The ancient footpath to The Heavens, via Weyhouse

This footpath is very old, preceding nearly all the buildings in this area, and now forming the boundary to many differing properties and land uses. It is a section of a nearly direct connection that allows travel over several of the steep valleys, much as a Roman road seems to do. 

We live beside this section, just one house away from the hedged wall on the right of the alleyway. Regulars amongst you may know the often blipped view from my study, and this avenue is aligned in the same southerly direction. The gate is on the same boundary with the local area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) as the bottom of our garden. The AONB is land protected by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (CROW Act) designed to protect the land and to conserve and enhance its natural beauty.

On the left of the path is the new cemetery, above which is Horns Road that runs along the valley of the same name. Most local people regard this path as the way to The Heavens, a high point at the rear of a combe where a spout or spring emerges from just about the highest point around here. It flows very steeply down the combe forming a waterfall before levelling out and then joining the Lime Brook and  together on into the River Frome at Bowbridge.

Our neighbours when we moved here told me that the local bakery brought a cart to this point every day, and then a young lad would run down the hill and up the other side to deliver the fresh loaves to the Weyhouse, a small farm built beside on the old Wey, a pre-Roman track that would take travellers down from the flat farm lands across the river in the valley bottom and up to the Iron Age camp on Rodborough ommon on the opposite hilltop.

The 'Extra' shows some red berries I saw as I walked past the cemetery, peeking through the yew in the old hedge.