Dorset Wildlife Trust project: Hibbitt Woods

 Storm Ingrid positioned herself off the coast of Cornwall, hunkered down and unleashed rain and wind across South West England. Maybe not an obvious day then to begin my Dorset Wildlife Trust (DWT) project, but an inclement day would be perfect for a muddy boots experience. Hibbitt Woods, just into Dorset,  a few miles south of Yeovil, was to be my destination, accompanied by my wife, with the hope of seeing a bullfinch in our mind as a target species.

 

 

I've been getting it wrong for weeks by calling this 7 hectare (22 acre) reserve Hibbitt's Wood. I'm not entirely sure why it is called Hibbitt Woods as this reserve comprises an ancient wood and meadow (known as South Clarkham Copse) lying to the south of a quiet lane to Halstock and  two parcels of woodland (North Clarkham Copse and Harper's Hill Copse) now merged into one wood to the north, on the opposite side of the lane. Who or what Hibbitt was shall remain a mystery.

 

  

Wet doesnt really do justice to our time here. To be fair the rain had eased from torrential to steady, but underfoot on entering the reserve, it was a sodden squelchy affair. Wellingtons were a necessity, yet even on this challenging winter's day I realised this was a special and uplifting place. A cursory glance as we crossed over the small meadow revealed a stand of mostly oak and ash with beech, hazel, blackthorn and holly, the latter providing an extensive understory.

 

 

 From the meadow you enter the wood via a gate and then cross a bridge over a small stream. Just a few footsteps but you enter another world. 

 

 

 Above us the roar of Storm Ingrid made herself known through the bare branches heralding, even on a dark midwinter day with the rain falling, a green oasis. Everywhere there was moss, over the ground, up tree trunks, dangling off branches, stumps and fallen trees. The colour was startling.

 

 

 

The rain added an extra dimension to this habitat. At one tree I watched rivulets of water trickling down through the luxuriant moss, drip upon drip. You could hear it. I posted a clip of it on my Instagram page. 

 

Although open access we kept to the single route around the wood. There was little evidence of other visitors, meaning this place felt unobserved, a small remnant of ancient woodland in a very rural area quietly just getting on with life.

 

  

 

Although for one unlucky woodpigeon life was cut short under the sparrowhawk gaze. Later we saw this predator darting across the meadow where numerous smaller birds flitted through the branches to make their escape.

 

 

 Of course this reserve is not unmanaged but from the couple of hours we spent here I'd suggest DWT are performing a light touch strategy allowing the woodland to exist at nature's, not humans', seasonal timeframe. The reserve is home to the silver washed fritillary butterfly which prefers sunny rides or open woodland edge habitats. Hazel coppicing was in evidence and with selective felling the wood felt open, helped of course by the bareness of winter. 

 

 

 

 Dead wood trees stood in places, fallen trees  littered the ground, slowly decomposing nutrients back to the soil. And everywhere there was ivy which I always enjoy seeing as it spreads over stumps or up trunks, ivy, like bramble, is such an important wildlife resource. 

 

 

 Also in evidence were Parmotrema spp. lichen, I'm no expert in identifying to species level. It was everywhere even happily growing it seemed on fallen branches, a sure sign of an undisturbed habitat with a clean atmosphere.

 

 

Doing my research before visiting, the best time to visit this reserve is in spring. Wild daffodil and bluebell provide a spectacular show I read. But even in deep midwinter life is returning. It is still early in the year and remarkably I only found one violet, host plant to the above mentioned butterfly, however lesser celendine, arum, bluebell and primrose were all showing signs of growth. A flash of pristine emerald amongst the fallen leaves.

 

  

 

That wasn't the only splash of colour on the woodland floor, these scarlet caps, or scarlet elf cups  Sarcoscypha coccinea were common across the reserve, even on the path, another lovely sign of an undisturbed habitat. 

 

 

The more we looked the more we found. A sudden movement showed a mouse, unidentified, as it scurried along next to this fallen branch and out of sight. Taking a closer look the decaying branch provided a well used 'tunnel' for safe passage. Out of the corner of my eye I then saw it exit and scamper off a few feet away.

