Author Topic: TR - Return to Foxglove Wood  (Read 1718 times)

rural roamer

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Re: TR - Return to Foxglove Wood
« Reply #15 on: 08:30:35, 26/06/20 »
Not that I was suggesting you couldn’t manage 60 miles in a day!  :D


Is the Old House booked up? That’s where we stayed. Someone we met on the first day was staying in Glossop and was collected from where the PW hits the road and brought back the next morning.

Ridge

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Re: TR - Return to Foxglove Wood
« Reply #16 on: 08:40:18, 26/06/20 »
Is the Old House booked up? That’s where we stayed.
When I spoke to them they said that they had taken the decision to not open at all this year.
I've just tried to check on their website and it is still not running properly which I told them about 2 weeks ago.
If it looks like we will be just using my Dad for collecting our stuff then I'll phone them again nearer the time to see if they have changed their mind to save him a trip.

rural roamer

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Re: TR - Return to Foxglove Wood
« Reply #17 on: 08:43:58, 26/06/20 »
When I spoke to them they said that they had taken the decision to not open at all this year.
That could put paid to a few people’s trips if they were still hoping to walk it later in the year, there’s little else available around there.

Ridge

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Re: TR - Return to Foxglove Wood
« Reply #18 on: 08:56:21, 26/06/20 »
That could put paid to a few people’s trips if they were still hoping to walk it later in the year, there’s little else available around there.
If you are not camping then it has to be a road trip.
If you are camping it has to be wild as the campsite is also closed for this year.

Mel

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Re: TR - Return to Foxglove Wood
« Reply #19 on: 22:56:47, 26/06/20 »
Lovely English countryside summery pics Ridge  :)


I hope you walked through the pointless gate  :D

Ridge

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Re: TR - Return to Foxglove Wood
« Reply #20 on: 09:04:46, 28/06/20 »

Thanks Mel
I hope you walked through the pointless gate  :D
I decided that as it was full of tall nettles and thistles and I was wearing short shorts it was probably best to walk round.

barewirewalker

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Re: TR - Return to Foxglove Wood
« Reply #21 on: 11:16:30, 28/06/20 »
Some interesting Photographs, Ridge. I think I recognise one of the views from visits to Whipsinade Zoo with my Grandaughters. Now if the photo of 4 row Barley below is not a 3 ton to the acre crop I would be surprised. Is the purple orchid a Pyramidal Orchid and surely the other ones are limestone or calcareous soil types, there are better people that I on the forum to give expert opinion?


Much of the walk was through fields of ripening crops or in small woods.





As with a photo on G&P's recent topic an excellent view that demonstrates the value of X field paths. This one as VGhiker's comments is an excellent example of this genre. It has just occurred to me that as walkers we complain a lot to councils about footpath blockages but the message never gets through to farmers how much we appreciate our countryside. Perhaps we should sent pictures like this to the editor of the Farmers Weekly, with a message about the valuable experience such a moment as walking through a field of barley can provide.

All too often walkers agree that they should not walk across crops, usually combined with difficulties crossing plough during the bare earth season, then we forget how beautiful and the wonderful sensations the paths give at this time of year.
« Last Edit: 11:20:34, 28/06/20 by barewirewalker »
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

Ridge

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Re: TR - Return to Foxglove Wood
« Reply #22 on: 11:30:05, 28/06/20 »
Thanks BWW.
The 3 pictures of the paths through crops were taken miles away from each other, I just lumped them together on my report. They would be on different farms. I generally find that farmers are pleasant individuals who care about the countryside and prefer to guide walkers in the right direction across their land rather than have them wander aimlessly. As in every walk of life there is a small minority who are complete [censored], as are the people who walk and let their dogs worry sheep.


Golf clubs on the other hand are my nemesis. They are just the spawn of Satan who deliberately set out to intimidate, confuse and kill those with the temerity to use a right of way that was there centuries before the golf course.

barewirewalker

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Re: TR - Return to Foxglove Wood
« Reply #23 on: 12:20:04, 28/06/20 »
I agree about golf club members they are truly awful, the only consolation is that the are just as anti-social to each other, they however learn, as in any tribe, you cannot be totally anti-social to everyone all the time so they build themselves into cliques.

The problem with Farmers, since 2000, they have been very poorly led in the matter of Access. This has coincided with the time that a lot of land amalgamation has gone on and there are fewer real farmers with managerial time on their hands, who are free to think. This has left a vacuum that has been filled by the landowners, whose managerial power in the countryside has risen with land and property values rising so steeply.

Since the CRoW act, which came at the end of, at least a decade, when the landowners suddenly realised they needed a grass roots membership, the real farmer with the time to put into farming politics is giving place to quasi-farmer/landowner, who is the person whose opinions will get carried on access related committees etc.
That why I made the suggestion, perhaps a bit of a joke but walkers writing to the editors of farming periodicals might start to get those truly working in agriculture to question some of the way opinion is being led.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

Ridge

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Re: TR - Return to Foxglove Wood
« Reply #24 on: 12:34:42, 28/06/20 »
I know you feel strongly about this BWW but, as I said in my previous post, I don't have a problem with farmers.
I see many more walkers behaving badly than I do farmers. They may not be walkers as we would class them but they are crossing the countryside on 2 legs. Farmers would perhaps have the time and inclination to be more walker friendly if they didn't have to go round putting up signs saying how many of their sheep had been killed last year or picking up the rubbish and dog [censored] which we have all seen and could only have been left by other walkers.
I feel that in my time as a walker I have seen the access to ROWs improve, I hardly ever see deliberately blocked footpaths which were a thing in the past.

barewirewalker

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Re: TR - Return to Foxglove Wood
« Reply #25 on: 13:39:22, 28/06/20 »
You may remember me posting about nursing a flock of pedigree sheep back from being savaged by Alsatians. You mistake my criticism of farmers, Access and Public misbehaviour should be separated, more people in the countryside would raise the % of socially responsibly persons and these should be include in Countryside Watch initiatives. We have the technology to do it.

In my case the culprits were from another farm, it is too easy to blame an anonymous walker, much of the problem lies with the large number incomers the rural property boom has created.


I have seen the quality of walk furniture and much good quality of way in your area, in Shropshire there are lost ways that could make the network better, but will the established landowner admit that their fathers and grandfathers corrupted the DM and are incapable of doing the maths that would show how much money could go into the rural economy with admission.

Your photo shows a perfect example how a farmer with his good husbandry has added tons of quality of way to part of your walk. I know of a similar field where the path through the crop has not been made good for more than 5 years, it is fairly pointless trying to get made good year by year as its original destination cannot be reached. The way was lost, then blocked by a new bypass, there is a route if added, the way could open joining two old market towns with a complete cross country route. Yet the landowner lobby will cite public misbehaviour as a reason to block any improvement that will open up the countryside.

In this case the quasi-farmer inherited his land and the farmer is the son of a former tenant. He now is more of contractor, though he gets short term leases here and there for a bit of independent farming. The beneficiaries of a cross country route of many miles would probably be amongst the incomers who now live in 19th century converted farm properties. That would be until the landowner spotted them making money and would probably muscle in  ;D
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

 

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