Northcourt

I didn't go on a walk as such here.  Yesterday afternoon my mother and I went to Shorwell Midsummer Fair, held at Northcourt.  The fair was pleasant; old fashioned English summer fete really, with coconut shies, bric-a-brac, tea tent etc.  However, for an extra £1.50 you could explore the gardens.  My word! That was the best £1.50 I've spent this year! The gardens are lovely, a mixture of relatively formal flower and kitchen gardens, to rambling woodland.

The woods were full of shrubs such as Magnolias, Crinodendron, Azaleas and Leptospermum, as well as wonderful conifers and ferns.  There were footpaths that led all over the place, and around every corner was a plant that made me gasp.  The formal gardens were just the way I liked them; not manicured, with flowers bursting forth and overspilling their space.  There were lawned areas with flower borders that you could imagine at home, a lily pond, a knot garden, a stream with a lovely hump-backed bridge over it, a bamboo grove with a muddy path winding through it, topiary, a tennis lawn, beautiful beehives, ancient roses, a tiny grotto, old wrought iron gates leading to yet more mysterious pathways, and steps all over the place.

This garden was heavenly and I want to go back! 

Geranium

Beehives

Digitalis

Allium

Arreton

Well, we picked a glorious day for a walk! We parked at Arreton Barns, then headed down the road and turned left by the White Lion pub.  The lane took us up past the church and carp pond and then up to the downs.  We were surrounded by wheat fields and wildflowers, blue butterflies, damselflies and, at one point, a buzzard which got mobbed by crows shortly afterwards.  We turned left before the top of the down, heading towards a disused chalk pit (hidden by undergrowth), then followed the path back towards the village gathering scraped knees, stings from nettles and prickles from thistles along the way. 

Before we got to the village we turned left along another footpath, this one rather more regularly used, until we reached Shepherd's Lane.  At the junction was a vary large pond, a glorious shade of blue; it was a mystery - this pond was not marked on my map, nor was it on either GPS system we had. Curious!  Anyway, we continued down the lane, gawped through the gates of Haseley Manor and beat a hasty retreat when we realised there was a wedding taking place!  Reaching the main road, we crossed and picked up the footpath that went straight through somebody's garden! A dog in the garden next door growled and barked at us until we had climbed over the gate and headed off across the field. We crossed the stile and found ourselves in a large meadow full of buttercups and yellow iris.  This led to even more meadows with even more wild flowers! Heaven! There was even a stream with little wooden-plank footbridges across it.

The path rose upwards again and we followed the path along the edge of a copse, turned right at the end down a little hill then climbed into a sheep paddock and up a steep hill to another stile, a path through fields of potatoes and wheat, across the main road and back to Arreton Barns.  We went in search of ice cream for the children, but it was after 5pm so the kiosks were closed, and the glorious Farmer Jack's Farm Shop only sold large tubs. Shame.  

Route:  http://gb.mapometer.com/walking/route_3241263.html

Distance:  3.7 miles

Footpaths: A12, A13, A9, A17, A15, A1, A2, A5b