 

  

 

Further on I noticed this collection of discarded acorns and nuts. The site of a grey squirrel feeding area I suggest, the discards accumulated on the floor over months of feeding on a branch above, or maybe feeding on the ground. The tree in question was thick with ivy all the way up to the canopy. How I'd love to explore what was lurking in there, though sadly my tree climbing days are long gone.

 

 

 

I've not mentioned birds much. In the rush to get out today I'd forgotten my binoculars, normally kept in the car but now languishing at home. Instead I had to rely on my hearing which revealed the woodland was full of song. Great, blue and coal tit were frequent. A jay, chaffinch, great spotted woodpecker, blackbird and robin less so. Woodpigeon flapped overhead. Sadly no bullfinch though, as we sploshed our way through the mud, they'd have heard us long before we'd seen them.

 

  

 

By now we'd been exploring for well over an hour. To be honest I'd have liked to stay longer but the weather was turning against us as was the light. A decision was made not to visit the other woodland to the north of the lane but to return here in the spring. There are two other DWT sites close by, we'll make a day of it on a sunny March or April day maybe. But for now we ended our visit exploring the meadow, which was absolutely waterlogged. I read that adder's tongue fern is found here, though I couldnt see any emerging today. That can wait for our next visit. 

 

 

So I'm off the blocks so to speak. I really enjoyed this reserve, if the remaining reserves to visit sre as good as this I'm in for a wonderful year.

 Back at the car while drying off with a flask of tea we discussed how important these lesser known and  isolated reserves are. The large honeypot reserves provide an excellent experience to the visitor but these hard to find reserves, like Hibbitt Woods, are the real gems of the natural world for me. Maybe on a drier day though. 

 

 

Date of visit : 24th January 2026, mid day to early afternoon.

 

Species encountered :  Great spotted woodpecker, great tit, blue tit, coal tit, robin, jay, long tailed tit, woodpigeon, chaffinch, sparrowhawk, carrion crow, blackbird. Primula spp, ivy, soft rush, male fern, harts tongue fern, arum, lichen, moss, lesser celendine, violet, bluebell, holly, hazel, ash, oak, scarlet elf cup, and not forgetting that mouse.

 

 And just as we were about to leave? I heard a bullfinch calling from a cottage garden we'd parked next to. I couldn't locate it without staring into their property, but that unmistakable soft call ticked off our target species for the day. 

Dorset Wildlife Trust project; its all in the planning

These short January days are perfect for venturing outside. I do a lot more walking these days and last Monday spent a fabulous three hours trudging through a muddy Steart Marsh which, while having my lunch sitting on a bench, afforded one of the best views I've ever had of a Cetti's warbler.

I was alerted to it by at least two wrens' erupting their warning calls continuously, and within the same clump of reeds a Cetti's called. At this point the birds, about twenty feet away, were hidden but after about five minutes of watching, three wrens appeared and, taking positions at the base of the reeds, began calling ferociously. Then the Cetti's appeared, balanced on a single reed stem just below the 'feather' about two to three feet above the wrens, where it returned their chorus of displeasure with its own explosive call. The wrens replied, the Cetti's replied. I'd inadvertently stumbled across an avian Ministry of Sound territorial bust-up. The three wrens were not happy and were giving it loud. It gave me about two or three minutes to observe the Cetti's warbler out in the open. I've seen Cetti's warblers many times but usually the briefest of views before disappearing. This one was in full view. Through my binoculars in some ways it reminded me of a bulky Dartford warbler with the tail of, yes, a wren. Then, as quickly as it had begun the Cetti's flew off, the wrens dispersed and I was left in silence, apart from a quartering marsh harrier in the distance. 

Somewhere in this view are three wrens and a Cetti's warbler

But I digress. These short days also allow stay-at-home time for research and planning of my Dorset Wildlife Trust (DWT) reserve visits. On Thursday it never really got light due to heavy rain and thick cloud, so I ventured to our local library to print off my notes, taken from the DWT website, of the near fifty reserves.

 

 

 

I don't have a printer at home but decided for this project I'd go old school, partly as some of these reserves will have patchy mobile coverage. Taking an OS map and those printed notes (along with my flask of ginger beer) should avoid any technological unpleasantness.

