Today we left Wellington and headed over to Stawell.
Today we were joined by Daniel and Alissa which gave a bit of an international flavour to our walk. Very grateful to the Green Dragon for their donation – a nice surprise.
Wellington was known as Weolingtun in the Anglo-Saxon period and its name had changed to Walintone by the time of the Domesday Book of 1086. It became a town under a royal charter of 1215 and during the Middle Ages it grew as a centre for trade on the road from Bristol to Exeter. Major rebuilding took place following a fire in the town in 1731, after which it became a centre for cloth-making. Wellington gave its name to the first Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, who is commemorated by the nearby Wellington Monument.
We had a lovely walk through quiet country lanes made all the better by a complete absence of hills. As usual we saw small, pretty villages, impressive churches and crossed the River Tone in a few places. We were also stopped by Joyce, on our way up the only big hill of the day, and she very kindly made a donation.
Continuing on towards Bridgwater, we found a field and took a few minutes for our lunch. And then as we entered North Petherton it was time for the daily ice-cream stop.
We then passed into the outskirts of Bridgwater itself and spent a few minutes walking along the River Parrett passing under both the mainline railway and the M5 before moving out into the farmlands of Westonzoyland and Chedzoy – combine harvesters really are impressive machines – before finally arriving at our stop for the night. Both Daniel and Alissa smashed their personal bests for walking (this is getting to be a theme!) so congratulations to them and I hope their feet recover enough to join us again tomorrow.
Its amazing to think that we have completed one week already – below is a map showing our progress to date.
Tomorrow we head to Winford in the County of Bristol