InsaneJournal

Current mood:	cheerful
Current music:	Birds on the terrace

Halstock - Evershot - Melbury Park part II
No spoilers


What a good decision that had been because now I saw a young couple passing through a farm gate, talking to a gentleman my age and then wandering on along the route I had thought blocked to the public by the Ilchester gate. So it was down the fields and up the tarmac road taken previously. The nice gentleman was still there, helped my through the farm gate and pointed out the stile he had taken and on which he now sat for a sandwich and a drink from his flask. We chatted for a while about different walks and nice countryside and he showed me on his OS Explorer Map that the public footpath must be the tarmac road and that it led straight to Melbury House. He cautioned that I would not see much of the house though.

By now I was much too excited, wished the granddad -house sitting for his grand-children on holidays in Turkey- a good day and went on. About ½ miles along were cattle grids and a sign telling the wanderer not to disturb the deer and “that the tarmac was the footpath”. Ah!


I continued along, taking photos of the gently rolling countryside left, right and centre and felt very much on Jack’s land.


Mrs Pheasant flitted across and a bird here and there soared out of tree. After about a mile there were brick walls to my right and when I looked closer, there were the roofs of a larger house.

I stifled a little squee of delight. It was undoubtedly Melbury House. To the right was the tower, the crow’s nest I had seen on several prints, one of them leaning on a wall at home. I went through another of those turn gates. There was a sign to the Estate workshops and I imagined some of Jack’s seamen followers to have worked there.

Rounding another corner I was surprised by lawn, chains leading to a hip-high small gate, and behind them was…The House, or rather: one of its wings, the one next to the church.


Jack and Stephen Bear seemed to say Now we are home

When I finally turned away from the house two small dogs bounded across the lawn, quivering with zeal and soon gazing into my face to see which way I would go. One was a short-legged Jack Russell, the other one a chocolate pup.

As I had found the spot where dogs cannot scratch themselves, he followed me around trustingly and it took me a while to deter him from walking back with me. At one stage I was close to walking up to the Estate offices to find someone to hold him back but he finally decided to let me walk on. Maybe he was a successor of Jack’s Bess, even though she was not so much a hunting dog but rather a rough, more-or-less spaniel bitch.

Yes, after this walk I regard Melbury House as the location of “Woolcombe House”…and had not also one of the Earls of Ilchester been a Member of Parliament for Midhurst (Sussex), a small parliamentary borough only 10m from Petersfield? What a splendid connection between Woolcombe House and Ashgrove!

By now and more prosaically speaking, I needed a certain convenience. With a bit of a heavy heart I walked towards Evershot and the boys and I negotiated the stile once more.

Maybe I could have a meal at the Acorn Inn because I also felt peckish? Maybe the Acorn Inn was really the Aubrey Arms? During that walk Jack and Stephen Bear suggested we pick a couple of daisies for good friends and so Jack did. The ladies in question have received the little flowers by now.


Entering Evershot, I finally saw an old and weathered dark wooden sign pointing towards Melbury Osmond 2 ½ miles. It had been well hidden in the trees and shrubs to the side.