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Ashdon |
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DISCOVER
WALDEN: Saffron Walden Countryside History &
Wildlife Walks
by
Jacqueline & Peter Cooper (1996: ISBN 1 873669 01 1)
Walk
9,
Ashdon
Only a few miles from Walden, the lovely village of Ashdon is a rambler’s dream, with a network of over a hundred rights-of-way. This circular walk is short but goes right round Ashdon on good paths through a different sort of countryside, of steep fields and thick hedgerows, of meadows, woods and deeply-cut valley, as well as arable fields on both boulder clay and chalk.
Start at All Saints Church,14th century, but on the same site as an earlier church - pagan burials have been found nearby. Inside is all the quiet charm of the best English village churches, cool and clean and unfussy: most of its riches were plundered after the Reformation but the Norman font-bowl survived. There is a story that the altar rails were restored in 1927 after being used for almost 50 years as henhouse perches. Such things are valued all the more for being temporarily mislaid. Likewise there was joy when the bells peeled forth in 1969 after being out of repair for 90 years.
Outside in the churchyard,
‘all the air a solemn stillness holds’, and it is
pretty with waving wild grasses, offering living habitat as well as
resting place. From behind the church can
be seen the timber-framed, medieval ‘Gilde Aule de
Asshendon’, a beautiful building whose chequered history
reflects the vicissitudes of government: when Henry VIII abolished
religious guilds,
it became a poorhouse, later with 25 poor folk living here and working
at
spinning in the 18th century. But when the official mood changed again
in the
1830s, the village poor were carted off to the hated, impersonal Union
in Walden, and the old guildhall became residential.
To the left of the church
is a field said to be the site of the deserted medieval village of old
Ashdon, which fell into silence after the Plague in 1348, when the
present
village centre emerged. There is disagreement among academics though -
13th
century pottery and sunken tracks, the finding of weapons and animal
bones,
show there was some great significance in Home Meadow. But the bumps
could be
ancient vineyard terraces, or possibly just the hollows of old diggings
-
careless 19th century gravel diggers destroyed evidence. It may be the
mystery field
has some connection with the significant Battle of Assendun of 18
October 1016, even that the
victorious Danish army of Cnut might have camped here. After all it was
Holinshed, no less, in his sixteenth century Chronicle
who stated that King Edmund ‘hasted foorth to
succour his people, and at Ashdone in Essex three miles
from Saffron Walden, gave battell to Cnute...’
From the church door, turn
right through a gap in the fence and over a stile. Bear right across
Home Meadow to another stile, then left but immediately right to cross
the
stream on a high causeway, past an overgrown area once a gravel pit.
Over to the
right is Pond Bay, said to be the site of a medieval
stewpond or fishpond. All is now tumbled back to nature with tall
teasels, mugwort and other wild plants. Even more delightful is the
flora of the field
track, skirted in summer by a verge full of colourful wildflowers -
blue
scabious and white bladder campion, pink clover and purple hardheads,
with red field
poppies and waving grasses of green and gold. Dogroses of palest pink
climb the
hedgerows and above them the lark celebrates the freedom of this
beautiful landscape of flowing hill and shallow valley - behind to the
church,
distantly left to Goldstones,and away right to
Little Hales Wood where many a gang of men in poorer times caught their
dinner on a dark winter’s night. Poaching was a way of life
in
Ashdon, with so many tempting woodlands about. Almost a tenth of Ashdon
parish was woodland
one time. Passing hedges, into the next field, through another
hedge,the
path turns left on a walkable field-edge beside a hedge of hawthorn.
The
heavier clay of this side of the parish can make it heavy going in wet
seasons.
But it’s a pleasant downhill trek through a gap over a rather
wobbly stile into a long, narrow slipe of a meadow, then over a
step-stile into a bigger
meadow, and continuing down to a little footbridge.
Hazel in the hedges is a picture of
sulphur yellow in spring, and it is good to hear the rookery
noisily from the treetops, for rooks are not as common as they once
were. Here,
dividing the parish in two, is the little Bourne, its name meaning
‘river river’, and the reason why a settlement grew
up here.
Downstream it gathers water from the hills, becomes the Granta and
eventually joins the Cam
which goes through Cambridge. Below ‘green and deep the
stream mysterious glides
beneath’, seeming too mild to have cut this deep ravine, but
the water table was higher in earlier
times, and perhaps it was deepened for watermills. Nearby is Water End,
where
Baptists used to hold open air services in the 1900s.
Go over the river on a solid railed
footbridge across to an area laid out for equine pursuits
- turn left along here, a nice woody area left to nature. Big yellow
bracket
fungi find a niche in the piles of old logs left for wildlife - too
often
these are tidied up and a valuable resource lost. There are squirrels
doing acrobatics in the
treetops, and butterflies in the glades. This field, once a marshy
meadow, now drained, is known as
The Wilderness, and is a delightful natural area.