 

Researching and then printing these notes and re-reading them in the file has been fascinating. The big DWT reserves I know of, Brownsea Island, Kingcombe Meadows and Kimmeridge for example, will reliably deliver. However I'm now more interested in and wish to focus on the many small reserves in the DWT portfolio. I've noted a few and many are just a few fields or some remnant habitat and under 10 hectares.

 

Broadoak Orchard,  a community orchard with bullfinch and glow worms. Girdlers Coppice, an ancient oak woodland with dormice, spotted flycatcher and silver washed fritillary. Hibbitts Wood, good for orchids in the adjacent meadow. Budgens Meadow, just 2 hectares but a wildflower and invertebrate hotspot. Troublefield, tucked behind Bournemouth airport and good for dragonflies. Kings Barrow Quarries on Portland, chalkhill blue and silver-studded blue, Peascombe, a steep sided hill with stream, home to marsh tit and otter (though I'll not see the latter) and last but not least in this brief selection Mill Ham Island (rarely visited I read) home to willow warbler, banded damoiselle and yes you guessed it, otter.

 

My preliminary research is complete. Pages printed, the days are lengthening, birds are becoming vocal, the time has come to venture out. I wonder which reserve on my list will be awarded the first visit?

New Year, New Project in Dorset?

Of all the counties in England Dorset ranks as my absolute favourite. From childhood holidays in the 1970's, through to a solo discovery of both myself and the joys of west Dorset in my teens, to moving south with work in 1993 thus allowing day trips, to my annual visits to Eggardon Hill for over forty years, I have never tried of being in Hardy's Wessex. In fact I vividly recall the intense emotions brought to bare of reading Far From The Madding Crowd in a cottage at Toller Porcorum. On that hot summer's day I can photographically picture the eighteen year old me. I sat in an oversized chair for hour upon hour, feet resting on the sill of a huge sash window, itself fully open to the elemental zephyrs of heat, heavy air, intense sunshine and stridulating insects. I read and read and read, lost in the timeshift of that rural story. Lifting my head for a moment, I observed the stream in the garden, beyond which an undulating chalk landscape stretched into the hazy distance. An awakening locked into my soul possessing emotions I had hitherto not experienced. I was in Dorset. I was being called home.

 It was an extraordinary emotional experience. But why? Why has Dorset crept into my very DNA? I can't say. Northumberland, County Durham, North Yorkshire or the Lake District should be a shoe-in for my primary county. I'm reading a book by Kathryn Aalto at the moment in which she states the golden age in childhood for discovery and its influence on later life, as being between the ages of four and 8. Those northern counties were a huge part of my early childhood. My first encounter with Dorset was in 1975, aged 11. I spent a lot of my own golden age in Essex too. I like Essex but it doesn't call me as Dorset does. Dorset it is then.

 All of this is somewhat of a lingering curtain-raiser to the germ of an idea I have been mulling over for a few months. I like a project to focus on and with this being New Year's Day a new quest for my energies seems pertinent. This is not the unleashing of a New Year Resolution, those annual flim-flams of good intentions have their place, however most if not all, wilt and die before the first aconites appear. No, this is a grand-sounding project, the goal of which however, is more pedestrian. Namely to visit every Dorset Wildlife Trust (DWT) nature reserve in 2026, and write up those visits here on the blog.

 Having been a member of the Dorset Wildlife Trust since Thomas Hardy was in articles, my knowledge of the near fifty or so sites should have been exceptional. Yet as I began to mull this idea over in September I realised I knew virtually nothing other than at a few hotspot reserves.  All that is, I hope, about to change. Leafing through a recent DWT magazine I noted their reserves map languishing within. It was but that of a moment to cut the map out of the magazine, section Dorset into four zones (north, south, east and west) and paste it into my schedule book - (formerly my sound recording schedule book, now repurposed).

 

 

I have also made a list of the reserves in these zones. All I need now are my boots, binoculars, a stout pair of baggy shorts, a pen, flask of ginger beer, a round of ham sandwches, my car of course (public transport would be fun but looks tricky) and if the sun shines my hat or should the rain fall my brolly. Travel light, travel swift.

