Lovely somerset clay! I think I would actually have lost the boot if not for the gaiter strapped to it.
Komott summary here, just a solid 15 miles today and close to my planning estimate (tho still longer).
Although the hostel is nominally in Street (and the oldest still in operation) it's actually quite a hike down through the town so I decided to take a shortcut via a footpath across the field. Hence the photo above and the lesson for the day - use the road instead where possible.
Street is named after a 12th century causeway constructed to carry stone to Glastonbury to rebuildthe Abbey. It was famous, and is still the HQ, for Clark's shoes and the Clark family mansion is now owned by Millfield school. The company's sanatorium and convalescent home is now last night's youth hostel.
Didn't take long to see the Glastonbury Tor...
Glastonbury's actually smaller than Street and pretty much in the middle of the Somerset Levels. It's
a weird town and even the locals from nearby towns think it's strange. Of course there's all the stuff about Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Grail, King Arthur and all that. Everything's branded 'Tor' - even the kebab shop - and more shops of Myth, magic and crystals than you can shake a stick at (and the famous festival's not even particularly close to the town). It seems likely that the monks promoted the Arthurian legends when they claimed to have found the graves of Arthur and Guinevere in 1191. Quite coincidentally they had a financial crisis shortly before this after a large fire.....
There's an air of decrepitude coming in to Glastonbury, not least because of the awful state of the roads after all the rain and infrastructure neglect, but I have to admire its refusal to be like any other town. You won't find the high street chain stores here for example. In the town's marvellous toyshop I found this treehouse - I want one!
and this place looked amazing - The George Hotel and Pilgrims Inn, built in the 15th century and claimed to be the oldest purpose built public house in the South West. The panels above the door carry the arms of the Abbey and King Edward IV.
Feeling slightly delicate for the last couple of days so I elected not to have breakfast and pressed on. Didn't really miss it, actually.
I'd wanted to avoid the main A-roads so took the Long Drove over Queen's Sedge Moor. It's a dead straight 3.5km single track road with nothing happening and seemingly endless. There's a few of those in these parts
it's a mental challenge as much as a physical one - I tried hypnosis of a kind, tapping out a pattern with the poles. Still pretty tedious anyhow.
By this point I'd got fed up of taking pictures in the rain and gave up til quite near the end which was a shame because the villages of Dulcote and Dinder looked worth exploring. In particular Dinder enacts every 50 years the slaying of the Dinder Worm (dragon) which must be done by 'a left handed man of the cloth' or the dragon will return. However I didn't want to linger because it had taken me until 6 pm to get to the hostel the previous night and I didn't want a repeat.
From here on it was mostly road work, easy to keep the pace up but hard pounding on the feet. I had some respite nearing Gurney Slade as the view from Maesbury Castle, an old hill fort, back towards Glastonbury was pretty special - with the light of Avalon behind Glastonbury Tor
and so to Gurney Slade, on the main Weymouth to Bristol road. I'd had little food along the way (basically just nibbled at a flapjack) so the George was a welcome sight.
Gurney Slade gives its name to a TV series of the early 1960s. It's not immediately obvious that the large hill overlooking the town is in fact largely hollowed out - it's a quarry, supplying up to 2 Million Tonnes Per Annum of Limestone aggregate.
So tomorrow the last leg into Bath. With today's experience I'll try and avoid the worst of the footpaths which means more road walking but I'll certainly try out the Limestone Link which looks interesting.
The forecast's quite promising too....
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