The Conquering of Horton Common by Ron Trill

     Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
     And merrily hent the stile-a:
     A merry heart goes all the day,
     Your sad tires in a mile-a.

So sang Autolycus in Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale, but the Bard had obviously not encountered Horton Common. Jean and I crossed it one summer’s day, the first Sunday in July of that glorious summer of 1994.

The coffee stop for the Bournemouth Section’s Easy Riders that day was Mrs. B’s at Woodlands, but it was well after ten o’clock before we could get away, so there was not much prospect of getting there before the rest had left. Then I remembered this track, from about fifteen years back, across the heath from Three Legged Cross to Woodlands. It would not save a lot of time, but worth a try.

As far as I could remember, we had to turn left at Three Legged Cross along Church Road, left at a T-junction into Sandy Lane, cross the old railway line (Bournemouth/Salisbury) through wicket-gates, turn right along the old railway line for a quarter of a mile or so and then swing left over the shoulder of a hill before dropping down to a “Cross-tracks”. All this across open and rather desolate moorland and about two miles in total. At the track junction one could turn left along a flinty gravel road to Clump Hill, on the Horton Road, or right via a water-logged road across the River Crane, under a railway bridge and climb to Dewlands Common and Verwood. I had never explored the straight-on track, but the map said it lead to Woodlands and I had no reason to doubt it.

In fifteen years things can change.

There is not now a turning to Church Road. It is necessary to walk across a broad pavement to reach it. There is not now a surface to Sandy Lane, and it really does live up to its name. We had to give in and walk. The wicket gates have gone and a bungalow has been built on the track of the old railway. Gorse and silver birch had covered what used to be open moorland and it was hard going pushing the bikes through the thick sand. The climb over the shoulder of the hill was harder, but fortunately short, and we were rewarded with a view from the top over the moor to the north as far as the well-wooded Boveridge Heath. From the top it was about a quarter of a mile down to the “Cross-tracks”. The track was narrow, sandy at first and apparently along the edge of a wood, self-grown on the former open moor, with a gorse “Hedge” on our left, also self-grown. Bits of gorse would leap at us as we walked down the track, and then there were stinging nettles, not good as we were wearing shorts.

Then we met the bog. The track forked, the right hand branch swinging left in a few yards to rejoin the other branch, leaving a small tree-covered island of dry ground. Between us and the island and extending along both tracks was a bog, thick and squelchy and generally horrible. We got over it by manhandling one bike at a time along a three-inch wide strip of dry ground on the extreme right and hopping across the right-hand fork to the island from where we were able to jump over the remaining piece of bog without getting into too much of a mess.

When we were thinking that we had passed that obstacle fairly easily, a tiny stream came in from the left. It had worn a channel nearly a foot deep and several inches wide down the middle of the track, leaving only a few inches of rough ground to walk on. It was an awkward job to wheel the bike along the channel, and the track seemed to go on forever, but at least it cleaned the wheels and tyres of any mud from the bog. Then when we saw a gravel road ahead, we had to pass through a couple of yards of mud to reach it.

At the gravel road, on the left a gate across the Clump Hill Road carried a notice announcing that it was a footpath, not a bridleway. To our right was a well-made gravel road, not at all like the muddy track of former days. There was a similar road in front of us, which we thought might lead to Woodlands, so we took that road, although it was now about half past twelve and rather late for coffee. A number of new and up-market bungalows lined the road, obviously accounting for the upgraded roads. Soon a gate barred our path, a gate that bore a notice proudly proclaiming that it was strictly private.

No doubt there was a track there somewhere going on to Woodlands, but we were not in the mood. Our priority was a lunch spot, so we retraced to a patch of green we had noticed at the road junction, where we enjoyed a picnic shared only with a large tabby cat which seemed pleased to see us. Later we rode towards the River Crane, past a field of grazing cows and a farmhouse, a very secluded, and, on that warm afternoon, idyllic spot, reminiscent of a remote hamlet of many years ago, and worth the hassle of the track across Horton Heath. All we had to do then was to filter through the tracks of Dewlands Common to Verwood and wend our way home.

I am not allowed to take short cuts anymore!

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