 

 

 And that is pretty much it. My plan, if there is one, is to not have a plan. Common sense would suggest visiting some reserves during their sweet spot of wildlife activity. Yet many DWT reserved seem to be year round exemplars. What I feel does give the project a light frisson of a quest is to maybe search for each keystone species specific to that reserve, be that animal, vegetable or mineral during my visit. I'll research these nearer my arrival. Clusters of reserves I shall attempt to visit in one go, some outliers however will be a special endeavour.

 

At approximately one nature reserve a week will this be feasible? I hope so. Having retired in 2025 time has opened up its stall and thrown me its slippers of availability. Watch this space, what larks, what adventures are in store.

 

Oh and Happy New Year. 

For a Fistful of Raindrops

In A Fistful of Dollars, the arrival of a stranger brings with it six-shooter law to the township of San Miguel. Ultimately the dire situation the town found itself in, sandwiched between a feud between two families, is resolved through a gun battle in the parched dusty windblown town square before the 'man with no name' (played by Clint Eastwood in his first role) rides out of town, never to return.

You can feel the heat in this classic and well loved Spaghetti Western. Sweat drips off the foreheads of the main players, the sunlight blindingly intense, the sky is the deepest of blue, dust billows everywhere, energy sapping heat devoid of all rain. 

I was born in 1964. A Fistful of Dollars was released in 1964 and this week the Scottish Environment Protection Agency announced it had had its driest year since 1964. Even in a normally wet Scotland farmers are having to provide water to stock. I don't think there is any connection between these three, or is there?

In this part of Somerset, and across the whole of southern England, this year has been dry, exceptionally dry and warm. I've known dry summers, I've known hot periods. I well remember holidaying in Bournemouth  in 1976 characterised by heat and the scent of heathland fire smoke everywhere. But these were relatively short lived, a number of weeks. With just a few days to go before the end of the metrological summer, the breaking news is that 2025 will undoubtedly be the warmest summer on record due to daily temperatures above the seasonal norm for months. Part of what seems a rising trend, 1976 no longer features in the top 5 list of hot summers. The record-breaking dry year of 1964 with its 79% rainfall now an interesting footnote. 

Despite the wet winter of 2024-2025, Spring arrived abruptly bringing with it drying winds and sunshine. I've been looking at my diary. On the 15th of February we were in Thenford Arboretum in Northamptonshire and 'today's weather was more like mid December - horrible grey, foggy, wet weather'. There seemed to be a lot of cloudy dark days before I then wrote in my diary on February 28th 'Weather has settled in to a dry sunny spell at last'. The following day I wrote 'what a fabulous and beautiful day - not a breath of wind, the sun had heat to it'. I remember the last few weeks at work before I retired on the 19th of March were wonderfully sunny, even warm. Quickly however by mid April I recall being worried about the dry conditions while walking on the Quantock Hills. Again in my diary I wrote on the 11th of April, 'everything is tinder dry on the Quantocks - the soil is either baked solid or blowing away in the quite gentle breeze - I notice farms are supplying water to sheep up here'. But we assumed the rain would come. 

Yet four months later we've had hardly any rain. In Somerset just 1% of the average monthly rainfall for July. Over the summer around a third of the average expected rainfall has fallen. What has fallen, sporadically in hefty showers, evaporated quickly in the warm sunshine. As I write this on the 28th of August many trees and shrubs are showing serious signs of stress, branches being shed, leaves dropping quickly with the landscape looking more October golden than late summer. It won't be until next summer that we'll see the full effect of this dry season on tree health but looking now it's not good to witness and I sadly predict many trees will not survive.

A walk we did over the recent August Bank Holiday weekend has highlighted, and provided the impetus to write a few words, on how significant this dry spell has become. If you will an aide-mémoire to this remarkable year before all too soon the autumnal rains will return, or at least we sincerely hope so.

This walk began in the nearby Somerset village of Winscombe, with a plan to walk to the hamlet of Winterhead and return. All too soon as we left Winscombe the first field was the colour of bleached champagne. Underfoot the soil unyielding, it felt like walking on concrete.  

After a few fields the walk follows a myriad of lanes up towards Sidcot Hill. What struck me was the number of fallen leaves and how, as in this image below, the beech tree leaves are turning orange. I had to remind myself this was August 23rd, not October 23rd.

