Length: 17 km

Duration: 6:33

Ascent/descent: 490/410 m

Wayfinding: medium, need a map and guide for some unsigned parts. Otherwise surprisingly well marked with its dragon logo at major turnings.

Weather: very hot, cloudless, shorts

Dinner: Fox Inn, Lower Ansty

Overnight: Moonfleet Farm, Higher Ansty

We started the Wessex Ridgeway walk from Child Okeford – it’s not actually part of the Ridgeway, nor is Hambledon Hill, which the Ridgeway just brushes past. Bonus points!

It has been preserved to show off its fort credentials, thanks to the herd of cows grazing it.

Hanford School was a surprise, and it was followed by an active working farm. The audio recording is of many calves, near the footpath, calling out for the mother cows who were being milked in the distance. You can hear the farmhands’ shouts of “c’mon” and the cows response to the calves from the distance.

After Shillingstone, where the tea shop wasn’t open yet, it was a very long slog up to the ridge. Thankfully it was wooded.

After Bulbarrow Hill we came off the Ridgeway to set up camp for the day in Ansty. The Moonfleet Farm was tidy and no-faff. The Fox Inn nearby was a god-send. Benches on a lawn under a huge oak, excellent dinner, an air of polite jollity; it was the perfect country pub.