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Sussex Scrapbook ~ Wildlife walks throughout the year

Saturday 27^th February 2016
Heyshott - Midhurst - Heyshott .
New Lypchis Way and Serpent Way
7 miles

Seven miles doesn't seem far does it? Well consider for a moment that to get to Heyshott we had to motorcycle for over an hour in sub-zero conditions. Sub-zero to the normal bloke in the street means 1 or 2 degrees below zero. But we were flying along at somewhere near the national speed limit where the wind-chill factor was something ridiculous like -20^oC.

Gill has got quite used to me getting hyperthermia now. Not while we are walking in the mountains but after a winter ride. I tend to get off the bike and start cursing and shouting for no apparent reason. She just steers me somewhere warm, pours hot tea down my throat and blows hot air down the back of my neck. After a while the Tazmanian Devil starts to calm down a bit and then we can continue. I've learnt to cope with the cold weather a bit but we all have our limits and hyperthermia can of course be fatal. I succumbed to it on Pen-y-Ghent in 1978 and had to be carried off the mountain by my fellow hikers. I was walking the 300 mile Pennine Way and the climb up to this summit had got me really hot and sweaty. I ripped off my outer garments and walked along the edge of the very breezy plateau, enjoying the amazing views of Yorkshire and cooling down nicely. Cooler and cooler and cooler...
A schoolboy error that I've never made again. I was only 16 though.

Today however, despite the pain in my hands and my frozen face we arrived reasonably healthy at Heyshott church for an AM start and realised that the route we had chosen more or less followed the New Lypchis Way all the way to Midhurst. This was very helpful as this long-distance footpath is very well signposted and to navigate our route requires three maps! So we put the charts away, relaxed and just followed the signs like a couple of tourists.

We can thoroughly recommend walking this route, especially in the spring when the bluebells are out as it passes through lots of woodland all with the first green leaves now emerging.

A beautiful arts and crafts copper plaque on one of the pews in Heyshott church.
Richard Cobden was a name we recognised later on our walk.

Just follow the top of the mast of the ship and you can't get lost.

Beautiful quiet woods nearly all day. Very relaxing and a thousand places to stop for tea and cake etc.

Lots of coppicing and clearing going on and some traditional tools still being used.

This area of Sussex is well populated with old sweet chestnuts.
Some of them seem to have been cut down prematurely (in our opinion) as we've seen them looking fantastic in all stages of decay.

The very impressive Cowdray ruins.

More importantly, in the flood meadow outside the ruins we found the frogspawn we'd been searching for all day.

An obelisk put up to honour the radical and liberal statesman Richard Cobden (1804-1865).

So is he for or against Brexit?

The final point just before the return to the bike is a marsh pond with benches for the weary walker.

Take the time to read the countryside code for yourself and please stick to it at all times.