Day 3: Stratton. Mon 29th May 2006

Ah, another great day out in North Cornwall was had by, err, me! Mum came out this time as well. It was a bank holiday so she didn’t have any of the usual responsibilities.

Stage three took me to the more populated Bude area (although the town itself will be dealt with on day four). The main population of the ‘Bude area’ is divided into four settlements, all of which (I am pleased to say) are still completely separate from each other. These are: Bude itself; Flexbury; Stratton and Poughill (pronounced ‘Poffle’). I explored all of these today except the town of Bude itself.

Stage three coincided with my oldest niece’s fourteenth birthday. For this reason, we stopped off on the way to Bude to drop off presents. Mine was a supersoaker. You can't go wrong with a supersoaker. We continued up the road, arriving in Bude at 10am. We parked at Crooklets beach.



Surprisingly, I enjoyed being driven, rather than driving. It was a fairly cool day for mid-May. Just the odd shower. Not what the tourists would have wanted, but for walking, it was just fine.

It turned out to be a day of churches, churches and more churches: seven of them, in fact. The first one was Flexbury Manor Methodist Church, an absolutely huge building!



The only other point of interest in Flexbury was St. Petroc’s School, advertising that it accepted pupils from three months to 13 years. I know I have complained a lot about my working conditions on my teacher trainee year, but teaching French to kids of three months would really be a challenge. Flexbury covers almost as much area as Bude itself. It is separated from Bude by a golf course, and is probably just considered a suburb of Bude. After a pleasant walk around the pavements of Flexbury, I returned to the van to ‘boot up’.
I managed to miss my first footpath of the day, so had to take the road up to Maer. This afforded me great views of the Maer Lake Nature Reserve, and the horsies that were enjoying it.



Maer consisted of some riding stables, three or four cottages and a narrow, poorly-surfaced road which was getting clogged up with tourist traffic trying to get out of Cornwall.
From Maer, I had a bridleway and footpath to take me through to Poughill (‘Poffle’, remember!), so the lagging could commence. The lagging took place with greater speed than normal, partly because I had to drop my bag on some very wet mud after taking the wrong route through some fields and needing to climb over a barbed wire fence. Putting my bag back on meant my t-shirt instantly went from white to brown. My back is usually the only area to stay clean. This time it was the first to get dirty.
Poughill was lovely. All the essential elements of a village: parish church; Methodist church; country pub, red telephone box and village hall. The parish church is St. Olaf’s, a Norwegian dude, apparently. The church dates from the fourteenth century and can seat 300. I stopped off at the village hall, where I saw a notice about speed limits which made me think. It said that travelling at a speed of 70mph, when keeping 100 yards back from the car in front, one can avoid a collision. Travelling at 80, one would hit the collision at over 30 mph. At 90, one would hit the collision at nearly 60. Scary. Education can only be useful if it is applied, and although this newfound knowledge will not make me slow down from my usual 80, it will make me think more about my stopping distance.
I took the longer footpath around to get me to Bush, right on the main A39. A converted chapel and a few houses next to the road. From Bush, I took a steep bridleway up and then back down to bring me out at a farm called Canada. I had a long uphill climb for about 20 minutes along a country road. No car passed me, so I really had a feeling of being in the back and beyond. I took a right, down towards Norton Barton. It was marked as a right of way on my map, but not way marked, so I was a tentative, but decided to take it anyway. Walking across farmers fields is always a bit risky. Farmers can be a law unto themselves. Where the right of way was marked was a hedge. This meant a diversion across some fields to join another footpath. One of these fields contained a herd of particularly vicious cows. They kept coming close and forcing me into the hedge. One got so close at one stage that I almost stepped on his nose (do cows have noses?). The diversion probably added a couple of miles and about 45 minutes onto my walk. It brought me out at West Leigh, leaving me a walk up the road to Hersham, a tiny hamlet.
I found myself on the B3254 which connects Kilkhampton and Launceston, and is used as the main road between Bude and Launceston. I passed through the small village of Grimscott, in the parish of Launcells. It was a quiet village and had a post office with a very, very old sign.



The church was about a third of a mile outside the village. It was basic, if very well kept. It was now 2pm, and I hadn’t found anywhere for a pasty. I stopped by the church for some ready salted mini-pringles and a banana.
I had to backtrack to the village before taking a mile long track and road to take me to St. Swithen’s church.



This church was described as ‘the least spoilt church in Cornwall’ by Sir John Betjeman. I’m not sure if he visited all the churches in Cornwall (I know I will have!), but I don’t think he was far wrong. The setting really is glorious. It could not be quieter.
I had a lot more getting lagged to do before getting to Stratton, the most important settlement of the day. The church here was called St. Andrew’s and, appropriately, had a Scottish flag flying from the tower. I went in this church to find a flower festival going on. The lady at the entrance was apologetic about this when she found out I had only come to see the church. However, I think the flowers added to the appeal of the church, and I said this to the lady who seemed pleased. I was out of change, so I would have to return later for my church guide (which turned out to be very glossy – the nicest one I have had so far).
I had a wander around Stratton, which was made up of the old village centre and newer estates which have made it a rival to Bude itself in terms of size. Funnily enough, Stratton used to be the main town, Bude just being a part of Stratton. It is now, of course, dwarfed by Bude, which has become one of the main tourist resorts in the south west. I found my track to take me back though Flexbury and eventually back to the van.
An almost perfect day was made perfect by fish and chips with mum in the van. Four Methodist churches, three Anglican churches and a chance to reflect on the important things of life (such as whether or not cows have noses) made up day three. Roll on Bude!

Day three stats:

Places visited: seven (Cumulative nineteen): Flexbury (GR210070), Maer (207079), Poughill (222077), Bush (234077), Hersham (258077), Grimscott (263070), Stratton (231064)

Height gained: 495m (cumul. 1,685m)

Highest altitude reached: 161m (Hersham)

Started walking: 10am. Finished walking: 5pm.

Total distance walked: 16 miles (cumul. 46 miles), 10 on-road (cumul 29), 6 off-road (cumul.17)

Map used: OS Explorers 111, 126

Interesting links:

http://www.stolafschurchpoughill.org.uk/

http://poughill.2day.ws/

http://www.bude-stratton.gov.uk/site/