Valency Valley

We began our walk at Tresparrett and followed a footpath which, at first, was in excellent condition - hardcore had been put down and the hedges trimmed quite recently. Alas, this was not for long and we soon found ourslelces descending a steep hill, across a field from the previous waymark, to one of the tributaries to the Valency Valley - scene of the notorious Boscastle Floods, well documented on television by Tiger Apsect as well as news crews. After searching left and right we eventually discovered in some undergrowth the footbridge across but then lost the trail altogether.

The weather was poor and visibility much reduced by the very low clouds. After climbing up out of the valley we could, for some time, find no sign of the track we were heading for until we were able to match up the field boundaries with those on the map!

We we emerged onto the country lane near to Lesnewth we found a notice - dating back to the flood - stating that the footpath was closed officially for 21 days (or perhaps a little longer!) A similar noticed was still to be found at the start of a path from Lesnewth churchyard, despite a brand new footbridge across the deep stream bed.





On then to Minster church which was actually flooded and closed for some months for restoration which including removing and replacing all of the pews.





The bridle path down the hill to the Valency Valley itself is most pretty as is the walk up through the valley - despite passing a sign saying that it was only 0.25 m to St Juliot - an estimate at least out by a factor of 2!






From here it was a straitforward walk along country lanes back to Tresparrett - despite the amount of moisture in the air - almost amounting to rain at times - we ended updrier than we had expected.