Turn left over a high
stile to a waymarked bridleway, past Moor Cottage with its attractive
garden, towards another waymark post beside a former chicken house. A
footpath on the
right leads up to Springfield which early in the century was the
experimental site of
Ashdon’s fruit farming tradition. This woody track is an old
green way called Rock Lane,
originally linking Ashdon with Walden via Redgates Lane
at Sewards End. This is the best bit, a sheltered streamside stroll,
serenaded by birdsong and breezes, high above the little Bourne, where
there used
once to be a watermill. The path shows signs of recent improvement
works, but
not to the detriment of the tangled underwood enjoyed by a myriad
creatures,
and dampness enjoyed by Pendulous Sedge and wild Comfrey, the
miraculous
knitbone herb
Picturesque cottages with
pretty gardens lie at intervals along the Bourne. Somewhere over to the
left, on 9th March 1923, a meteorite weighing 44 ounces landed making a
two-foot dent in a
cornfield and frightening the life out of a farmworker nearby. It was
heard as far away as Saffron Walden,
where there is a copy in the Museum, the original being unusual enough
to find home in the Natural History Museum.
Possibly Rock Lane got its
name from that extraordinary artefact from
outer space? Strange things happen in Ashdon. Ten years earlier the
most
ferocious hailstorm imaginable had ripped through the village, breaking
every
window with huge lumps of ice. Continue ahead on a signposted bridleway
beside
which ‘the water is cool, gentle and brown, above the
pool’, where
tiddlers sport in sunny shallows. Those who know the river speak of
finding trout in secret
places. Trees offer many wildlife niches, from the tops of their
branches where
the songbirds call, to their old gnarled roots in the bank where
rabbits
burrow and bees dig little holes. In the sunnier spots are ordinary
pretty things,
flowering grasses attracting butterflies, and the ubiquitous little
pink Herb Robert. A green archway of fallen trees leans in old age
against an
even older pollard, decorated with bracket fungi, a piece of natural
woodland
sculpture.
Glimpsed through trees is
Hilly Meadow, climbing to Hill Farm, which used to house Ashdon Museum,
now in the village centre, a fascinating collection of bygones. What is
it
about this parish, a special something, which touches people? Its
ingredients seem
simple enough - the Victorian writer, John Player, said Ashdon in 1845
had
plenty of ‘hills and dells, water-courses and umbrageous
retreats’ but was otherwise
undistinguished. Yet others have more accurately found it ‘no
ordinary village’.
The wayside weeds,
pernicious elsewhere, seem beautiful in Ashdon - tall and stately spear
thistles, luscious butterfly-nettles, sticky willy clambering over a
tree stump.
Even ground elder, foolishly imported as a pot herb by the Romans,
transforms into
a stately clump of creamy-white flowers when allowed to do its own
thing.
The lovely lane ends all
too soon, crossing over two bridges made of railway sleepers, into a
meadow and through a gap in the hedge. In June the warm sloping home
meadows smell
of sweet new-mown hay, calling to mind that long ago summer of 1914
when
the hay harvest lay rotting, for all the Ashdon farmworkers were on
strike,
seeking to increase their 13 shillings weekly wage. An old oak stump,
thoughtfully
left in the meadow, would have been a mature tree then. There are some
lovely
trees at the top of field, beside a fine tiled barn and timbered Tudor
Croft,
with notable chimneys.
Cross the field diagonally
to emerge on the Radwinter Road opposite Kate’s Lane, an 18th
century name - once this formed
the boundary with a separate hamlet, Steventon. A
militia sword from the Napoleonic Wars, found in Kates Lane,
is a proud possession of Ashdon Museum.
Turn left through the village centre,
rich in old cottages, of timber, plaster, red or yellow brick, pegtiles
and slate, sometimes thatch. The old police house is well named; the
legend
of Dick Turpin gets reference; there is a 300-year-old former bakery,
an old
bootmakers’ now ‘Maltings’, and a former
butchery now ‘Willow Cottage’.
Meeting places, past and
present cluster round the junction: the present village hall; 19th
century Baptist Chapel, replacing the dilapidated old barn at nearby
Chapel
Farm; and the last two pubs, the Old Fox now residential, and the Rose
and Crown, noted for its 17th century wall paintings, a pub
for over 200 years -
the men loved it for its speciality brew, a strong porter known as
‘entire’, and for the women Crown Hill was also a
meeting place for gossip round the
pump. Here one time the vestry met to organise the minutiae of village
life -
doles to the poor, repairs to the roads. The Fox, which closed in the
1960s after
140 years, had a well-known publican, who lived to a ripe old age, and
doubled up
as parish clerk, schoolmaster and village constable.
In a field behind the Fox,
the Ashdon strikers held concerts in the summer of 1914, singing the
‘Red Flag’ to piano and accordion accompaniment.
