"Up The Dyke" Day 10 - July 22nd 2002, Llanymynech to Froncysyllte "You're Lost Little...................."
Day	Date	Start	Finish	Approx. Miles	Hours	Accommodation
10	Mon. 22nd July	Llanymynech	Froncysyllte	18	7¼	Anthea and Alan Landon, Argoed Farm, Gate Road, Froncysyllte, Vale of Llangollen, LL20 7RH, Tel. 01691 772367

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Maybe the line from The Doors song isn't exactly the best title for today's walk as I didn't get so much lost as simply miscalculated where I was going!

The day started disastrously and ended not exactly as I'd meant it to either! Our room at The Lion, Llanymynech was both basic and on a very busy main road. Therefore I used my ear plugs, got a very good night's sleep but only woke when Doug hammered on the door at 08:30, an hour after we'd intended to get up! Had breakfast and left at about 09:50. The Lion isn't all that bad but I'm sure that there are better B&Bs in the area for the price.

Left Llanymynech up the A483 back towards the Montgomery Canal which here is very badly overgrown and looks in need of a second restoration. The weather was again dull and overcast but still warm and I walked in tracksters and T shirt. I took a left turn by the "Welcome to England" and "Shropshire" signs and began a steep upward climb first on a minor road and then on a woodland path, crossing a stile with England on one side and Wales on the other. I entered the minor principality! At the prominent Asterley Rocks I took a small diversion for the fine views over Llanymynech and beyond. I continued walking along the woodland trail, out onto the golf course and then back into the woods where the path was very overgrown. The Path continued to skirt the golf course for a while and then descended, at first gently and then more steeply down where the path has been diverted down a rather splendid new track, which doesn't seem to follow the route given in the guide. But I followed the acorns and yellow arrows and got along just fine.

I crossed a disused railway line (I guess the one referred to as a "disused mineral line" in the guide) and then over a footbridge above a very sleepy stream. I navigated the A495 and then into more fields. there were a lot of them today and, consequently, a lot of stiles. After passing between houses I turned left onto a minor road and followed that for about ¾ mile. After another field I came out onto another minor road and to the small village of Nantmawr, which consists of a few rather pretty houses, a couple of chapels and a phone box by which I turned.

I had seen no walkers behind or ahead of me and it seemed that, with my late start, I wouldn't catch Harry and Steph. So I resigned myself to a day with my own thoughts, highly tuneful whistling and a few "jolly" songs ("I have become comfortably numb........!", etc.).

Went over a stile with a handwritten sign saying "Stinking Hellebore" with an arrow. Decided there and then to avoid that particular lady at all costs. I can do my own stinking, thank you very much, as Noelene will attest! Shortly after that close shave I entered Jones's Rough (or bit of rough, or something) a local nature reserve and actually a very pretty place on the slopes of Moelydd Hill. The hill itself at 285 metres offered a wonderful 360° view over several ranges of hills including the Berwyns, Arans, Delamere and Peckforton (sorry but I know nowt about any of them!).

I walked up a track through woods again where there were rocky outcrops with trees growing almost as if from the rock itself. It was very strange. I crossed several more fields and through a small wood with the happiest of gurgling, bubbling small streams passing beneath the simplest of stone footbridges, a simple slab over two other rocks before entering the village of Trefonen. I reached the most impressive piece of Dyke so far today and walked up its westerly side. At Pentre-Shannel Farm the Dyke came to a dead end. I guess that a farmer some years ago wanted more land so simply removed it. Farmers, guardians of the countryside! Their actions over many hundreds of years has left the Dyke in the all too often pitiful sight that we now find it.

I crossed a road and walked down a hill towards a former restored mill, now a pub and B&B place called The Old Mill. Later I was to find out that Harry and Steph had stayed the night there having walked all the way from Buttington Bridge the day before. Just before the pub I saw a slow-worm in the road, unfortunately dead. Harry later told me that The Old Mill wasn't a very good place to stay and they hadn't been able to get the traditional walkers big cooked breakfast. It was closed when I passed, anyway. I went over another happy little stream and climbed up to Candy Woods, a long trail through the best section of forest so far on this day. Passed two ladies with four children walking down to the mill and a couple of folks walking dogs. In fact I saw more people out walking today, a Monday than I did yesterday, of course a Sunday. The Dyke passes through Candy Woods and is very fine indeed here, with its banks covered by brambles, gorse, trees and a host of other plants, surely enough to dissuade the Welsh from nicking the poor Mercian's sheep! Stopped for lunch, etc. by a stile near the top of the woods and I must say that the packed lunch from the Lion at Llanymynech wasn't at all bad.