 

 

Worse was to come. We left the lanes and entered the countryside proper, firstly horse paddocks, which seemed to have virtually no grass left in them. Usually in dry periods the grass yellows but the root systems lie dormant waiting for the the next wet spell. These fields though were showing extensive areas of dusty dirt. What has happened to the grass, have the roots died too? I looked across the fields. Yes trees and hedges were retaining colour but the landscape looks tired, a beige hue of exhaustion, it has looked like this for a long time.

Beyond the paddocks we headed up onto Sidcot Hill on the way to joining the West Mendip Way. In this heat, which has defined the summer of 2025, it was a long slog up onto the hill. The views up here are astonishing, across to Wales, but it was how dry the fields looked that caught my attention. These fields still contained sheep, sheltering in the shadow of a hedge, but fields with little grass growing, though plenty of dock plants or thistles surviving due to their long tap roots.

We eventually joined the West Mendip Way where by chance we had a long chat to the farmer here, Mark Heal. The track this medium-long distance path follows is usually muddy even in summer. As we chatted by the gate Mark confirmed many of the issues I'd already heard about affecting farming elsewhere. He told us that he has now used up the last of his winter feed as he has been supplementary feeding his organic beef and sheep all summer long. Lambing during the warm weather in April, he added, was something of a treat, but with no rain of note since then all his stock has needed to be fed, when they should of course be feeding naturally on the summer grazing. Economically this is disastrous. Worse still, he continued, every farmer he knows is in the same position and if replacement winter feed can be found it is both scarce and very expensive, a situation which can only be made worse by the poor harvest this year, yields are significantly down with hay and silage crops almost non existent. There will be a fodder shortage this coming winter. For someone who is struggling to keep his animals alive and healthy Mark seemed quite optimistic about the future, as long as it rains that is.

I watched Mark drive off up the dusty track, on his way to check his South Devon Black cattle we'd seen earlier. I was touched by his optimism as we headed off in the opposite direction across what should have been a muddy ford, which today simply featured the well preserved baked hard mountain bike tyre tracks from a previous season.

He's right, we need to be optimistic to the changes in Britain's weather. My own take is that with Climate Change Britain is becoming much more continental in its weather patterns, meaning prolonged spells of the same conditions rather than the hotchpotch of weather changing daily we've all considered the norm for a century or more. Personally I have enjoyed weeks of predictable dry days this summer but I know many, my wife included, have struggled with the prolonged heat day in, day out, dominated by four heatwaves of exceptional temperatures. 

Wildlife has had mixed fortunes too. Dry soils mean earthworms and soil invertebrates have buried down deep, out of the reach of birds, hedgehogs and other animals who rely on these for survival. Slugs and snails have found hidden corners and gone into what is called Aestivation, a form or dormancy that allows them to tick over their metabolism before the rain returns. Our swifts departed about two weeks early, partly a sign of a successful and early season, they arrived a week early. Bats around the house have been very active however due to the abundant insect life which has bucked some of the negative trend with second broods of butterflies doing well in some species for example. Earlier in the summer there was a ladybird population explosion, short lived as the aphid population was supressed. I've seen more harvestmen in the garden than for years.

Now though it has gone on long enough. As I write this  unsettled weather brought to us by ex-hurricane Erin is trying to make inroads but it is not really producing what we need. Yes it is a little cooler, a little more cloud in the sky but the rain of yesterday was in the form of short lived showers and as has been the case all year, rain evaporated in an hour or so leaving the landscape dry once more. What we need is a few weeks of steady medium intensity rain, not heavy downpours, to begin the water cycle again.

We eventually finished our walk last weekend taking in the views and the scenery and finishing at Winscombe Cricket Club where for about an hour we watched Wedmore 2nds playing Winscombe 2nds on a very dry pitch - perfect weather for cricket while watching the wind ruffle the piles of fallen leaves beside us.

I don't think I'll forget this year for a long while. The rain will of course return one day, and, if my predictions are accurate for a continental climate, it will probably rain every day for weeks non stop, if not for months. Then, possibly following the arrival of a stranger riding ahead of a weather front, I'll look back and say, was the hot dry summer of 2025 actually real?