Their public meetings also took
place in the village centre. At least one confrontation took place in
front of
the Rose and Crown, and there was trouble
everywhere - broken
farmgates, burned haystacks, blocked roads. On one occasion they
marched to Saffron
Walden and back, forks and hayrakes on their shoulders. They won their
15
shillings, just in time to save the harvest - and to march off to the
trenches of France.
Turn right at the junction, once called
the ‘three-went way’, past
the lovely gardens of Juniper House. The public well used to be along
here - in 1688 the inhabitants
of Ashdon were summonsed for not enclosing it. This is where Ashdon
keeps
its treasures - a Silver Jubilee seat of 1977; the garden war memorial,
with the names of ‘many a lightfoot lad’ who never
came back to
Ashdon; trophies from some distant best-kept village competition - the
trophy from a more recent
win in 1988 is kept outside the village hall ; and a very well-made
village
sign, showing the ash tree after which the Domesday Ascenduna
was named, amid a pastoral scene from the past, blending into the
present background of
hedges and fields.
Cross the road opposite
the splendid Victorian village school dating back to 1878, its clock
always useful to villagers.Turn left up a little old winding lane,
Dorvis Lane,
possibly named after John Dover, who owned land here a long time ago. A
house in the lane, known as Aylewards, a former shop, has an unusual
spiral
staircase, and dates back to medieval times. The former Manse had an
old pond, the Lady Well, said to be haunted by the ghost of a lady who
drowned
when lightning frightened her horses.
Passing the last cottage,
go through the gate, closing it carefully as there may be stock in the
meadow. At one time Dorvis Lane continued beyond the gate, hence the
high bank may be the lynchet of
the old lane.This is a fine spacious meadow dotted with oaks, populated
by rabbits, with views of distant wooded
hills. Ashdon is full of separate ‘ends’ - Knox
End,
Church End, Water End. Holden End
nearby was a centre for strawplaiting in the last century when about 20
families lived there. Ignore the stiled footbridge, beside which is a
large sarsen stone, remnant of an ice age millions of years ago.
Unfortunately there is no view of the famous Roman burial mounds, the
curious Bartlow
Hills.
Follow the track alongside
a fence, then through a farm gate to pass Newnham Hall Farm, built on a
sheltered, streamside site in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
but replacing an earlier building nearby, one time known as Cloptons
after
its medieval owners. It is many centuries since it was new, for at
Domesday
‘Neunham’ belonged to one of William the
Conqueror’s right-hand men, and at one
time the manorial lands spread right across the parish. The 13th
century lord of the manor had the right to erect his own gallows, and
hold assize of
bread and ale. There were sheepwalks here one time for the chalk soil,
though
easier to work, was not as fertile as the claylands elsewhere. Today
Newnham
is part of the vast Vestey landholdings.
There are ghost stories
round here, legends of fighting men seen on moonlit nights in distant
fields, related perhaps to the Civil War
battle at Linton which is not far away. A hoard of silver coins hidden
at this time was found in 1984, a short distance away near Walton Hall.
Skirt
the left edge of the farmyard past the byre and silage area to a
somewhat hidden
stile on the right between tyres and machinery; but take care as the
path is
narrow and the stile slippery. Over to the left can be seen The
Rectory, one
of the finest houses in Ashdon.The path along
the field is ploughed close and it is hard to find the track to the
right through the woods. But persevere as this is a lovely little
bluebell
and oak woodland apparently called The Brues, with signs of fox as well
as
pheasant. Both wood and field paths emerge on an old high-banked lane,
very near
where the high-arched bridge of the Bartlow branch line used to cross:
labourers working in the fields told the time by means of its four
daily trains.
There were dreams of linking further afield, but nothing came of it and
then
the whole railway got Beechinged anyway in the 1960s. Signs of
Neolithic
man have been found in the past hereabouts.
Turn left up steep Rectory Lane,
looking back to another little woodland and a pink house to the right
called Ricketts. Turn right at ‘Westview’ on a
signposted
path up a driveway to a newly-surfaced farm road. Look for a waymarked
gap up the bank, and
cross here to the other side of the hedge. Foxes can be spotted
hereabouts. Mind
the stinging nettles, in summer black with the caterpillars of
tortoiseshell butterflies.
After
passing some old
farm implements, keep to the right along the side of a paddock, then
right again to the driveway of Hall Farm - this was the farm linked to
Ashdon Hall,
one of four ancient manors of the parish. Then turn left back down to
Church
Hill, passing a flinted building which used to be the nineteenth
century Ashdon National School, remaining in use till the village board
school opened. Opposite is Ashdon Hall whose
lovely gardens, lawns and moat are out of sight. The other big house in
Ashdon, Waltons has another walk to be recommended.
In fact there is fine walking everywhere
in Ashdon, a tradition started by the late Dorothy Homewood, after whom
one of the
Ashdon paths is named. As John Player observed over 150 years ago:
‘Travelling folk in search of the picturesque very often go a
great number of miles to see
places not nearly so interesting after all, as their own’.
© Jacqueline Cooper 1996
