Burwed one

Slow Way not verified yet. Verify Burwed here.

I walked this in the Wedmore to Burnham direction. It’s a decent route overall and much of it is very enjoyable. The walk across the Levels between Blackford, Mark and Watchfield via pastures, green droves and quiet lanes is really nice and the final stretch west of Highbridge to the mouth of the River Brue and on up the coast to Burnham sea front is lovely.

The section between Quab Lane, just to the West of Wedmore, and Blackford, includes a lot of arable fields which do not look to have good paths across or around when the crops are mature. The path infrastructure was good through this area however, and it was fine walking it today (mid October) after the crops had been harvested and before ploughing. But beware tall ranks of maize stalks in fields here in mid/late summer with ungenerous/no headlands round fields.

The poorest section of the route is between Watchfield and Highbridge. I had to climb over a locked field gate into the pony pasture off the B-road at Walrow Farm (w3w catching.pollution.results) where the stile has gone and the gap has been blocked by a sheep hurdle and a piece of corrugated iron (there used to be a stile there a few years ago!). Similarly, going out of the southern end of the same field, there is an unhelpful but more movable arrangement of sheep hurdles. Generally between here and Highbridge, the path infrastructure and signage is variable with some in poor condition, although some effort has been made to do basic repairs to one rotting bridge and to update way-markers on the gate posts.

One place I found awkward is in a corner of the field west of the motorway underpass beside the River Brue (w3w breached.products.clothed) where the path goes down a slightly nettle-y, brambly slope to another sheep hurdle which is replacing a stile (it was marked with a footpath sign though, at least in the west-going direction). Beyond this, I did not opt to continue on the path by the river (narrow, scrubby and a bit close to the steep bank) but instead scrambled up the bank into the field where the footpath is actually mapped.

A couple of short sections of road to take some care with are the bit of B-road in Watchfield and 300 yards of road (also near Watchfield) between Watchfield Lane and Puddy’s Lane (snarched.upholds.slug to sideburns.sharper.puff). Both these can be busy with traffic, including larger trucks, and people can drive pretty fast along the latter. Sightlines are good though and there is mostly at least a bit of verge to hop onto.

A final note is that the footbridges at either end of the path across the field between Elm Tree Farm and Dutch Road (w3w laying.apes.nips and waged.scooter.collide) had some brambles growing across today so this route is probably not walked much, but they were passable.

Access includes stiles, gates, footbridges and the oddities mentioned above. Some of the fields tracks on the levels can get very wet/muddy in winter and there were both horses and cattle present on the route.

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