In Pursuit of Miss Austen

To reinterpret, and devastatingly mangle, one of the greatest lines in English literature - "It is a truth universally acknowledged that Wessex_Reiver in possession of a good day off, must be in want of a visit to Hungerford". As so it was last Sunday when I found myself in that lovely Berkshire town surrounded by people dressed in Regency costumes. I, it has to be made known, was not similarly attired.

A week earlier I had found myself idly scrolling through social media. Time occasionally hangs heavy on the newly retired, thus with the devil making idle hands do work, the temptation to regularly check emails, Instagram or Facebook remains all too Luciferian. However while doing so I stumbled across an advertised event namely a Regency Canal Cruise to Kintbury. I read on. We'd join a group for a leisurely cruise down the Kennet & Avon canal to meet the author of Godmersham Park and Miss Austen, Gill Hornby, at her home, inclusive of a cream tea, a snip at £35 each.

Aside from the Regency era being of interest, strictly speaking I'm interested in 1750-1850, I had very much enjoyed the Miss Austen series on television earlier in the year. I almost booked this cruise there and then but something niggled in me, was this a mandatory costumed event? It is a costume I lack. Contacting the organiser I'd heard nothing until two days before the cruise, it transpired he had replied earlier but that had lain in his draft email. James's reply confirmed there were still a couple of places and after a flurry of emails over Friday afternoon we were booked on the cruise. It would turn out to be a long day, unforgettable though.

Our coffee and cake companions - image from James

The owner of the Tutti Pole cafe (in blue) and James. Image from the Tutti Pole.

I caught up with the thirty people on the cruise at the Tutti Pole cafe in Hungerford. Despite not knowing anyone, or indeed not being dressed for the occasion, Mrs Wessex Reiver and I were welcomed with open arms, or should that be open bonnets? Not everyone was in period clothing which calmed my fears immediately. Those who were looked fantastic. Mainly women it has to be said but the four men looked striking. It seemed most of the people knew each other from Regency dancing events which, as I was to discover, are a big thing these days.  Introductory coffee and cake over we had an hour free before meeting by the Rose of Hungerford canal boat for a picnic.

It was fairly surreal to be sitting with so many people in period costume and then looking around at the trappings of the 21st Century, not least mobile phones held in hidden pockets in their muslin dresses. But they were a lovely set of new friends, very interested in how we'd arrived at this event so late, many had booked it weeks ago. Picnic over we were asked to board the boat for the two hour cruise to Kintbury.

I got to know the Kennet & Avon canal reasonably well a few years ago specifically around the Crofton section which was only a short walk from Mrs Wessex Reiver's then home. It is a lovely part of the world and it was lovely to come back to explore it. This time on the canal itself as in all the years walking the towpath we'd never been on a boat.

After three locks and what seemed to take no time at all, Gill's home, the Old Rectory, hovered into view on the southern bank, where we could see Gill waving to us from her garden gate. We'd made good time. Now for the main part of the day. Which did not disappoint.

Gill could not have been more hospitable, talked through what it meant to be living here in the grounds Jane and Cassandra Austen knew - though not the house. The rectory they knew was demolished and replaced with the current one in 1860. Having moved here Gill's interest in Jane Austen had increased she told us, and she kindly let us see a painting of the house as it would have been when the Austen sisters visited. This painting and another which I saw later were found in the church adjacent to the garden only recently and had been restored.

After more information and a lengthy questions and answer session Gill kindly agreed to sign books for those who had them and pose for photographs in her garden. This included me who having bought her latest Austen novel - The Elopement - only in the morning, asked her to sign and date it, which she did. A permanent reminder of meeting her, exploring her garden and a wonderful day, further captured with a group image of the costumed attendees.

We were not finished just yet. A very short walk brought us to St. Mary's church where a group of volunteers explained more about the church, told us about the Rev. Fowle and the village of Kintbury during the Austens' time. We could have spent longer at Kintbury but all too soon the need to return forced us to head back to the canal and a long anticipated cream tea.

image from James

All too soon we returned to modern life, arriving back at Hungerford just before 8pm. What a wonderful day. It gave me so much to think about: meeting new (and friendly) people who had such a wonderfully open and positive outlook on their passion, also being back in that area, which for Mrs Wessex Reiver is home, and idly wondering whether I could ever wear a frock coat and formal hat in public. It intrigued me as in all the years I've read around Regency England I've never thought of costumed re-enactment. I was to discover there are groups all over England, not just dancing but Napoleonic battle groups, parades, costumed presence at shows and special events, in fact it seems,

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good costume, must be in want of a dancing partner".

