In the middle of the fields behind Eddie Williams farm, a muddy stream, cow trodden and giant puff balls the girls used for footie practice.  Over growth of brambles, oozing marsh, less than pure water and broken down fences.  The causeway and fences to prevent cattle roaming on to it and damaging it, was installed by County years ago–I guess around 15.  By 2015 just about all of the posts used had rotted off at the base, causing the fence to lean alarmingly, on the point of collapsing completely.

As usual our leader (taskmaster?) JP had a plan.  This plan was criticised, often, we just wouldn’t have done it that way and told him. As is the way with gang masters, we received no rations, commendation or other sustenance and bent to our respective tasks diligently with heads down. Some had escaped the chains to do the dainty task of erecting signs in the area to guide people along the Martley Circular Walk, the leaflet for which would benefit from a little more clarity in places.

After several unrefreshed hours continuous work the coffee angel, Janet appeared–thanks–gulp, gone, back to work.

Here are the pics and thank you to the youngsters for sticking it out, being cheerful and helping us on the day.  Better say thanks too to JP otherwise he will be mardy; we enjoyed the work, great plan, thank goodness you do all the organizing, especially of the untalented team you have to use.

JP has erected very useful map boards on the Martley Circular, at the furthest out point and where some choose to start this beautiful circular ramble. Black arrow marks the spot.

Here is the letter from Jack Hegarty CE MHDC in answer to ours

After huge amount of hard work over several days the path along the river at Kingswood, badly slumped, has been re-opened by Worcestershire Country Council.  our Area Officer Jonathan White was full of praise and very impressed by our efforts, here is his email:

Hi John

I had a walk through the riverside last Thursday and the path is looking much better. I was particularly pleased with the new steps at the south end, a good job well done. In some places, where you have used random tree branches to support the surface of the path, this will need regular future monitoring to check that the edge of the path is still capable of holding up a person walking near the edge, are you/the pnones okay to do this?

I have removed the closure notices.

It has been very good to work with your group to get a new path open after the huge landslips.

If you are interested in doing this type of work in the future, we could save additional money if the work could be completed within 21 days, I know this puts extra pressure on everyone, but the cost savings are much greater if we remove the need to have a Temporary Closure Order (up to 6 months) we can still close the path under an Emergency Closure Order (21 days), the saving would be over £1000 for every 6 month period.

Best regards

Jon

A Martley initiative, geology themed walks has been accepted as a good idea worth sharing with their members by Walkers are Welcome. Martley was the 13th community in the UK to achieve accreditation by the Walkers are Welcome movement.  You can read about it HERE. As its name suggests, WaW encourages communities to make walkers welcome through achieving certain criteria, such as local walks, community support, local walks maintenance group and so on.  Since its inception WaW has achieved notable success, now incorporating well over 100 members and many more on application.

Teme Valley Geological Society put forward the idea to WaW of inviting their member communities to perhaps encourage walking with a geology theme and WaW inserted the following into their most recent newsletter.  TVGS itself is leading occasional geology themed walks with the local Worcester Ramblers group and this has been very well received.

Below is the WaW editorial and HERE is a more detailed version for members only

Geology Walks
Themes add interest to any guided walk, walking festival programme or self-guided publication. Having lost its stuffy boys’ grammar school image, the fascinating study of geology is becoming increasingly popular. Not only in rural areas though. The stones used in buildings can provide a fascinating insight into old ways of working and living, many exhibit excellent fossils.

In Martley, Worcestershire, walking groups can avail themselves of a geology interpreter to go along and explain the local landscape, how it was formed, the underlying rock types and how they influence everything from buildings to agriculture.

The success of this initiative is worth passing on, so if your local group thinks it a good idea, why not plan one of your trips with a geological theme? Remember this is aimed at non-geologists as an introduction. The walks are not geology field trips!

If you want to pursue this, contact John Nicklin, Parish Paths Warden for Martley, our 13th WaW village, and Secretary of the Teme Valley Geological Society. Further details are on the NEW Geology Walks factsheet available to download.

Ian, being a Guardian reader, discovered an article about another group, a sort of proto PONS in Horsington South Somerset.

HERE is the link

You might like to also move down to the comments where Ian has responded, pointing out that right to roam (probably the journalists ignorance) is nothing to do with a ‘fielded parish’ nice term).

By the way we have 41 miles of paths not 41 km

A terrific amount of thought, talking and work has gone into our response to the way in which Malvern Hills District Council in particular and also Worcestershire County Council have dealt with the paths diversions, re-routing, blocking of above routes. They have ignored local opinion, illegally applied constraints on use, not followed procedure on consultation and so on–a really shabby, unprofessional performance taken as an insult by the Path-or-Nones and the Parish Council.

We have responded by way of a jointly signed letter to the Chief Executives of both councils as well as to our MP.  In addition, now that the consultation documents as required by law, have been circulated, we have made our comments known about the proposed new routes affecting four well used pathways.

HERE are our comments about the proposed routes.

HERE is the letter to the County Councils and our MP

Path MT671 suffered massively from subsidence over the last 12 months, guilt here in that all of the news about all of our activities has not been recorded. Huge amount of clearence and path re-routing/making so that once again this delightful route alongside the river can be used by walkers, particularly important as it forms part of the GeoPark Way.  Ian took some pics in December that give an idea of the state now.  We took many pictures of the blocked and slumped land during the year but all of them failed to do justice to the devastation of the area, that no doubt will continue owing to the nature of the land.  Mud and silt piled on to slippy limestone under.

A tale worth recording at any rate.

The experienced, qualified team–always a big one when there is a free brekky in the offing–popped down to install a, ‘oh it won’t take long to do this’,  gate just up river from Kingswood weir.  So much for Land Rovers and those who invested in them. Stuck! Couldn’t get back up the slippery slopes!  Oh dear. Shame.  Thank goodness for Rob Day and his trusty steed (Toyota?), up and down the hills like a spring lamb with a winch.  The pictorial evidence of this embarrassing event is brought to you by reporters on the spot. Pictures blurred from giggling.

Gate installed and bridge re-enforced and made wider–all those travelling the Worcestershire Way should be grateful.  As far as I can reflect, this might have been the last stile on the WW through our patch, tho there are technically one or two near Hill End farm but these are avoidable usually.

Thirteen of us sat down for our annual breakfast, whistles wet with a touch of champers and home made bread.  Not many complaints about that.

To accommodate the very extensive work ongoing at Horsham farm where racing stables and personnel accommodation is being built, greatly upgrading and improving the old decrepit farm out buildings and housing, a proposed path diversion.

The idea is to move the path, currently crossing a horse paddock then through what was always a very muddy and ugly farmyard, easterly to an upper paddock thence to the old ‘lane’ from the telegraph pole in the bracken (we know where that is).

We checked out the route and think it a much preferred option though we did suggest a slight modification to the landowner’s original proposal.  Here it is:

Just like to re-iterate the message to our Parish Clerk that the way that Worc. CC has managed this, full consultation, plenty of time etc contrasts SO sharply with the methods employed by MHDC on the paths behind the Crown.