Poets Path 2: Having a Terrible Time on a Poetic Pilgrimage

Walking Poets Path 2 in Gloucestershire

If you love poetry, but also like thick mud, overgrown footpaths, having to peel burdock burrs off your dogs, dodging bad-tempered cows and getting shat on by birds, then Poets Path 2 is your perfect walk. If not, just read on anyway about my absolute stinker of an experience on this local trail. 

Dymock is a lovely little village in Gloucestershire, just south of my home town of Ledbury, Herefordshire. It's famous for the Dymock Poets: Robert Frost, Edward Thomas, Lascelles Abercrombie, Rupert Brooke, Wilfrid Gibson and John Drinkwater. They wrote about the English countryside, experiences of everyday life and the realities of war. Brooke and Thomas of died while serving their country in World War 1, and as this was Remembrance Sunday I took a moment to pay my respects in the fields surrounding Dymock.

There are a couple of walking routes named after the Dymock Poets, which pass by the places they lived and visited. Poets Path 1 and Poets Path 2, plus the Daffodil Way for good measure. It all sounds quite charming on paper. Sadly, that charm was in short supply on my walk this morning. After doing Poets Path 1 about a month ago and really enjoying it, I thought I’d give Poets Path 2 a go. Unfortunately, it was quite possibly the worst walk I’ve ever done. It wasn't entirely the fault of the footpath though.

It was an optimistic start. The weather was dry, the dogs were raring to go and I was up for a decent walk. About half an hour in though, I properly realised that I'd picked a really bad time to do this walk. My boots were caked in mud and the dogs looked impossibly filthy. I do not mind a bit of mud at all, but there was absolutely loads of it on this path. Obviously, it was fairly dumb to go on a walk that is clearly on a lot of farmland next to the River Leadon after a spell of very heavy rain. I do have to accept a lot of responsibility for my generally bad experience walking Poets Path 2.

Mud. Lots of mud.

The whole route was basically miles and miles of endless muddy fields and country lanes. There are points of great interest for fans of poetry, but some of the footpaths were neglected and not easy to walk on at all. A few of the local farmers are clearly not thrilled about people using them, and it shows. The dogs got covered in burdock burrs at one point, which were a proper nightmare to get off. Velcro was invented in 1948 because a Swiss chap called George de Mestral had exactly the same problem. He examined the burrs after they got stuck to his dog on a walk. He was then inspired to create a product that is now used by billions of people. Practically everyone in the modern world has used Velcro and it only exists because of a dog walk through some burdock. I guess it goes to show that the countryside can provide brilliant sources for innovation. I did a lot more moaning than creative thinking though to be honest.  

Poets Path 2 runs down the middle of this, apparently 

Burdock does not mix well with hairy dogs

The route is about 8.5 miles in a sort of figure 8, so half my walk was clockwise which is just about enough to settle my OCD. I headed north out of Dymock, spent ages trying to remove the burdock from the dogs, then further north to the hamlet of Leddington where one of the greatest poets of American literature, Robert Frost, once lived. You pass his old cottage Little Iddens. He lived in the Ledbury/Dymock area for just a year from 1914-1915. 

The path then took me west across more muddy fields to St John The Baptist Church. I'd planned to take a break there as I presumed there would probably be a bench. There wasn't, so I tied the dogs to a gate, fed them some bits of pork pie and gave them a drink. A lovely little church though. Poet laureate John Masefield was baptised there and the high school I went to in Ledbury is named after him. 

The River Leadon, north of Dymock

The Poets Path 2 trail

Robert Frost's former home Little Iddens

A footbridge near Greenway

St John the Baptist Church, near Leddington 

Then came more bad experiences. First, a lake of rancid slurry, followed by a field near a village called Brooms Green containing a slightly mental looking cow. It turns out that one of my dogs, Dottie, is absolutely terrified of cattle, so somehow slipped her collar then legged it back over the stile. Not ideal. The cow then manoeuvred between me and Dottie. Not ideal at all. I'm a bit apprehensive around cows as they can kill people, but I needed to get my dog back so I had to face the minor fear. I basically walked up to the cow confidently and told it to p**s off. To my surprise, it actually did. Between the slurry and the cow, I did pass another former home of a Dymock Poet though. Wilfrid Gibson used to live at The Old Nail Shop at Greenway crossroads. Wilfrid is well-known for poetry about the working class and the horrors of World War I from the perspective of a soldier. 

A lake of slurry

A lane past Donnington Coppice, near Ledbury

A crazy cow in a field near Brooms Green

The Old Nail Shop (right). The former home of Wilfrid Gibson

After being forced to go toe-to-hoof with a large cow, I decided I should probably take a bit of a diversion away from the fields. I headed back to Brooms Green and followed a country lane towards Dymock and the end of the walk. The name Brooms Green made me realise that I don't help out enough with housework because I didn't have a clue what colour our broom was at home. 

Then, somewhere along the lane of cow avoidance, a bird dropped a poo right on my shoulder. It perfectly summed up this glorious walk. I remembered my childhood summers on farmland when dock leaves were our toilet paper in emergency situations. I found a couple of massive wet leaves and cleaned away the bird poo. The lesson here is that if you defecate in nature, then nature might just return the favour. 

I checked when I got home and ours is actually black and white

Fantastic 

By the time I got back to the car in Dymock, I had done over nine miles. Most of them were very forgettable apart from the moments of annoyance. Still, I am weirdly very glad I did it. I felt more relieved to have finished it than satisfied, but I do get a bit of satisfaction from ticking off a bad walk. It's as though I have earned the right to moan about it properly. People on social media who share only their seemingly perfect, epic experiences in the great outdoors are frankly tiresome and irritating. 

There are three main walks around Dymock: Poets Path 1, Poets Path 2 and the Daffodil Way. I will wait until spring to try the Daffodil Way when the daffodils are out, though if it looks to be anything like Poets Path 2, I might just give it a miss.

Poets Path 1 is genuinely quite nice and worth doing for a pleasant stroll. Poets Path 2, though, is best left to those with a real passion for the Dymock Poets. If you want variety and scenery on a walk, there are some far better options in this beautiful local area. If you do decide to take on the path, it's probably best done in the summer. Bring a machete for the burdock and master your cow whispering techniques in advance though. 

Walk Details

Route: Poets Path 2, Dymock

Distance: 9.22 miles (but around 8.5 without diversions to avoid cows)

Difficulty: Easy to Moderate. Mainly flat, but relatively long and muddy, plus there are lots of stiles.

Time: 3 hours 22 minutes for me with all the country chaos

Terrain: Fields and country lanes

Dog Friendly?: I do not recommend it because of the stiles, burdock and cattle

Pub Stop: The Beauchamp Arms, Dymock

Found on: Long Distance Walkers Association

The three trails from Dymock. Source: Friends of the Dymock Poets