The 'dead woman's ditch': River Holford, Somerset

Having assembled at an unspeakably early hour on a Sunday morning, a group of Year 11 Geographers were met by five teachers, two coaches and a minibus at the Habs coach park on 22^nd September 2013. Armed with buckets full of wellington boots, we set off for an overnight field trip to Somerset with the intention of gaining hands on experience in river and coastal field work in preparation for the oncoming iGCSE exams at the end of the year.

We arrived five hours later at the River Holford, in an area known as ‘Dead Woman’s Ditch’ and settled down for a picnic in this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The afternoon was spent wading around in the river in small groups measuring different variables, such as width and depth of the river channel, velocity of the water and the size and shape of the sediment over six different sites downstream.

From there, it was a short drive to Nettlecombe Court, our study centre; a beautiful Tudor and Georgian country mansion which lies in a secluded valley at the eastern edge of Exmoor National Park. After our evening meal, we spent a couple of intense hours collating and analysing the data we had collected during the afternoon. 

Monday morning was hectic with everyone rushing around with final packing, making sandwiches and gathering for the obligatory group photograph.  Another short drive brought us to Porlock Bay where we carried out our coastal fieldwork; measuring the gradients of the pebbly beach with increasing distance from the sea and picking up pebbles as we went along, recording sizes and shapes.  We left the small and pretty settlement of Porlock after a quick lunch and headed back to HABS.

Then the real drama started. With about half the return journey complete, one of our coaches broke down on the M5, leaving my peers and I ‘stranded’ on the hard shoulder!   The boys in the second coach were dropped off at the next service station so that we could be rescued from the motorway and brought back safely. In the end, we all arrived back unscathed, albeit at very different times, and we all agreed that the trip was enjoyable, very well organised, and of course memorable too. Many thanks to Mr Bown, Mrs Lemoine, Mr Taberner, Mrs Ezekiel, Mr Waddington and the instructors at Nettlecombe for a thoroughly informative and enjoyable time.

Shamil Shah, Year 11