A walk from "Best Pubs in South Devon" holds plenty of promise.
Yet compromises need to be made. We are on day 2 of the heatwave that has had the news outlets reaching for ever darker crayons. Mrs M wants us up and out early - 6am was mentioned - and on the shortest walk I have for the area. I'm up for the early start. England vs. Ghana last night provided no reason to stay up celebrating.
The Globe at Frogmore will have to wait. With opening hours of 3pm - 11pm midweek, it was always going to be a tall order to get the tick.
Heating up at 7:18am
It's a beautiful ramble. Frogmore Creek is a drowned river valley in the Kingsbury Estuary. The village at the head was once a thriving port and the pub served the working community. Low tide when we drop down to access it. Occasional views along its length to Salcombe.
First glimpse
Salcombe in the far distance
Fields take us to West Charleton - where the Charleton Inn awaits those in cooler climes - before a delightful green lane in the sheep hills drops us back to the start.
In car - the temperature is 24 degrees. And we haven't even had breakfast.
Ziggy the hot dog looking forward to his sardine brunch
I walked much of this route in reverse, when completing the Droitwich to Hartlebury Rail Trail. It was a disaster of overgrown paths with terrible signposting. I really shouldn't have bothered this Slow Way, but someone has to review them.
To save repeating my moaning, I will simply put up my Slow Ways review.
This is a disaster - particularly around the east side of the A449 around Stinton Pool and Acton Farm.
Before I start listing the problems, I think I have worked out that these slow ways have been developed on line and no one has actually walked them until they are on the website. I am the first to review this one.
I started at Stourport and ended at Droitwich. I have previously walked much of the route in reverse and it was a disaster then.
The issues? The paths are badly overgrown, signposting is minimal and in many places impassable.
52°18.606'N, 2°13.352'W - path disappears, Dense vegetation. Impossible to follow on the public right of way.
52°18.106'N, 2°13.099'W - a new solar farm. Approaching from the North - there is a clear path between the two fenced off solar farms. Later on, the path completely disappears at a brook. When approaching from the South, I wasn't even able to find my way through. Then, in the middle of the PROW at the co-ords, there is a machine. I have googled it. It is a PID360 / VideoGuard 360. On approach, it sparks up an alarm akin to an air-raid warning, which sounds twice. Lights come on and a very sinister Northern Irish Voice tells you that "Your approach is being recorded. The police have been notified". I am exaggerating when I add "So they have". I have seen the film Aliens. I thought it would shoot me.
52°17.986'N, 2°12.955'W - path disappears at a thicket brook. If you are approaching from the South, you won't even get this far. Forced to battle my way through.
Once (if?) you reach Doverdale Church - its plain sailing on lanes until 52°16.376'N, 2°11.516'W - the Monarchs Way at Nunnery Wood. There is high wheat in the fields. The farmer has left a path but not accurately where marked on the OS Map. Easy to lose it - and I ended up going around in circles on existing tractor tracks, trying not to make a crop circle.
I have reported the issues to Worcestershire County Council Rights of Way Management.
I seriously recommend that no one else attempts this walk.
Seems I am not the only rambler to fall foul of this device. Check out this BBC Story.
For what it is worth - here are the photos.
The Monarach's Way - Not quite where it is meant to be
Westwood House, on the approach to Droitwich
It's not all misery. The Hop Pole Inn is still serving a choice of Bathams beers in perfect condition.
12 miles of misery for this
And the 133 bus - which only runs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday - was bang on its 13:30 departure time.
A combination of sources for today's walk, which is possibly the most personal one undertaken.
This month's History West Midlands Podcast is about racism in 1960s Smethwick and specifically Malcolm X's 1965 visit to the area. The next leg of my "rail trails" series is between Langley Green and Smethwick.
