WILTSHIRE (Downton) July 20th Foraging, wild food, wild medicine and wild stories!

About A Walk

Death, Dinner and Druids with Tom Radford – Wild food and wild history! A walk through the Wiltshire Countryside starting from Downton in Salisbury learning about wild and seasonal plants and finishing up in the Wooden Spoon pub (my old local) for a pint.

This was a great walk last year but it’s a fair walk around six miles. We wander past the fields of the famous Trafalgar House Estate, made famous by the film 28days later. The estate originally belonged to the Nelson family, gifted to them after The Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 where Lord Horatio Nelson lost his life but won a decisive victory.

From there we cross the weir into the water meadows and back across the fields. There were so many species of plant on the last walk we couldn’t cover them all but so much to learn and a truly beautiful setting.

Here’s what you’ll learn;

What you can and cannot eat
Wild flavours
Medicinal properties
Good foraging practice and sustainability
History, myth, stories and folklore
A light hearted look at the subject with some ludicrous facts and stories thrown in.

A list of plants I made at the time just to give you an idea of what’s there:

1. Mallow 
2. Buddlea 
3. Ivy – fertility, Dionysus and fun 
4. Water mint/chocolate mint – indigestion 
5. Blackberry – 29th September 
6. Willow 
7. Hawkweed – fox and cubs 
8. Ragwort 
9. Thistle 
10. Yarrow – Macbeth witches brew 
11. Nettle 
12. Hawthorn 
13. Meadowsweet 
14. Elder 
15. Curled dock 
16. Spotted orchid
17. Ribwort plantain 
18. Burdock 
19. Fools watercress (water celery) 
20. Blue water speedwell – edible, coughs
21. and colds 
22. Alder 
23. Sow thistle 
24. Horsetail – hair 
25. Woody nightshade (bridge) 
26. Hairy Willow herb – Whooping cough and asthma 
27. Bindweed – spider bites, toxic 
28. Ranuculus-  water buttercup (poisonous) 
29. Flea darts 
30. Water Hemlock 
31. Hemp Agrimony – holy rope, alkaloids, bile 
32. Hogweed 
33. Greater plantain 
34. Marsh woundwort – evil spirits 
35. Ash 
36. White comfrey 
37. Hazel 
38. Wood avens 
39. Ground ivy 
40. Oak 
41. White goosefoot – FAT HEN 
42. Dandelion 
43. White clover
44. Spindleberries 
45. Great Mullein
46. Pineapple weed
47. Herb Robert 
48. Cuckoo pint 
49. Linden 
50. Laurel 
51. Apple 
52. Yew 
53. Holly 
54. Fleabane 
55. Lady’s thumb 
56. Mistletoe 
57. Himalayan Balsam