Country Diary: Somerset

It was one of our district council's "Health Walks" that led us to Pill Bridge, near Ilchester, an ancient stone structure spanning the river Yeo and leading, it seemed, to nowhere in particular. We speculated about the possible routes of traders and packhorses travelling to and from wharfs on the once navigable waterways thereabouts. We were in dairy country below the village of Ditcheat, green pastureland where the water was flowing briskly in the rivers Brue and Alham and gurgling in ditches beside the fields we were crossing.

This is an area for cheese-making. Sleek black and white Friesians were contentedly munching the lush grass, starting the process that leads to fine Cheddar cheese. And it is National Hunt racing country, too. Along the lanes we gave way to several strings of glistening, athletic animals being ridden out from the trainer's stables. We were conscious of treading where notable riders and pedestrians had gone before; John Leland, keeper of the royal libraries for Henry VIII was sent here to make a survey of antiquities and left notes of his travels in south Somerset. His Leland trail is established and waymarked. More recent signs point to the Monarch's Way, a meandering route supposedly followed by Charles II in flight after the battle of Worcester. Walking beside a tree-lined stream, we found we were treading where he once trod.

At the end of one field, at a point where, again, there is no real sense of going anywhere in particular, was another bridge, far from the beaten track, but beautifully made of stone with four delicately pointed arches, and sharply edged cutwaters facing upstream to divide the flow and deflect it from the piers. It is tempting to imagine the king noting the craftsmanship that took him away across the Alham.