Walks in Lincolnshire

Somersby

"I WAS scouring the map of Britain for a really away-from-it-all winter walk on hilly ground. Lincolnshire slipped into view - flat coast, flat southern fens and flat northern estuarine lands. Nothing much there. Down the spine of the county, though, things looked more exciting. There in the middle rose the Lincolnshire Wolds, a tumbled sweep of chalk and greenstone hills unsullied by motorway or railway.

A cold blue sky was showing above shredding rainclouds as I set off from Tetford, one of a cluster of farming villages in the hills between Lincoln and Skegness. The Lincolnshire Wolds are partly chalk, partly a kind of iron-rich sandstone known as greenstone. St Mary's Church on the edge of Tetford was built of this soft stuff, its gargoyles, windows and walls all weathered and lichen-stained into a green lumpiness. Inside, high on the wall, were displayed the breastplate, backplate and peaked helmet of Captain Edward Dymoke, official Champion to King George II. The gallant captain wore these martial garments when he threw down a gauntlet at the coronation of the King in 1727, challenging to single combat anyone who might dare to gainsay his sovereign lord.

The local moles must have been disturbed by the overnight rain; they had pushed up thousands of hills of rich iron-brown earth in the meadows. What with these, and the sticky clay-like soil of the Lincolnshire ploughlands, my boots were twice their usual size and weight by the time I had clambered to the ridge of Warden Hill. Here I idled, kicking wedges of mud into the hedge and looking down on Somersby.

The red-brick barns and white houses of the farming hamlet lay sheltered by oaks and beeches, cradled in a green valley. Beyond, fold upon fold of gentle green hills rolled to the southern skyline with a wave-like motion I could almost feel. A scene so quintessentially English, it looked like a patriotic Brian Cook poster.

"Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat

Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds

Upon the ridged wolds,

When the first matin-song hath waken'd loud

Over the dark dewy earth forlorn,

What time the amber morn

Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud."

They could write them like that in Victorian days, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson did - reams of romantic rustic images from the Lincolnshire countryside of his birth and childhood, underpinning the great Arthurian and classical themes of his poetry. But childhood in Somersby Rectory was far from idyllic for the poet. His father's ill health overshadowed all - George Clayton Tennyson was epileptic and depressive, a drinker and opium-taker subject to violent rages and black fits of despair that loomed over himself, his wife and their 11 children. Young Alfred's talent for poetry was irrepressible, however. His first book was published in 1827, when he was still a teenager. But he had to wait until the 1850 publication of In Memoriam, his elegy to his long-dead friend Arthur Hallam, before hitting the jackpot of fame and fortune.

From the little exhibition at the back of St Margaret's Church - another knobbly greenstone building - I learnt of Tennyson's late, adulated years as peer and Poet Laureate. A bust of the poet near the chancel arch showed pouched eyes thoughtfully staring above a fine full beard, and romantically long locks streaming back from a domed bald head. In a display case lay one of his quill pens and a couple of his clay pipes - Tennyson was a formidable smoker of strong shag.

Opposite the church stood the rectory where the poet was born in 1809 - an off-white brick building under a pantiled roof, half-hidden behind neat yew topiary. From the open kitchen window came cheerful whistling and a clatter of dishes. Down the lane I sat on a brick bridge parapet, listening to the bubble and gurgle of the infant River Lymn, Tennyson's famous Brook:

"I chatter over stony ways,

In little sharps and trebles,

I bubble into eddying bays,

I babble on the pebbles."

Down in Bag Enderby, a mile away across the fields, I passed Ivy House Farm, a cottage of the traditional Lincolnshire "mud, stud and thatch", its wall surfaces smoothed to a rounded, softly pleasing shape and texture. The little greenstone church among the trees shelters a great treasure: a gorgeous octagonal medieval font carved with strange sculptures - a long-muzzled deer browsing on a tree growing out of its own back, a figure seated on a cloud and playing a viol or a hurdy-gurdy, and a tender little rustic pieta with the dead Jesus cramped up awkwardly on his sorrowing mother's lap. The church kneelers were beautifully worked, too, a feature of the churches hereabouts.

On the return tramp I enjoyed the pleasure of walking a country road without a single passing car to disturb me. By the time I got back to Tetford the temperature had dropped to freezing. Luckily the Cross Keys was open, and willing to serve me something hot.

Inja and Tanya, the pub dogs, sat and watched each mouthful so intently I thought their stares were burning holes in my cheeks. But it was only the cheesy pasta and the Tetleys bitter, spreading the kind of glow that's at least half the point of a good hilly walk on a cold winter's day.

Lincolnshire walk basics

Maps OS 1:25,000 Explorer 273 "Lincolnshire Wolds South", 1:50,000 Landranger 122 "Skegness".

Travel By bus - 6C service: five a day, except Sunday, from Louth (25 minutes) or Horncastle (15 minutes). By road - A1 to Newark, A46 to Lincoln, A158 to Horncastle, minor road to Tetford.

Walk directions From Tetford Church (334748) cross stile in NE corner of churchyard, following direction of yellow waymark arrows across grassy fields. In 600 yards cross stile (340747 - yellow arrow); diagonally right across next field to cross ditch by railed footbridge. On along field edge to cross next wooden footbridge; follow left field edge path to cross Double Dike in far corner of field (344736). Through two kissing gates; footpath fingerpost points ahead across two fields to next footpath fingerpost. Continue towards Harden's Gap farm; cross ditch by railed footbridge and turn right (349745) to road.

Turn left for 150 yards; then right (352743 - bridleway fingerpost) up slope with fence on left, over summit and down far side for 180 yards. Turn right through hedge (354737) to top corner of Fox Covert. Bear left down far side of wood (blue arrow on post), following track into and out of valley. At top of bank bear right (351733 - blue arrow) on track past Wardenhill Farm (349733) down to Somersby.

At road (344728), right for 150 yards; on right bend go left ("footpath to Bridge Road" fingerpost) along field edge to Bridge Road (342726). Right for 350 yards to bridge over "Tennyson's Brook"/River Lymn (339727). Return past Rectory and Grange on right (343726) and St Margaret's Church on left. Keep ahead at road junction ("Bag Enderby, Alford" sign). In 80 yards, right (345726 - footpath fingerpost) through White House Farm yard. Through gateway; over stile (yellow arrow); down slope to cross ditch (two stiles). Up slope to cross stile (346723); follow field edge to thatched Ivy House Farm (347721) and St Margaret's Church, Bag Enderby (349720).

Return to Ivy House Farm; left along field edge track, down through trees. Where track bends right, keep ahead to cross Tennyson's Brook (346719 - footpath fingerpost and concrete footbridge). Continue ahead up left side of ditch, then down right side of plantation, following yellow arrows. Where trees end (343716) aim ahead for Stainsby House with hedge on your right. At Stainsby's barns turn right along lane (338716) to road (334719). Right for .5 mile; left at T-junction (338728 - "Salmonby, Tetford" signs). In 600 yards, round sharp left bend; in 150 yards, at end of pine copse, right (334732 - bridleway fingerpost) along field edge with hedge on left. In 600 yards, path swings left; in 50 yards pass three-finger post (332739), keeping ahead along bridleway to road (329741 - Cross Keys PH is on left). Right into Tetford. Left at road, then right (329745) down Mill Lane. At end of tarmac follow path to road (333744); left to return to White Hart PH and car.

  tel.01507 604470 

Lincolnshire - The perfect place to enjoy England