Lyscombe Nature Reserve : Embryo Project Idea

 "I think we should return to the car, that looks seriously wet"

Those words passed my lips less than a minute after leaving the car. We, that is Mrs Wessex Reiver and myself, had travelled down to visit a Dorset Wildlife Trust site which had been newly added to its portfolio, Lyscombe, around ten miles north east of Dorchester.

May 2025 : The Chapel

I first visited this site in May on a very hot and surprisingly windy day. On that occasion I had left my OS map at home and naively relied on the satellite navigation on my phone. Betty, as I call the disconnected voice who normally aides my wanderings so beautifully, fell silent on that day when the mobile connection helpfully disconnected about five miles out. Despite being in Southern England this is a remote location, and after a number of fruitless wanderings and about turns along narrow lanes near the hamlet of Plush, lanes admittedly offering breath-taking views over huge fields in this rolling chalk and flint landscape, I finally found the small car-park and set off in blistering heat along what it turned out was the wrong track. Actually it was the right track but not for the direction I wished to walk up to the ridge of the horse-shoe of Lyscombe Hill. That first walk found me descending into the valley floor (Lyscombe Bottom) and exploring the ancient chapel there. It felt remote, a silent untouched landscape, one I instantly fell in love with. I was less enamoured by the searing heat and I decided to return and explore the 'horse shoe bowl' when the weather was less intense. 

An enormous field at the start of the walk

It has been a hot and dry year so far, the driest spring for a century or more, drought restrictions littering England, soil so dry the cracks are large enough to push a boiled egg into, if that was ever an meteorological option. The landscape has looked parched and weary for weeks. Imagine then our surprise at the squally rain barreling in from the west to greet our arrival. Welcome for the countryside yes, but a shock to the system now acclimatised to dry weather as the norm.  It was much too warm for waterproofs. Scuttling back to the car we sat watching the landscape disappear behind an opaque wash of the rainfall's brushstroke. It will just be a high temperature shower, it will pass quickly. Half an hour later we set off once more. This time up the correct track and with my OS map.

The footpath we missed

A enormous field on our left offered fantastic unobscured views over to Hardy's Monument way distant on the horizon. The farmer was urgently bringing in baled straw before more rain fell. With that rain the landscape was cooled, subdued, lank, and with harvest well under way it felt more autumnal than July. 

Fifteen minutes steady uphill plodding brought us to what would be our defined mistake. 

On the OS map the footpath is shown gently curving past a building. On the ground the farm track split, left through a disused piggery, right toward what looked (through my binoculars) like a locked gate. We went left, through opened gates and traversed the side of the deserted piggery and joined a meters wide conservation margin alongside a field of beans. This conservation strip was very wet after the rain but alive with butterflies, mostly meadow brown and 'whites'. There was a footpath of sorts, but to be honest just the faintest hint of passing feet through the long grass. The views were stunning but something did not feel right. Maybe it is just because this a new reserve, there was no one around, it is an empty remote spot.  Doggedly we plodded on.

The wide field margin on the wrong path

The rain returned when we'd almost reached the top of the hill, luckily we were by some trees allowing us modest shelter. To our left the views were stunning across rolling farmland. To our right the horseshoe of Lyscombe curved away like a scimitar. Between Lyscombe and us sat proud as punch a brand new metal mesh fence complete with barbed wire on top. The rain eased, but something did not feel right. Doggedly we plodded on. 

I could see where I thought we should be on the OS map, but this small woodland was in the wrong place. Let me rephrase that, the woodland knew exactly where it was, I didn't. Reaching another barbed wire fence blocking our route I knew somewhere, somehow, on the thirty minute trudge up the hill we'd missed a footpath leading off that long farm track. I don't think we were the first visitors to have made that error either as just along the barbed wire fence hands unseen had cut the middle two strands of barbed wire and bent them back. We scrambled through, there was a footpath sign but I knew we were on the wrong path. 

