The Wednesday Walk 26th April 2017

The Plan

The Bluebells of Dorset

Who Turned Up

Tony, Sue, Trisha, Wendy, David

The Walk

It was one of those days that spanned the weather conditions. It started chilly, turned sunny and ended with a few drops of rain. We parked the cars at Athelhampton House and crossed the main road beside the village church. Our path took us up through Cowpound Wood where we saw a brilliant array of bluebells. The ground seemed to be lost beneath the carpet of blue. We continued through the fields and turned down past Southover Farm into Tolpuddle.

After lunch we returned along the shorter route, paralleling the river.

I’ve probably told you about the Tolpuddle martyrs in a previous blog post, but it bears repeating. In 1833, a group of farm labourers decided to form a society of agricultural labourers. They were led by George Loveless, a Methodist lay preacher. Trade unions were lawful in those days, but this group made the mistake of swearing an oath of secrecy. That got up the nose of the local magistrate. Alarmed by their actions, he obtained approval from the Home Secretary, Lord Melbourne, to have the men arrested. Because trade unions were not illegal, they were charged under a little known law originally enacted for use against mutiny in the Royal Navy. The seven men were found guilty and sentenced to transportation to Australia.
It was a very pleasant bluebell walk and we offer our thanks to Sue for the photographs.

The Pub

The Martyr’s Inn Tolpuddle. The food was good, especially the chicken pie which would have ranked as outstanding if only it came with a jug of gravy. Unfortunately, there was only one lady behind the bar. She was friendly and did as good a job as she was able, but we found ourselves stuck behind  long queue of cyclists. And the food took a while to reach our tables.

Next Week
Meet at either Tony's or Jackie's at 10am.