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Who wanted some wives for his halisbury
So he had them sent down
By a fast train from town
For he thought that his mortar would scalisbury" - Punch, 1928.
"There was a young curate of Salisbury
Whose manners were quite halisbury-scalisbury
He wandered around Hampshire
Without any pampshire
Til' the vicar compelled him to Walisbury" - Anon.
Those two limericks, intended to instruct and amuse people regarding the pronunciation of the word Salisbury, don't make a lot of sense but are at least amusing. Another thing that doesn't make much sense, and isn't remotely amusing, is that, in England, in 2020, half the land is still owned by just 1% of the population. One of those land owners, William Pleydell-Bouverie, the 9th Earl of Radnor, owns Longford Castle in Wiltshire and his inherited wealth and greedy insistence on keeping it private resulted in the third TADS trek of the year taking both a different physical direction, along the A338 instead of by the side of the Avon, and a more political dimension than normal as Shep, for one, felt a compulsion to sign up for Class War and I was confronted by a passive-aggressive toady who does Pleydell-Bouverie's bidding for him.
Luckily, this proved to be a minor blemish on an otherwise relaxing, enjoyable, and lovely day and the gentle rolling countryside of rural Wiltshire, the spire of Salisbury's notorious cathedral, the lovely pub beer gardens of Odstock and Nunton, and most of all the delightful, as ever, company will linger far longer in the memory than a minor altercation with an anti-Spartacist who's spent so long doffing his cap to his wealthy owners he's no longer able to read a moral compass.
The day started early for me. A 6AM alarm was necessary to get a few bits and bobs done but I was still out of my flat by 8 and not long after on the train to Honor Oak Park to East Croydon and then on to Clapham Junction where Platform 9 was emptier than normal (for obvious reasons) and specifically emptier than normal for me because Pam wasn't there.
The first ever TADS march (back in the pre-blogging days) was in Salisbury (out to Stonehenge, taxi back) in 2015 and one of the highlights of the day had been the Indian restaurant Anokaa. Me, Shep, Adam, and Teresa have raved about it for the past five and half years and part of the reason for this walk was so that Pam would be able to finally experience it for herself. So, of course, typically, she was unable to attend. Maybe we can try again in another five years!
So I took the train alone from Clapham Junction until Shep and Adam joined me in Basingstoke. Muffled chat beneath our masks took us into Salisbury proper and we soon cut into the city centre for coffee (Shep/Adam) and tea in Jenny's. A slightly overpriced and perhaps overly bustling, in the circumstances, greasy spoon that nevertheless served me up a rather delicious cheese omelette and chips.
On the way back to the station to meet Colin and Patricia (who'd driven down from Oxford and taken the Park and Ride into Salisbury) we stopped to briefly take in the park where Sergei and Yulia Skripal collapsed after being poisoned by Putin's Novichok back in March 2018. A friend later asked if there was a plaque to mark the spot. Not yet!
Patricia would become the 27th person (following Michelle and Ben's debuts last weekend) to complete a full TADS walk and a very welcome addition she was too. Colin's been with us before a few times and always brings something to the party. He's normally got a funny story or two, he helps Adam help me with technology, and, this time, he took all the best photographs that Pam and Belinda normally provide. Thanks for that.
The five of us left Salisbury train station and headed into the pretty Queen Elizabeth Gardens. Crossing a small stream in the middle we followed a path to the SE corner of the garden where the river Nadder flows into the Avon. The Nadder's a 34 mile long tributary that flows from Ludwell and never leaves Wiltshire.
The Avon, one of many rivers of that name - it's not the same one you'll find in Bath, is sixty miles long and flows from the Vale of Pewsey to the English Channel near Christchurch in Dorset and is believed to contain more species of fish than any other English river. A few of which we could see. Best of all, and this is a very well known fact but I'm still sharing it, the name Avon means 'river'. The river river!
We followed the Avon briefly and then crossed it on Crane Bridge, turning into the High Street, through the dramatic gate below (Colin's photo accidentally, rather than intentionally, jaunty or arty), and into the rather pleasant Chorister's Square where stands Mompesson House, an 18c mansion constructed in the Queen Anne style of English Baroque for Salisbury MP Sir Thomas Mompesson. Another MP on our mind was Edward Heath who is buried in the cathedral grounds and whose house Adam thinks we walked past.
