Frost at Midnight in Wheddon Cross

The Royal Oak, Luxborough, Somerset

The Royal Oak, Luxborough, Somerset
We stayed here and it was well worth the visit because the food was great and the accommodation very good. We also enjoyed looking at the newspaper articles on Coleridge and the Way on the wall of the bar (spent quite a bit of time looking at that really) and talking to the publican who had walked the way with local farmers. We all agreed that Day 1 was tough, Bird's Nest Hill never seemed to end, and anything less than 3 days made the walk a route march.

The Aeolian Harp...and other stories

The Aeolian Harp
This is a picture of an Aeolian Harp,
an instrument with wire strings played by the wind. It is also the title of a poem by Coleridge.
Lesley and I had the quite strange experience of walking over the very top of the Quantock Hills and hearing music that we could not identify -- we were quite a long way from any farm buildings or any other habitation at this point. We only identified the music when we visited Dove Cottage at Grasmere in the Lake District (home to William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy-Coleridge was a frequent visitor). The Dove Cottage Museum has headphones over which we heard...yes, you guessed it, the music of an aeolian harp.

Cist at Langridge Wood

Sue looking down at the Cist at Langridge Wood. This is a stone lined grave probably dating from the Bronze Age (around 4,000 years ago) according to Coleridge Way information. It was, apparently, found by workmen in 1820. One has to deviate a little from the path but it is in a high position in the hills.

New Growth Forest

This is in the Luxborough to Wheddon Cross segment of the walk. After leaving Luxborough we note that The Coleridge Way directions show an ascent of 685 metre in this section and an entry just after Newcombe Farm that says "Go through the gate into the next field. At this point the OS map and reality are not in agreement!" As we did not rely on the Ordnance Survey maps but kept to the web directions (part of the point of the walk) and a trusty compass we cannot comment on the maps--but we can say that the language regarding directions in the northern hemisphere was often a mystery.