Photos from walk on Thursday 14th December from Letcombe Regis to Wantage via Letcombe Bassett

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Letcombe Regis Nature Reserve

 

The sun came out

 

 

Flayed hedge

 

Not many flowers about in December, save for this white nettle (Lamium album)

 

Patterns in the weeds that surface the Wilts & Berks Canal

 

 

 

Towards the end, a mossy post, with a manky bit of fungus

 

But zoom in, and admire those trumpet tubes. Possibly Cladonia fimbriata or the trumpet cup lichen.

“Podetia grey-green, with cups (scyphi) abruptly expanded from the long, cylindrical stems, with finely granular soredia on the outer surface and interior of the cup (looking like fine flour).” [source]

 

Nearby a sycamore optimistically starting to bud ready for the new year and the new seasons

 

The canal we walked beside is the Wilts & Berks Canal, connecting Abingdon to Swindon, and beyond Swindon to the Kennet & Avon Canal at Melksham.

 

“The canal was built from west to east starting at Semington near Melksham in 1795. Construction reached East Challow some 11 years later in 1806. Work continued including the mile long branch into Wantage town centre and the canal was officially opened in September 1810. Unfortunately the Wantage branch has now been filled in, but one can follow much of the historic route through housing estates. The East Vale section includes a large part of the “Seven Mile Pound” from Longcot Bottom Lock (within West Vale’s boundaries) through to Grove Top Lock.

 

The canal was formally abandoned by an Act of Parliament in 1914. The Act was sponsored by Swindon Corporation, which gained control of all the land within its boundary. In other areas ownership returned to the owners of adjacent land as is the case for our length of canal. While in some parts much of the canal was filled in, in our area the canal is largely intact but overgrown, though the structures are inevitably in poor condition. In a few cases roads that once crossed the canal with hump backed bridges are now uniform gradient main roads” [source]

 

The Wantage to Abingdon section is also called, unsuprisingly, the Wantage Canal. There’s a website dedicated to its restoration, with detailed descriptions of the various local sections. On this page, there’s an interesting discussion about how to lower the canal to get under the A417 at East Challow.

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