Dymock Woods and the Quarry of Disappointment

I'd heard somewhere that you could spend an entire lifetime exploring a single ordnance survey map, and as someone who is basically obsessed with my local area I thought that sounded like a nice challenge.

I'd bought my wife Stace a custom OS map for her birthday with our house in Ledbury in the centre. I didn't know you could get custom maps made, but it was mentioned by Tom Cox in his wonderful book Ring The Hill and I really liked the idea. It was pretty much a present I purchased for me, but I do think they make great gifts anyway, particularly for someone moving to a new area. We weren't moving to a new area though as I will never leave. 

I opened up the map and started looking at all the places in my little corner of England like I was finding hidden treasure, even though I have lived in that map for pretty much all of my 43 years. I decided I'd try to walk as many different footpaths as possible, through as many different villages, fields, woods etc so I could hopefully find some hidden gems on my doorstep. 

I would start within walking distance of home in the northern section of the Conigree Wood, which I'd never walked in and hardly anyone walks in because the paths don't lead out to Eastnor. Stace was out with our baby Molly for the day so it would just be me and our dogs Dottie and Wilf. The contour lines on my wife's (my) map suggested I might find a hidden spot with a nice view of the Malvern Hills. If it was really good, I'd possibly revisit with my tent and wake up to a decent sunrise view without any worry of some angry local weirdo bothering me. 

The main footpaths in this wood are well used for Ledbury. Basically you might see four or five people in an hour rather than in this other bit I was exploring where there were no people. As a result the "paths" were fairly overgrown and felt more like game trails. One of those walks where you were glad to be wearing shorts because it was warm, but then wishing you hadn't worn shorts as you tried to avoid all the stinging nettles and thorns. The footpaths then led to quite a wide track, probably used by farm vehicles or Land Rover Experience in Eastnor. There still were zero people about, but it didn't feel as much like I was off the beaten track as I was literally on a beaten track. I checked my map and as soon as I found a big enough gap in the woodland towards where I wanted to head, I dived in to get back properly mooching about in the sort of unknown. 

I then hit a brick wall in the form of an old quarry. The woodland around it was pretty dense and it felt a bit like playing Tomb Raider again, although if Lara Croft was based on me I'm not sure it would have been such a success. It felt a bit more like Ledbury Tomb Raider when I had to crawl up a really steep bank at the side of the quarry to try and get past it, grabbing at branches and raised roots. Pretty daft but my secret spot where I expected I'd have a nice view of the Malverns was over the top of the quarry and that was my mission for the day. 

I got to the top and walked through more trees to the eastern edge of the woods and found my view of the Malverns. Unfortunately, it was shit. 

I could kind of see the hills, but only a bit of them through some trees. I could have climbed over the barbed wire fence and walked through a field to get a better view, but it wouldn't be the secret place I was hoping for. I carried on along the edge of the woods, but the view got worse until the Malverns were out of sight. 

The search had ultimately ended in disappointment, but I chuckled at myself scaling that quarry for this when I could have just gone up the Malverns. I made my way back through the woods and home. Even though my legs were itchy with stings and scratches and I hadn't found what I was hoping for, it had felt good to go on another lonely walk with the purpose of finding something. I properly enjoyed it and was looking forward to finding somewhere else intriguing on my wife's (my) map.

Dymock Woods looked intriguing. One of the places I'd never visited before but it wasn't too far from home and when I had a checked photos of it on Google it looked beautiful. We'd had a couple of weekends of shockingly bad weather before a pleasant Saturday afternoon came along, so we took Molly and our dogs to the other side of Dymock for a walk in the woods. As you approach there's a sign for Dymock Forest and then when you get in the car park there's a sign calling it Queens Wood, so I'm not actually sure what it's properly called. It is closer to Kempley than Dymock though so I'd argue it should probably be called Kempley Woods or Kempley Forest as well. Five names for a wood is probably overkill though when one name would be absolutely fine. 

This would be less of a mini exploration than my last walk because I had a 4 month old baby with me this time and it was also a Site of Special Scientific Interest so I didn't really want to go disturbing anything I shouldn't be disturbing. There is a lake in the middle of it though and a number of different paths leading to it, so I chose the least direct one so we could make it a decent plod and perhaps see some more undisturbed areas. 

It's an amazing place. I'm pretty much addicted to Alaskan/Canadian survival TV shows and it looked a lot like that sort of landscape. We'd driven 8 miles down the road and got out of the car on the far side of North America.

We eventually reached the lake in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness on the Herefordshire/Gloucestershire border. A lovely place. Peaceful and idyllic but with the vibe that you could get attacked by a bear at any moment. There aren't any bears about, obviously, but I've read that wild boar have been spotted in these woods and a wild boar is just the one letter away from being a wild bear. 

Molly was looking around and taking it all in. Ledbury was a much smaller place when I grew up there and our back garden opened to fields and woods that are now a housing estate. My childhood was spent climbing trees and going fruit picking with my mum and I want my daughter to love the countryside and outdoors like I do. Taking her on walks like this is going to keep me happy for a long time. 

We made our way back to the car park from the lake along one of the main paths. Another cracker of a walk on my map. I hadn't stumbled across anything unexpected like on my previous walk, but the scenery was spectacular. My map had given me a couple of little adventures a short distance from my house so I was keen to keep exploring it. I might just find my view of the Malverns.