Country Matters by Arrowsmith: Walk This Way?

Walk this way?

Fancy a nice walk with your partner and dog?  How about one which takes weeks to travel six hundred and twenty-five miles?  That’s just over 930 kilometres. Then you may like to set out on the Monarch’s Way long distance footpath.

(Arrowsmith doesn’t walk in kilometres, in fact Arrowsmith and Jethro are both far too old to consider walking more than the twenty minutes per day sufficient to keep a lurcher fit and happy.) 

Those who do this sort of thing regularly, reckon hiking across open country covers about two to three miles per hour, but trail-runners can manage about six. If you’re serious about long distance walking, you need to be equipped with clothing, including expensive footwear, and probably a backpack full of food, water, spare clothing and possibly camping gear. And you should consider a GPS system unless you are well practised with maps and a compass. Plan ahead, and make sure somebody knows where you intend to go.

The Monarch’s Way passes through Cirencester, and follows the route taken by King Charles II when he was escaping from the Parliamentary army to France. He didn’t have any choice in the matter, and had he been caught, the penalty he’d have paid might have been to lose his head. In Ciren he is said to have hidden in The Fleece.

Today’s backpackers are lucky to be able to walk the route without fear of punishment. This privilege was won through an organised mass trespass on Kinder Scout in Derbyshire’s Peak District in 1932. Before the law was changed to give people the ‘right to roam’, landowners were eager to prevent public access. Footpaths and bridleways were mostly used for essential local travel, and very few people had the leisure time to walk for pleasure or health.

The outdoor leisure industry in the UK is worth more than £1.5 billion and may be benefitting from the rising cost of living because it offers ‘stay at home’ alternatives to holidays abroad. But that doesn’t mean outdoor pursuits are cheap. In Ciren we have a wide choice of retailers catering for customers at all levels from budget basics to expensive trendy fashion statements, from colourful waterproof synthetics to high-end woollen Tweeds, waxed jackets, and leather footwear.

Seasonal shooting parties fill rural pubs with the civilian variant of military uniforms, and many front porches feature the request to patrons to ‘Please remove muddy footwear.’ This tends to lead to the odour of ripe feet in thick socks permeating the atmosphere, which mingles uneasily with the aromas of food and drink.  It seems hikers are even more smelly, especially on wet days, and now smoking is no longer permitted in indoor public spaces there’s nothing to compete with the scent of sweat soaked socks and fleece jumpers. It’s sometimes difficult to tell whether the air is affected more by wet dogs than by their owners.

The growing popularity of ramblers’ groups and other social outdoor enthusiasts isn’t always good for the preservation of the countryside. Not all walkers observe the Countryside Code, and stray from footpaths, damage walls, fences and hedgerows, leave litter – including disposable barbecues, which can cause wildfires – and allow their dogs to cause livestock problems. 

Some long-distance footpaths have had to be closed or re-routed because they became so popular that the number of walkers eroded the track, sometimes so seriously that the resulting gullies fill with water during heavy rainfall and become rivulets with flash-flooding further washing the paths away. If you’re lucky enough to have the time, and are fit enough, walking ten thousand steps a day is likely to keep you healthy. Just don’t wear away the beaten track.  

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