After leaving Candy Woods I came to a much more open area which, by the sight of the strange sculpture with two horses heads, was the location of the former Oswestry Racecourse (open from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century). Here I also passed the ruins of a building with about five memorial seats around it and continued down a very pleasant green grassy path before being forced to walk on a minor road for a mile or so. After the very impressive Carreg-y-big Farm I climbed over a stile that said "Prestatyn 49 miles" and there was a fine view of The Dyke to the south. Just after crossing to a tarmaced road I passed a very nice cottage with its garden on The Dyke itself. Along the track I passed two other walkers sitting in the grass having their lunch but didn't stop to chat. After a few spits of rain half an hour before, the sun came out and it was pleasantly warm. I walked up the B4579 into Craignant and took a diversion about ¼ off the track to see the large Victorian stone, built into a very large stone wall, commemorating The Dyke and very fitting it looked too. The detour was well worth the ½ extra on the day's walk.

I took a tiny tarmaced road downhill past some ancient kilns (presumably for lime), went uphill over more fields (there are always "more fields" on the Offa's Dyke Path) to the east of The Dyke and then along its top. Started to descend and could see Chirk Castle in the distance (closed on Mondays, says Noelene) and also a very unpleasant looking factory to its east. Chirk Mill, my supposed destination for the night was still some way off. I climbed down into the deep and very beautiful Nanteris Ravine descending steps a footbridge and more steps up, put there by the Royal Engineers in 1986 (another cheer for the good old Army, please!). From there The Path (and I!) began to descend into the Ceriog Valley with increasingly good views of Chirk castle in front. I crossed the bridge over the River Ceriog, a fast flowing and fairly substantial body of water and reached Chirk Mill. Phoned Noelene and then realised that my finishing point today wasn't here but at Argoed Farm some four or so miles further on. So rather depressed by this news I set off once again.

I took the official route skirting the west side of the castle grounds fearing that I'd get lost if I took the alternative summer route through the castle grounds. The route is steeply upwards on a tarmaced road at the edge of woods. I climbed out of the Ceriog Valley and across a field, where beside a stile with its acorn and yellow arrow was a farmer's handwritten sign - "Bull in Field". I had thought that farmers weren't allowed to put bulls in fields through which public footpaths (let alone national trails) pass and resolved to check this out. The bull was enormous too but much more interested in the ladies that he was trying his best with than me! Soon afterwards, on another tarmaced road, I passed a family of parents plus three children walking the whole of the Offa's Dyke Path over several family holidays doing a few seven or eight mile legs each time. How wonderful. I wished them good luck and walked on over several fields, crossing The Dyke again. I walked through a field of clovers and wondered how many four leafed ones there were. Then I reflected that it wasn't more luck I could have done with today, rather better planning!

A few fields later and I was walking above the Llangollen Canal, reaching a bridge and then walking back along the other side of the canal! The Path follows the canal; for about a mile and it was good to be on a flat surface again. The Llangollen Canal here is almost like a new structure, very functional and heavily used by pleasure boats. The contrast with the quiet, clean, reedy Montgomery canal couldn't have been greater. I passed a house of the canal bank with the most wonderful flower and vegetable garden and reached the swing bridge which I crossed and then descended the B5434 to Froncysyllte and Argoed Farm, our B&B for the night.

Received a very friendly welcome from Alan and Anthea Landon (and, of course, Noelene) plus copious cups of tea - smashing. Argoed Farm hasn't actually been a farm for very many years but it is a charming and beautiful cottage. Anthea is a fellow art student at Wrexham College so she and Noelene had plenty to talk about.

Later we went to the Thomas Telford pub for a meal and crossed his very impressive aqueduct which takes the Llangollen Canal over the River Dee. It was a magnificent feat of engineering when it was build about 200 years ago and it still is. In the pub I eventually caught up with Harry and Steph and hoped to walk with them tomorrow.

The food at the Thomas Telford was okay with very large portions but there was no decent beer at all so Noelene and I shared a tepid bottle of Australian Chardonnay!

Day 10 Impressions

Day ten was better than the previous day in the walking but I missed having the family with me. There were a number of highlights - the view from Moelydd Hill, Candy Woods, the former Oswestry Racecourse and Nanteris Ravine plus knowing that there is now less than fifty miles to go. The downsides were my poor organisation in getting the end point wrong and not waking up in the morning - oh well, tomorrow's another day!

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