonight we had some outside games for the youngsters - I run several times a week so I figured I would try my luck running a 100 metres with the others. I found it slightly distressing that I came in last and huffing and puffing to boot.

Why am I saying all this? Because I am a siderodromomaniac and thus noticed evidence of the two branch railways haling from Willand where I was staying for a few days. The second map below probably postdates my birth and the third pre-dates it. But even the second map is so different to how Willand is today. There are of course traces of the branch lines but precious little is left.

Willand today, course of disused railways highlighted in green

Tiverton Junction, Ordnance Survey 1:63,360 series

Tiverton Junction 6" to the mile

The railway to the west was the GWR broad-gauge branch to Tiverton that I mentioned recently. At the Tiverton end it joined the Exe valley railway, but today the A396 inner bypass follows and thus obliterates the course of the railway.  You have to look very hard to see any evidence "on the ground".  And yet Beeching closed the branch line to passenger traffic only in 1964 and goods traffic continued until 1967. I was the grand old age of 15 then - hardly any time ago - and yet physical evidence suggests it was eons ago.

Tiverton today, path of railways highlighted in green

Tiverton soon after I was born

Historic Tiverton

The line to the west of Willand was the Culm Valley Light Railway terminating at Hemyock. It was a financial disaster from the start and its only saving grace was the United Dairies factory at Hemyock. The last passenger service was in 1963 but the dairy continued using it until October 1975. We were married in October 1975 and it seems but yesterday. We may have aged a bit and yet virtually nothing remains of the railway - a short "railway footpath" in Uffculme is perhaps the most tangible.

Uffculme today, course of railway highlighted in green

Uffculme sometime after I was born

Uffculme probably before I was born

and on through Culmstock...

...to the end of the line at Hemyock