Peter Griffiths became Smethwick’s Conservative MP in the 1964 general election after running a notoriously racist and anti-immigration campaign, winning against the national trend and displacing Labour’s Patrick Gordon Walker. A few months later, on 12 February 1965, Malcolm X visited Smethwick at the invitation of Avtar Singh Jouhl and the Indian Workers’ Association to see the discrimination faced by Black and Asian residents, including the colour bar at the Blue Gates pub, where he was not served. He described the situation in Smethwick as even worse than America, and his visit became a powerful symbol of international solidarity against racism. Malcolm X was assassinated in New York on 21 February 1965, just nine days after the Smethwick visit.
I was born in Birmingham and spent the first two years in Smethwick. In a street very near and similar to where Malcolm X visited. My parents - white, working class, moved away in 1971. I never heard them be racist but their reasons were "they didn't want their kids to be in the minority at school".
With this as a backdrop - I trace a route between the two stations, taking in key locations to the story and from my life. It's an urban walk - so certainly not pretty.
Mappiman's First House - Remembered only through photos
There's not that many pubs in the area. The first seen, the Merrivale - a burnt-out shell that is bound to be demolished soon. Most in the area are "Desi-Pubs" - a perfect blend of beer and Indian Food, mixed grill platters a speciality. The Old Chapel is a surviving traditional pub and also the oldest non-secular building in Smethwick. Long been of interest, as we drive past it from the Albion. My mom tells me stories of sharing half a cider with my dad, unable to afford a drink each, having mortgaged themselves to the hilt to purchase the two-up, two-down.
I was hoping to visit today, but it appears to be going through a change of ownership. Stonegate has it up for sale and Facebook has an enthusiastic post suggesting a new chapter is starting soon.
Old Chapel - I can claim a tick from my pram in 1970
Blue Plaque
Lunch and an interlude at Smethwick Heritage Centre in Victoria Park. A tiny room celebrating Smethwick's industrial past and West Bromwich Albion's former glories.
Picnic in a Park
The Red Cow - Peter Griffiths, the Racist MP, used to campaign from there. Now Desi
My acting career died a death before it had chance to flourish. In Smethwick High Street - where I was busy photographing the mosque, I was approached by a film producer who needed white Caucasian males to appear as extras in a movie being shot. Photos taken and paperwork part completed until I asked how long I would be needed for. Alas, shooting was between 2pm and 8pm. I couldn't commit.
A statue to Sikh Soldiers in WW1
Marshall Street - not far from Smethwick Galton Bridge - is the logical conclusion to the day's activities. A blue plaque marking Malcolm X's visit to Smethwick.
A new trail, a new app. I noticed another one of those "circular walks around a city" routes - this time, Bristol. 6 Walks, 33 miles - relatively cheap trains from Worcester. It's achievable.
The only place to get the routes is through an app called Go Jauntly. It all works perfectly - stage-by-stage instructions, real time progress on an open-source map.
Stage 1 is a decent enough ramble and it also brings the Bristol and Bath Railway Walk to my attention. A green corridor along the former 15-mile railway line, cutting straight through the City in a north-east direction. A little built up near Temple Meads - and it does run through a caravan shanty town - presumably forcibly removed from Clifton Downs, after pearl clutching segments on slow news days.
It's busy - and as expected, populated by walkers and dicks on all sorts of wheeled devices - all ignoring the "please share", "go slow and "keep left" signposts. I am two years into my retirement and cannot help but consider my own mortality. I never expected it to come from a dreadlocked hippy travelling 20 mph on a rickety bike with cow-horn handlebars.
Hiding from the city on the Bristol/Bath Walkway
Keep Bristol Weird
The route picks out green corridors when it can - before crossing rugby pitches and Chester Park, then continuing through the urban stretches of Two Mile Hill and Magpie Bottom. Our goal, the Avon Walkway - a gentle riverside stretch that provides the highlight of the day.
Messing about on the River Avon
Troopers Hill is the end of the walk - the chimney of the former copper smelting works, an unofficial symbol of East Bristol.
Troopers Hill Heathland
An encouraging start - that maybe took hiding from the city a little too seriously. 7 miles and not a single pub passed.