Nothing for it, we retraced our steps back down the hill for ten minutes to the aforementioned metal mesh fence by the wood. Could we climb over it? Neither of us are good at climbing fences and while that thought came into my head a couple walked by on the opposite side, the only people we saw that day. 

Explaining our predicament the lady said "Yes, we are on the footpath up to the view point - there is a footpath by the piggery, it veers off to the right next to a padlocked gate". We'd missed it, I'd seen the locked gate so we walked on via the left-hand track. To add to our despair she added "there used to be a gate where you are standing before this metal mesh fence was put up" before adding cheerily, but with a hint of why are they over there? "there's a lovely bench up the hill if you can ever get back over onto this footpath".

We thanked them and left them to their leisurely walk back downhill to presumably a warm drink and cake in the car. Dejected we took walked downhill on the opposite, the wrong, side of the fence. Moisture from the wet grass began invading our boots, Mrs Wessex Reiver hobbling due to a previous injury (I'd stood on her foot as we'd scrambled through the barbed wire fence), the metal mesh fence, happily excluding us from our destination, our constant companion. Tensions were high, enthusiasm low.

However half way down the hill as my dejection mounted, I noticed a gate on the other side of a hedge. It was open. Miraculously the mesh fence had also ended. Could we get through the hedge maybe? Yes, a bit of a squeeze but we were through. Our spirits lifted, finally after nearly an hour we were on the right footpath.

The correct footpath up the hill

And what a difference. Much as we'd enjoyed the bean field this was more what I'd thought the walk would offer us, up a grassy ridge, trees, wildlife and far reaching views down into the valley below. We were now on our own, almost. There were butterflies everywhere, mostly meadow brown, hundreds of them, a few gatekeeper, speckled wood and large white, unidentified day flying moths too. Dragonflies zoomed erratically overhead and at our feet the grass shimmered with the explosive movement of crickets and grasshoppers jumping hither and yon. Not much birdlife other than a jay letting us know of its disapproval, but it is July, the silent season. That did not matter, we were in heaven.

Not quite there yet....

... but what a view.

We'd reached (almost) the top of the ridge, the OS map showing a nearby trig point of 244 meters, around 800 feet in old money. New metal access gates delineated a meeting of footpaths, the fingerpost showing Thorncombe, Folly, Higher Melcombe. I wandered through and looked at the view north towards the Blackmoor Vale, an area I know so well. In the mid distance the evocatively named Ball Hill, did they play cricket on that slope I wondered? To my right Nettlecombe Tout itself hiding from sight a landmark known as Dorset Gap. We'd made it, well almost. Another ten minutes walk was required before the now infamous bench loomed out the tall grass like a monument to the weary traveller. And what a wonderful bench offering a stunning view looking south across Lyscombe Bottom and on to the Dorset coastline and Purbeck, well worth the hour and a half walking to get here. We sat here for fifteen minutes in total natural silence. What a place.

We made it...

Purchased in 2024 Lyscombe is a new reserve for the Dorset Wildlife Trust and at 335 hectares one of the largest purchases it has ever made. But I'm so glad they did (and erected the bench). Wildlife wise it is already wonderful but much more can be done. Dorset Wildlife Trust are doing an exceptional thing, by doing almost nothing. Of course management is happening. By reducing grazing and managing the reserve primarily for wildlife slowly the farmed landscape will become a natural habitat for many more species. Current management thinking is to do nothing too dramatic just give the wildlife a chance to return under its own steam now the pressure of farming for profit is released. And I applaud that soft touch approach, reading later that barn owls have already returned on their own wing as it were. 

It's given me an idea too. I've been a member of the DWT for many years but mainly (due to work commitments) I've only visited a handful of their 42 nature reserves and 4 wildlife centres. Now I am retired, time hangs on me like an eager puppy wanting to be outside again. This visit, and while walking for two and a half hours and around five miles in total, gave me time to think about a new project. Over the next few years could I visit all 42 reserves and 4 wildlife centres? I'll not set a timescale, mainly as Mrs Wessex Reiver has her own hatching plans, which I'm reliably informed I'm included in, walking long distance routes. Maybe then I'll count this visit to Lyscombe as the first and at the moment half finished of these 42 visits. It is a big reserve and I've areas yet to explore, so I will definitely return.

Though maybe a refresher in map reading would be advisable first.