Offa-long the Dyke #5: Kington to Knighton

The last day of the hike. I wake up feeling a bit tired (nothing to do with the red wine, of course) and trip down the precipitous stairs to Adam’s excellent breakfast, eaten amid the trays and drawers and crates of coloured threads and yarns and dyes, next to the sewing machine. The electronic spinning wheel is somewhere in the corner.

We walk away from the ODP down into cloudy Kington because the Friday market is on. The market ladies organise to fill our water bottles from the corner bakery where for the first time we meet a lot of other hikers, probably because the sandwiches are home made and the coffee is actually good! 

Signs for September’s Kington Walking Festival make me want to be able to come back to this community time and again. But all we can do today is buy local honey and handmade Belgian chocolates and turn reluctantly up the hill to square the streets while finding the start of this final day’s hike.

The day starts uphill under cloud and runs along lanes; but soon we are a back to crossing gates and fields and clambering over stiles. Just as we head up onto the gorse-spattered highland of Herrock Hill, a red kite whistles and wheels low overhead, skimming the stunted trees, its deeply forked tail and white barred wings flipping and tilting above us. We almost skip over the wide open hilltop with joy and satisfaction. These birds aren’t rare now, but only 40 years ago the entire UK was home to only a handful of breeding pairs. This now-common sight is a triumph for wise investment in wild nature. 

We follow the path along little roads and lanes again, twisting in and out of Wales, over fox-glove banks and through stiles with carvings of the coin that bears King Offa’s profile.

Soon passing through Ditchyeld Bridge and Knobbley Brook. I obviously haven’t been paying attention (relying on Caro’s exemplary map reading skills and only occasionally double checking with the invaluable OS map app) because I am surprised when we hit Offa’s Dyke! Where have you been for the past three days? 

The path takes us up wooden steps and runs along the wooded top of the dyke for hundreds of metres then drops us down more steps away from the Dyke again. But that isn’t the last we have seen of the King of Mercia’s handiwork.

As the rain squalls sweep in again in painful waves of needles on wet skin, we come out of the dogleg through Granner Wood and are back on the exposed bank for several kilometres. The upland farmland, the sweeping rain and high dyke all meld together in a wild sense of expansive country with a combative history.

Back to modern routes when we have to walk along the side of the busy narrow B4357. But soon we are sweeping down the hill over the golf course from Hawthorn Hill and Furrow Hill, our last hills, our last upland moor; goodbye bracken and earthwork and into the hideous reality of Knighton’s grey depressed suburbs.

I wish we could have kept walking because Knighton is not a happy place. We had a lovely cup of tea in the excellent Offa’s Dyke Information Centre but the town is struggling - it has seen better days and doesn’t seem to have figured out where it is going. There is little to be seen of Kington or Hay’s easy community charm but we were happy to find the warm welcome and friendly sitting room of the Kinsley B&B near the station, where the river pours past the bottom floor of the building and under the bridge.

We celebrate our sisterly triumph and shared hiking enjoyment with a top class Indian meal at the Saffron. Relaxed and feeling our walking muscles starting to stiffen, we are inordinately pleased with ourselves. 

And planning our next hike......