Quantock Easter 3 of 3 : Alfoxton House and Dorothy's Waterfall

So far then we'd completed two walks in what I am grandly calling our Trichotomous Saga. Time then to push on and complete the third and final Quantock walk over Easter. This time following in the footsteps of Romantic Poets.

After our morning's excitement of visiting and finally locating the mysteriously difficult to find Holford Kelting nature reserve, we made our way back to the car and had our picnic on the Green. Lashings of tea from the flasks and jam sandwiches. As the weather forecast had predicted the wind was beginning to pick up, still sunny but it was getting quite gusty now and the roar through the trees was ever present. I again checked the weather on my phone, dry still but 40 to 45mph gusts due by late afternoon. Exciting.

Joining Mrs Wessex-Reiver who was patiently waiting for me on the Green, our first destination was to 'Dorothy's Waterfall'. I don't actually think it is called that, but this cascading waterfall in the Holford Glen was a favourite spot of Dorothy Wordsworth. Just a short while after moving to Alfoxton House nearby with her brother William in 1797,  Dorothy wrote in her journal 

“There is everything here; sea, woods wild as fancy ever painted, brooks clear and pebbly villages

so romantic; and William and I, in a wander by ourselves, found out a sequestered waterfall in a

dell formed by steep hills covered with full-grown trees.” 

I'd heard about this waterfall and to be honest thought it was higher up the valley. However until today I'd not looked for it with any conviction, today's visit then will be a first. The waterfall turned out to be closer than I thought.

From the Green at Holford we stepped onto the Coleridge Way, a long distance path named after the poet, of some fifty miles meandering between his cottage at Nether Stowey and Lynmouth in Devon. The footpath is marked by a red quill pen, though oddly not the direction to take, leaving that to the general footpath posts. We were now entering Alfoxton Park and proceeding along a wide track used by vehicles up to the house itself. Walking along Mrs Wessex-Reiver spotted a fish - it wasn't of course but the branch remains of a felled tree which looked remarkably like a fish wearing a hat. Close by another fallen tree resembled a wild boar. I wonder what was in those jam sandwiches? We seem to be hallucinating.

Spot the wild boar?

By a bend in the track we approached a footbridge. At the time of the Wordsworths' living here to reach the waterfall required dexterity of foot to scramble down the ravine. It was a favourite spot for them, William Wordsworth wrote the poem ‘Lines Written in Early Spring’  while sitting here, 

"...

The budding twigs spread out their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

..."

And his friend Coleridge wrote of this spot in his poem ‘The Lime-Tree Bower My Prison’ where he refers to the roaring dell;

"....

Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,

To that still roaring dell, of which I told;

The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,

And only speckled by the mid-day sun;

..."

Today then the footbridge transecting Coleridge's roaring dell both adds to and subtracts from the scene. Certainly it is safer to get to the location, however the bridge now crosses the ravine upstream from the actual waterfall which is a few meters downstream but obscured from this angle. I'm reliably informed that you can still get to the waterfall, but it is a precipitous ankle spraining climb down and not advised.

However the cascades here are very much in evidence. Along with the crescendo of the water down the valley below and the roar of the wind through the trees above us it all added to a very atmospheric soundscape, although not advisable to lean over the bridge railings for anyone with vertigo. It is steeper than it looks.

Retracing our way we re-joined the Coleridge Way as our next destination was to see Alfoxton House. This whole area is quite compact yet it offers a kaleidoscope of landscapes, views and history, therefore within a matter of minutes it can change the traveller's moods.  Rounding a corner the trees disappeared and a wonderful view emerged across fields to Wales and Brean Down. And a memorial seat to a couple who used to come here and watch deer. 

It isn't far to Alfoxton House, which is not in a great state of repair these days. The building having been a WW2 military camp for American troops, used for housing foreign workers and an erstwhile hotel the Twentieth century had not been kind to this building,  and since 2010  it has languished on an at risk register. Thankfully it is now being restored and brought back to life by the Triratna Buddhist Community as a Buddhist Centre. I think as the creators of the Romantic Poet movement Wordsworth and Coleridge would approve and appreciate it being rescued to become a centre for harmony with the world, both humanitarian and natural.

Yet with a slight feeling of frustration, as we approached the house we found we could not get any closer than the path due to a Retreat being in progress. Which answers a question as to why an Ocado delivery van was out on Easter Monday on the gravel track. The Coleridge Way passes through the grounds of Alfoxton which was a strange experience as we now found ourselves among people.  It was strange namely as for most of the time we'd been exploring this area this Easter we'd walked in empty landscapes without seeing no more than a handful of people.

Passing the house and by the farm buildings there was what looked like a newly erected notice board with some information for the passing walker. It is good that the Centre is acknowledging the importance of this landscape to not only poetry but a slice of history.  We pressed on past the buildings and saw ahead of us a steep path, and half way up was a lady with walking sticks standing looking at the view.

