Channel 2 Channel – Day 2
Haselbury Mill to Langport
15 July 2021
Distance recorded: 23.2km.
Leaving the Mill it wasn’t long before I found conditions underfoot that got me increasingly annoyed and frustrated; mown hay. It doesn’t sound much, and normally has pleasant connotations; “the smell of new-mown hay”. But I’m just at the time in the farming year when the hay has been cut but not baled. It’s lying thick on the ground, completely obscuring any traces of a footpath across the field. I found myself stopping at each hedge, looking for any gap in the hedge on the far side – not always easy!
Then there’s the walking. To avoid dragging a bale of hay along with each foot I found I needed to lift my feet higher with every step, as if I was walking with crampons. No big deal? Maybe, but the small extra effort for mile after mile had a cumulative effect on my energy levels.
But back to the walk. Before long the Trail deviated from the Parrett and went through the villages of Merriott and South Petherton before joining the river again at Gawbridge Mill. These and other villages are what we think of as typical traditional (southern) English villages. I noticed though that every one had recent developments on the fringes, usually expensive-looking houses in small groups; some had tried to complement the vernacular of the older houses, some seemed hardly to have tried. I didn’t take many photos of the villages because every angle would have included several parked cars, usually large SUVs, obscuring the lower parts of the buildings.
Approaching Gawbridge Mill I suddenly realised I was now in the flatlands; there were no hills in sight!
The unbaled hay meadows returned in full force over the next stretch from Gawbridge Mill to Kingsbury Episcopi and on towards Thorney. I took a rest in the shade of Kingsbury Episcopi’s churchyard. The tall church towers and spires in this flat countryside are landmarks for miles around.
Beyond Thorney I crossed the weir and pumping station where the River Isle and the West Moor drain join the Parrett. Controlling these volumes of water takes engineering on a large scale. The view upstream on the Isle confirmed I was truly in the Somerset Levels.
The Parrett, though, followed its natural course towards the Bristol Channel.
And so finally I arrived in Langport, my overnight stop. It has a surprising entrance – a ‘hanging chapel’ whose interesting Wikipedia page told me “is a 13th-century archway, bearing a Perpendicular building known as the hanging chapel”. The arch was originally the eastern gateway to the town. And yes, there’s a car in the picture.
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