County Tops (2)

County Tops may not be the sexiest of subjects in the walking canon, but I'll give it one more shot. Fired up by my discovery of the highest point in Notts, I decided to cross the eastern border and do the same in Lincs. Yes, Lincolnshire - where I was born and raised and went to school. And which I left at the very earliest opportunity! Yet there are so many secret, unsung delights to this county - the second largest in England. First of all, let's straighten out the myths. Lincolnshire is not all flat. True, the heights are not of Himalayan grandeur - but there is the "Lincoln Edge", that north-south-lying limestone escarpment, and there are the Wolds, those gentle chalk hills between Lincoln and the coast. And parts of the coastline can be wild, wet and wonderful walking over dune and marsh. Not to everyone's taste, I know, but variety is the spice...You can practically trip over hundreds of grey seals at Donna Nook; and you can see an extraordinary variety of birds at Gibraltar Point south of Skegness and in other RSPB Reserves further south on the Wash. But I digress. Back to the Tops... and specifically the trig pillar that marks Lincolnshire's highest point at the giddy altitude of 168 metres. I set out without map, without compass - and with only the vaguest sense of direction. I knew about the sinister Radio Listening Station (which looks just like a golf ball on a tee - or, some have said, an oversized "marital aid") just north of Normanby-le-Wold and that you had to park near there. So I did this, and edged furtively and probably illegally alongside fields of oilseed rape, startling rabbits, partridges and a flock of goldfinches as I went. This part of the Wolds was rather plateau-like so it was difficult to find any bit of ground higher than the next bit. However, I kept the faith, and eventually found the trig point, stained with lichen and bird droppings and half-hidden in vegetation (see photo). I wouldn't say the discovery was orgasmic - certainly not on a par with geocaching standards - but I felt quietly satisfied. Next Top - Bardon Hill in Leicestershire. Can't wait... but I might just spare you the sordid details!

County Tops (1)

Of course it goes without saying that since I started this walking blog it's been bucketing down with rain every day and I've also developed a slight problem with the left knee. The law of Murphy must have something to do with it. However one must turn the negative into the positive: being indoors has given me the chance to catch up on some reading (while watching the covers coming on and off at Wimbledon from the corner of my eye - natch!) One of the books I've taken down from my shelves has been Alan Dawson's invaluable The Relative Hills Of Britain, published in 1992 by the Cicerone Press. Most of this book deals with the Marilyns, those hills which are at least 500 ft higher than the land around them. (Dawson puts forward the concept of "relative height", ie the height of a hill compared to its surrounding area rather than compared to sea level.) But it was chapter 6, The County Tops, that I turned to. The County Tops are the highest points in each county. This isn't as simple as it appears. Dawson's list soon became out-of-date: between 1995 and 1998 Avon, Humberside and Cleveland were abolished; Rutland, Hereford and Worcester became independent entities again; and Berkshire was split into 6 Unitary Authorities. Furthermore, and intriguingly, my home county of Nottinghamshire's Top has changed. Instead of an indistinguishable spot 203m high on Newtonwood Lane overlooking the M1's Tibshelf Services, it's now situated a few miles from there at the summit of a conical bump in Silverhill Wood near the former mining village of Teversal. Measuring a staggering 205m (please understand, this is big for the East Midlands!), it's only 2 metres higher than the original Historic Top - but much prettier. The reason for the change? I've already given a clue. The relatively new parkland-forestry of Silverhill has been re-landscaped from the workings of the former Silverhill colliery which ceased production in 1992. So the new County Top is man-made - it's one of the restored colliery spoil heaps. The whole area was very pleasant when I visited a few weeks ago. I was so impressed with this imaginative reclamation project. There has been much tree planting and pond making, and birds and wild flowers were everywhere. And the New Top has now been crowned with a bronze sculpture, a tribute to the coal miners of Nottinghamshire (see photo - with Hardwick Hall in the middle distance). Unveiled in March 2005, it was created by Antony Dufort (who also sculpted the bronze statue of Maggie Thatcher recently erected at Westminster. Mmm... some irony here?) Unfortunately the plaque on the stone base, which listed the 65 principal coal mines of Nottinghamshire, has been vandalised and removed. The statue above depicts a miner "testing for gas" with a "Davey" lamp - the presence of deadly and explosive methane could be detected by a change in the flame's shape and colour. Silverhill colliery began production in 1875. At its peak it employed 1000 men and extracted 1 million tonnes of coal a year. But now there are only 3 working collieries in the whole of the county.