Our original plan was to walk from East Ilsley to Thame and Thame to Pollicott to follow the routes of our Pollicott & Ashendon forbears. This route, however, had a few too many issues (not least that we couldn't find really strong evidence of what that route was and also that a significant chunk of it is on The Ridgeway/Icknield Way and we have already cycled that). So, along with our charity shift, we have trampled all over our plans and decided to follow a known Drover's Road from Faringdon to Oxford and then from Oxford to Brill.
Finding the route is still no easy matter. From Faringdon we have a rough idea of the route to Abingdon which the following images help to illustrate. We will be carefully re-tracing this route on our OS maps over the next few days. We believe this may have been known as Southampton Street or Gloucester Street and that it came across from Monmouth.
Our final push we know will be an approach to Brill from Little London (see our previous blog) but the bit in between Abingdon and Little London is still more than blurry.
There are a few enthusiasts around whom we hope to track down to pick their brains. Bruce Smith of Syresham if you read this please drop us a note. Bruce is on the WI speaker circuit so any friends with access to WI speaker lists please help us to find an email for him. We have also been given a local contact near Brill who we hope will be able to help us piece together our journey. Any other contacts or suggestions will be gratefully received.
Please watch out for more news of our route plan and of our fundraising efforts over the coming month. For anyone who would just like to make an online donation to Florence Nightingale Hospice, we now have a justgiving page set up: http://www.justgiving.com/pollicottbelles2
Our walk begins in less than 7 weeks!
No comments:
Post a Comment