There was some kind of outdoor sculpture exhibition in the cathedral grounds so we took in Subodh Gupta's When Soak Becomes Spill, Elisabeth Frink's permanent Walking Madonna, Shirazeh Houshiary's String Quartet, and Lynn Chadwick's Sitting Couple On A Bench. It's a nice idea and if we weren't looking to get walking (and, in some cases, getting desperate for a pee) it'd have been enjoyable to spend more time with these and other more distant installations.
Sadly, my camera started adding unwanted text to my photos at this point so my photos, already shamed by Colin's superior ones, start to look a bit crap. I remedied it (much) later in the day but so focused on the walk was I that I didn't even notice this at the time. Blame Huawei!
Salisbury Cathedral has, famously - not least to the Russians, the tallest church spire in all of the UK (123 metres, 404ft), a title it's held since 1548 when the spire of Lincoln Cathedral collapsed. Ulm Minster, 161m, holds the European, and World, record.
The main body of Salisbury Cathedral was built between 1220 and 1258 and it houses one of four original copies of the Magna Carta (which we'd needed to have booked tickets to see - and, like London's art galleries that are now reopening, that is not easy. Things are selling out quick) and one of the world's oldest clocks. The cloister is the largest in Britain and its been painted by Constable and inspired a book, The Spire, by William Golding.
We passed by the cathedral, crossed the Avon again, and walked along Harnham Road and Old Blandford Road. On the latter of which we made our steepest ascent of the day up some steps that gradually veered away from the road. It was here I was responsible for our first minor wrong turn of the day. That one was quickly corrected but the next one proved more problematic. The path we were due to take was completely overgrown and impassable so we had to walk out to, and then along, the very busy and unpavemented, A354.
I always do my best to keep people from these roads and this time I had, unfortunately, failed in my duty. It was a huge relief to find a hole in the hedge that soon lead us back to my intended path and it wasn't long before we were heading south through gently rolling fields of crops. A fairly long, reasonably uneventful, but, to me, rather pleasant (if you ignore the fly tipping) stretch which eventually took us over the river Ebble (a new one to me) and into the small village of Odstock.
Odstock (pop.554) has a 12c Grade II listed church, St Andrew, and Oliver Cromwell is believed to have stayed at the village's parsonage. It's highly likely he visited the church but less so that he popped in to The Yew Tree Inn. As you might imagine, for us it was the other way round.
On a sunny day the pub itself was empty and though most of the garden was taken up by a group of lycra clad cyclists we had a nice big table and a friendly, if hugely overworked, waitress soon brought out pints of Ringwood Razorback, lager, and a lime'n'soda for Adam who'd vowed to not touch any booze all day and stuck to his word. Even if his eventual tally of five pints of lime and soda resulted in him, in his own words, "pissing like an elephant" the next day.
After a sup and a natter we left the pub. There was no need for a two pint mistake as the next village and next pub was not far. A mile or maybe less through a few fields took us into Nunton, past some pleasant looking bungalows, and into the garden of The Radnor Arms. Which, much like The Yew Tree Inn and many of the houses in the area, sported an impressive thatched roof.
Better still it sported a huge beer garden (replete with a couple of marquees in case the weather changed) and a very friendly barmaid who inquired as to the details of the walk. I took a Romsey Gold and we sat for a pleasant forty minutes or so enjoying what would be our final pit stop before we returned to Salisbury. It would not be the last enjoyable part of the day but the rest of the walk would, thanks to the landed gentry, prove to be a bit of a damp squib.
Once we'd admired The Radnor Arms' take away milk shed (and wondered why they don't do a beer one) we took a quiet diagonal road out to the A338 where my research, and some - if not all it seems - maps, told me we could leave to the right and pass down to Bodenham and Longford Castle. There was no turning so we turned back to take what would have been a slightly lengthier diversion.
We followed a road into Bodenham and realised, photogenic thatched cottages aside, that this was leading us further in the wrong direction and when I finally located the correct road we saw that it was a private one. Pondering if it was just cars that were not allowed to pass through, the toady I referred to earlier came out to speak to us.