We stopped and chatted to this lovely lady for a good ten minutes. She was local, living in Holford all her life and walked this landscape daily. Sadly both age and horse riding accidents when younger now means she is not as nimble as once was. Informing us that she's recently passed a significant birthday (we suspected 80) she was very pragmatic about the fact that her gradual developing infirmity meant that despite her wish to walk the full circuit when she set off from home earlier, seeing the climb ahead she had reluctantly decided that a walk up the hill would be too strenuous today. And I suspect inwardly she knew that decision would apply in the future too. But, as she informed us, she goes walking every day despite her neighbours thinking she is mad to do so. I loved this attitude, one very much of being in the present, enjoy life and maintain a drive to continue walking each day until unable. 

It was such a joy to chat to this positive lady, not least as she informed us that when we begin climbing up what I now know as Pardlestone Hill in front of us, we need to look for a five bar gate,  go through that and then look for a smaller gate on our left further up the hill. As it turned out without that vital piece of information we may have just kept on the track and veered way off from our planned circular walk.

Reaching the mid point up Pardlestone Hill we were beginning to struggle. It is a lung buster and with the wind increasing it was head down and stoically plod on through the five bar gate and then keep going up the hill, where a single red deer was just visible before it scampered off.

As we climbed the wind increased. Last year's leaves eddied and blew about in all directions and the roar of the wind through the trees was amazingly loud. I've long loved that sound, much like the sound of waves crashing on a pebbly shore. It recalls nights spent half awake during storms, safe indoors but listening to the maelstrom being unleashed by mother nature outside. A comforting sound in many ways. Once again though we had the landscape to ourselves. It is amazing how quickly even in a popular location like this a quiet area can be found to walk in very quickly. 

A quarter of an hour later we found and entered the smaller gate we'd been informed to look out for. Finally we had reached the top of the hill. Thankfully then no more climbing today as we had just about reached our limit of the enjoyment of uphill walking! Either that or our level of fitness could be improved. Once in this area the mood and the landscape changed quickly. The pathway followed the ridge-line but through birch, scrubby rowan and hawthorn. It felt different and presumably that is because this is remnant parkland. Down by the house huge sweet chestnuts, distorted and twisted by age, mingled with standing beech, in a landscape so different to the predominance of sessile oak in the Combes.

Eventually we reached the ridge path and after one last look at Alfoxton House from up here it was time to turn left and downhill to Holford. By now the wind had really picked up and at times the gusts were blowing us about. However what I hadn't realised until reading about this later, was this trackway we were now walking on was once the main route from Nether Stowey to Watchet. Back in Wordsworth's time this was a very busy highway with people, horses, cattle, sheep and wagons from the various villages and industry in the area moving to and from the only port on this part of the coast. Watchet was once a major harbour for iron ore to South Wales and other products like wool and cloth heading up the Bristol Channel, the Irish Sea, or London and the Continent. Trade between here and South Wales was brisk from the seventeenth century. Watchet was a favourite destination for the walking poets too and the town is credited in being the inspiration for Coleridge's epic, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, after apparently he looked down at the town, and presumably the ships in the harbour,  from St. Decuman’s Church. 

It is a meditative process to be simply walking the paths of history remembering the thousands upon thousands of feet that have passed this way before you. Coleridge composed his lines on the move, could it be then that on this track as he returned home, he mused on the Ancient Mariner structure. I like to think so. And in 2023 these routes still provide safe passage for the weary traveller. We'd almost reached the bottom of the path when I spied a pair of red deer in a field. They seemed unconcerned we were watching them, but it struck me as I looked at them through an old holly hedge that for generations wildlife and human activity have intermingled in this landscape, and many other landscapes across the country. Britain is a very small landmass but it really does offer a wealth of interest if we just take time to look.

Just before we left the woodland I saw a rabbit in an adjacent field, and that made me stop and think. We'd not seen a rabbit all weekend, three walks, around ten miles in total, and only a single rabbit. I'd not seen one this year either and couldn't remember the last time I'd seen one. How the fortunes of this once populous mammal have changed, and I find that quite sad.

Back at the Green we unleashed the second picnic of the day, tea and Bakewell slices. More exposed here than in the woods we were really getting a buffeting by the wind, challenging when pouring tea but ultimately an exhilarating diversion. The rooks however were having less fun up in the swaying trees. Adult birds were on sentry duty next to the now wildly gyrating nests, clinging to branches with their heads facing into the wind. Some birds were obviously enjoying the weather and flying in loops overhead. I've noticed rooks doing this sentry duty many times in windy weather - is it the female who's left the nest for safety, or the male standing guard? I'm not entirely sure but an interesting observation.

Time passes and all too soon we joined the Madding Crowd of stop-start traffic on the M5 as we headed back home. The memory remained though. The walk up Hodder's Combe on Saturday, the morning walk to the 'lost reserve of' Holford Kelting and then a short literacy ramble in the footsteps of the Romantic Poets during an afternoon enriched by conversation. 

And all from this single location beneath a rookery close to the A39 on the slopes of the Quantock Hills. Well done Somerset.