By: Blonde Two
The latest Two Blondes’ expedition was not up on the wilds of Dartmoor but up and down some of South Devon’s green lanes. I am not sure what green lanes look like in the rest of the country (please do tell me) but down here in Devonshire, they are often sunken with tree roots at eye level and trees arching over the path. If you have an Ordnance Survey map, the green lanes are easy to find but you do need to make sure that a) you are allowed to use them and b) they are actually passable. Footpaths (people), bridleways (people, horses and bikes) and byways (people, horses, bikes, motorbikes and 4x4s) are all marked on the OS map but you will need to check permissions for the other tracks that are marked as white.
You can be quite clever planning routes around green lanes, if you know where you are (a great excuse for exploration), you can walk in the countryside between quite busy towns all day and never be too far from home. Some are well looked after and provide a pleasant walking environment, others are more worn down and involve a fair amount of picking through rocks and tree roots. Most of the ones that we used were very steep!
Just like the tracks on Dartmoor, Devon green lanes can have very pretty local names; ‘Sweetheart’s Lane’ in Galmpton, ‘Drunkard’s Lane’ in Aveton Gifford and ‘Runaway Lane’ in Modbury are a few examples. We Blondes have walked this expedition route a few times before and have given its lanes our own set of Blonde names.
Hay Bale Lane – purportedly a byway but blocked at one end by a local farmer and his very big hay bale.
Puddle Lane – always has an enormous puddle (more like a river) that requires wading through or climbing around. Mountain goat Blonde One climbs, I pick my way through the red mud!
Nettle Lane – we must have first visited it later in the year and at that time, the nettles were armpit high and sticks were required to break through.
The Worst Lane in the World – always dusty, far too steep and goes on and on and on. I defy anyone to enjoy walking up it.
Green lanes are good fun to explore and almost always link pubs together (or churches if you prefer). I would recommend taking a map as their enclosed nature can make them a bit confusing. It is a bank holiday today, why don’t you go and find some?
Rogue Male, Geoffrey Household immediately sprang to mind. I reckon it is in my top ten list.
In case you haven’t read it a major character is, in its own right, one of those sunken lanes and its accompanying hedge/banking, albeit set in Dorset, but almost identical to the lanes you refer to.
There is a good appraisal here: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/mar/15/robert-macfarlane-household-rogue-male
but best to read it first if you haven’t already done so.
Now that is a Blonde challenge if ever I saw one. First to read the story which sounds not unlike The Thirty-Nine Steps which I love. Second to set out in search of the lane itself … a summer adventure maybe.
Beat you to it Blonde Two. I read it when I was at school!
Well in that case you must accept challenge two!
As a child we were so often whisked off to Dartmoor or one of the other fabulous National Parks in the UK that we some what neglected our “home turf”. It wasn’t until meeting hubby; who grew up without a car in the household so spent most of his youth “on home turf”; that I was introduced to my local green lanes. They are always a joy to walk, even when going up, to the point that we set up some geocaches in some of them in the hope others would also find somewhere new and very pleasant to walk. They are also great for mountain biking, as I did the other day while checking out some of our geocaches!
Love this post! I did a house exchange near Sudbury, Suffolk for a few years in the 90s and there were several lovely sunken lanes near “my” house. Also, loved the link Conrad provided about Household and Rogue Male. Last year I discovered Roger Deakin and read one of his books. Will be searching Amazon when I finish this comment!!
All of these lovely comments have made me want to out and explore some more green lanes. We have so many round our area, it would take ages but be worth it …
Coincidentally Robert Macfarlane is just publishing a new book — Holloway.
“A hollow way, a sunken path. A route that centuries of foot-fall, hoof-hit, wheel-roll and rain-run have harrowed deep down into bedrock. In July 2005, Robert Macfarlane and Roger Deakin travelled to explore the holloways of South Dorset’s sandstone. They found their way into a landscape of shadows, spectres & great strangeness. Six years later, after Deakin’s early death, Macfarlane returned to the holloway with the artist Stanley Donwood and writer Dan Richards. The book is about those journeys and that landscape.”
Sounds interesting and a welcome addition to Macfarlane’s inspiring writing.
Must also order Rogue Male.
Oh golly, two books, that one sound great too but will definitely have to lead to exploration!
I wonder how many blog readers are now in possession of a copy of Rogue Male. I know I’ve downloaded a copy to my e-reader and am looking forward to the read!
Ordered mine on Audible this morning!
You are both beating me – must catch up! Is this Two Blondes the book club now? That would be a grand idea for our website … if we had one!
Wow! I seem to have got something going here.
You certainly have – I am off to bed to download a new book (although I think I would prefer to have this one in paper format)! Well done Conrad.