As I moved towards him to speak he did a hugely performative and backwards jump back, shouting "distance" with an aggressive West Country burr and assured us that Longford Castle, which laid just off the road, was a private residence that we'd not been able to walk past. Apparently you can't just walk past people's houses - which is funny because people walk past mine, my friends, and my families houses all the time.
It seems you can't walk past posh cunts houses if they don't want you to. This forelock tugging is one of the worst things about being British and lickspittles like our man from Longford Castle selling their soul for a grace and favour gatehouse on the edge of their properties is what props up this vastly unfair system. I was glad when he fucked off but it still meant we ha to negotiate how we were to finish the walk and I was eager to keep my friends happy after what Colin termed our 'Bodenham blip'.
Longford Castle, incidentally, was built as an example of an Elizabethan 'prodigy house'. Huge mansions built in the hope of housing Elizabeth I as she roamed her realm. So a massive arse licker guarding it was, at least, in keeping with the building's original purpose.
While we quietly raged at both injustice and inconvenience we walked along the A338 for a couple of miles into the outskirts of Salisbury - a city whose famous sons and daughters include the aforementioned William Golding, Jonathan Meades, Richard Digance, Anthony Daniels (C-3PO to you), Joseph Fiennes, and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich as well as the Skripals and Ted Heath.
Luckily my friends are magnanimous and easy going and instead of complaining they simply made light of our forced diversion and though the injustice still rankled, the inconvenience was quickly and quietly forgotten. We missed the village of Britford and yet another old church and, on the egde of Salisbury, we passed through Churchill Gardens, under a subway festooned with images of music legends, discarded cans, and streams of piss and passed through a housing estate back into Salisbury's city centre and The New Inn pub.
I'd Googled the pubs of Salisbury while planning the walk and The New Inn had always looked a good bet as it had a large and pretty beer garden. A large table was available and views of that famous spire made it an even more agreeable spot. The drinks took a long time coming and the friendly barmaid tripped over and spilled some of them but, having switched to lager, they still went down well so we had another.
Which a friendly barman managed to trip over and spill again. Perhaps it's some sort of gimmick the pub operates. We supped up in the evening sunshine and bade a fond adios to Patricia and Colin who, quite understandably in the current conditions (everyone's on a different page and the goverment guidance is intentionally negligent) aren't back to doing restaurants yet, before making haste to Anokaa to see if it was still as good as it used to be.
The answer? Yes, it is. I'd remembered correctly but what I had forgotten is that it's not cheap. Ah well, we rarely push the boat out and my strawberry, asparagus, and toasted home made cottage cheese in rich tomato gravy with cream of coconut and fenugreek served with saffron pulao rice was delightful, an almost melt in the mouth experience that I've never had anywhere else.
The poppadoms were no better, no worse, than any other poppadoms and the Cobra beer was cold which was all it needed to be. Shep, Adam, and I sat on the same table we'd sat on (with Teresa) back in 2015, a kind of leather banquet rounded seat that looked like a fancy Waltzer car, and though I very much enjoyed the food and the experience we remarked that next time in Salisbury we'd probably go for something a bit more cheap and cheerful (though if I was in the city with a foodie who'd never been I'd definitely show off Anokaa to them).
Cheap and cheerful was the order of the day as Shep and I bought a bottle of train booze for the ride back to Basingstoke. It was my first experience of tugging'n'glugging and, to be honest, it was a trifle inconvenient. With no game of Heads Up and minimal 'mucking about' the train journey was less eventful than many in the past but that's as need be. At least we're getting out again for now. It was a varied day, a funny day, and a fun one. I didn't expect our little Wiltshire wander to be as epic as last week's Wye Valley experience but then it didn't need to be. Give us countryside, give us pubs, give us Indian food, and give us each other and we'll almost always have a good time. Which I bet is more than you can say for William Fucking Pleydell-Bouverie, the 9th Earl of Fucking Radnor and his performative baldrick.
Next time we're out in North Weald Basset for a walk called Stations of the Crass that looks to pass near by the home of anarcho-punk legends Crass and the question we'll be asking is "do they owe us a living?". Course, they fucking do.
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