The Plan
Lytchett
Matravers to Morden
Who Turned Up
Jackie, Wendy,
Sue (morning only) Trudy B, Trudy H, Diane and Tony R, David
The Walk
We parked
the cars in the church car park at Lytchett Matravers. It’s quite an isolated
church and there’s a reason. I'll come to that in a moment. The name of the village comes from the Brittonic word ‘litchet’
meaning grey wood. Matravers comes from the surname ‘Maltravers’. Until the
start of the Norman conquest, the manor of Lytchett was held by a Dane called
Tholf. After the conquest, King William gave the manor to Hugh Maltravers. The
Maltravers family held the manor for about three hundred years until the Black
Death reduced the population in the second half of the fourteenth century. The
surviving villagers deserted the original village site around the church and
resettled further up the hill. And that’s why it’s a bit of a journey from the
village to the church.
It’s not
a long walk from Lytchett to Morden but we met a few hitches along the way. The
navigational system went a little awry, necessitating one or two back-tracks. And
the weather did not behave as the met forecasters said it would. For ten
minutes it rained very heavily while we sheltered in woodland. Add to that, we
met more stiles than we expected and we met more hills than we expected. We
arrived at the pub about an hour later than planned.
After
lunch we took a different route back to Lytchett Matravers. This time we made
the journey in one and three quarter hours.
Thanks to
Trudy and Diane for the photos. And thanks to Trudy and Jackie for the tea and
cakes.
The Pub
The Cock
and Bottle at Morden. They serve good food at reasonable prices and the service
is excellent. When a pint of beer was knocked over, it was replaced at
absolutely no cost. Worthy of commendation.
No comments:
Post a Comment