Tarrant Gunville & Harbin's Park
A dusty sort of day to go walking in North Dorset...
From Tarrant Gunville village, along the lane to Home Farm, and from there onto the bridleway up onto Gunville Down.
For a long time, the bridleway hides in the woods...
...but is eventually tempted by an apple tree to emerge into the fields. Apples falling with a thump.
Then it's a long lonely walk along the edge of empty stubble fields. Not a deer nor a pigeon in sight. Not a bird singing in the hedges. Just the wind blowing. A buzzard mewing.
Further along, the wheat not yet harvested.
Across a tarmac lane leading nowhere, and then back into the woods along (the slightly unfortunately named) Handcock's Bottom:
To one side of the path, a ditch and bank. It it this - a large square landscape feature on the OS map - that made me curious to take this walk.
Harbin's Park, which, it turns out, is a medieval deer park.
Known as Tarrant Gunville Park until the 19th century, the earliest reference to this deer park is in 1279. The bailiff’s accounts for the park, in 1337, included paying 4 men for 3 days’ work, ‘mending defects in the fencing around the park’. A record of a dispute over its ownership, in 1649, suggest it was used as a deer park well into the 17th century. Of particular significance is the ‘Park Pale’, a scheduled monument which surrounds the park. It was created by digging a 6’ deep ditch with the spoil creating a 6’ high bank. On top of this bank hazel fencing was used to create an enclosure to contain the deer that had been enticed in with apple pumice.
https://cranbornechase.org.uk/chaseandchalke/resources/tarrant-gunville-and-stubhampton-heritage/
Onwards through the dappled woods. A less lonely landscape, this. A walker accompanied by the moving shadows of the leaves on the track. The fluttering of blackbirds, woodpeckers calling, jays screaming blue murder. A deer bounding away through the trees, a flash of golden brown in the sunlight.
Along the edge of another endless wheat field. In the far distance, growing louder as I walked, the sound of a combine at work.
Onto the bridleway to Great Peaky Coppice, which cuts through the woods, and comes out on the lane to Iwerne Minster. A cloud of dust and a great roar rising from behind the hedge on the other side of the lane.
A little way along the lane, I took the bridleway that cuts back south west back towards Tarrant Gunville, through newly planted woodland.
Growing in the tree protector in the centre of the shot, Bird's-foot Trefoil with ambition to become a tree.
I could hear something crashing through the vegetation around the newly planted trees, and now and then caught sight of antlers (presumably with a deer underneath, but I cannot confirm this).
Spot the antler. Maybe a Fallow deer? (I would have liked to see a Fallow deer. I only ever see Sika and Roe deer at home).
The next stretch of path, though smooth and grassy, turned out to be hard work. The sun was getting hot. I had foolishly left my hat in the car. And there was no shade among the newly planted trees. Not unless I was willing to wait forty years for the oaks to mature.
On the plus side, the bridleways around Tarrant Gunville are all marked on the gateposts, and there are Private No Access signs to prevent you straying from the One True Path.
Back onto the lane down to Tarrant Gunville, passing the cricket ground, where they are building a splendid new thatched pavilion.