I took a wander up to Castle Hill at Broad Blunsdon this morning. A very easy walk up a single track road called Burytown Lane which leads to Upper Burytown Farm. I had been unaware of this hillfort until I heard recently that the farmer wants to fence off the ‘right of way’ ... at least I think it is a right of way. There are two notices at the gate into the hillfort; one says “bull in field” the other indicates by a dotted line the path across the hillfort with the emphatic statement that there is no permissive circular path around the fort.
There is a superb view to the north and on this beautiful sunny morning it did look impressive. The hillfort has open access to a herd of pedigree cattle though today they had congregated in a lower field. I understand the farmer wants to fence the path off so that the cattle are not harrassed by dogs not on leads. Its quite hard to visualise a hillfort with a fence across the middle, even one as relatively low profile such as this one.
Another sign of the times, I noticed on my walk back down that the attractive village church has had a load of its roof tiles nicked. Sigh!
A couple of relevant sites re bulls in fields crossed by RoWs:
(NB: second link doesn't mention CROW 2000, but is probably still largely accurate)
hse.gov.uk/pubns/ais17ew.pdf
livestock-sales.co.uk/news/04_oct/bulls.html
Thanks for that tsc; we haven't had the 'cows in the field' thread back yet. After my stroll in Blunsdon yesterday I did a circular re-walk starting from Bishopstone, along the Ridgeway towards Waylands Smithy. In one field a large cow came towards me and my walking companion, bellowing loudly. I was a bit freaked but fortunately my friend strode foward ignoring it completely; I think the cow thought we had come to take her in for milking.
I'm probably wittering now so I'll shut up and just say thanks again.