Christopher Somerville

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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The handsome old Cumbrian coastal town of Silloth has re-invented itself a few times down the years – busy port, seaside resort, genteel retirement haven, nice quiet place to bring up young families.

Vestiges of all those incarnations were on display as we set out along the promenade – big boxy silos around the still-working port area, a Victorian pagoda-style pavilion perched high for the view across the Solway Firth to the Scottish mountains, and people out for exercise pushing into the strong sea breeze with hair and scarves a-stream.

The Solway shore was a bracing, blusterous place to be walking today. Too much rain and wind in the forecast for the Lake District mountains, we’d felt, but this was perfect for a thorough blow-through. Across the firth the low-lying hills of Dumfriesshire gleamed as though oiled and burnished by short-lived sun splashes, then dulled under sweeping rainclouds.

The wind moaned and drummed in the cast-iron bracing of Cote lighthouse, causing the tall white skeleton shape on the shore to tremble like a frightened giraffe. Gulls blew overhead. A squadron of oystercatchers went by on downcurved wings like little fighter planes, making their characteristic sharp pic! pic! calls.

At Skinburness a row of houses faced the sea behind a protective barrier of rough-hewn rock. It must be wonderfully exhilarating to live here on such a day, and frightening too, as you watch the hungry sea in the knowledge that its levels are rising year by year.

Beyond Skinburness the houses fell away along with the concrete steps of the promenade. Now the path followed a shore of multicoloured pebbles of sandstone and quartz with little scatterings of coarse-grained, dark pink sand. An oak leaf, blackened and weightless, raced us along the beach, pattering and bouncing across the sand, drawing gradually away until the wind flicked it head over heels into the waves.

Out at Grune Point, turnstones pattered busily on the tideline. A spread of brackish marsh pools showed where the sea was encroaching on the heathy terrain of the peninsula.

A circular pillbox lay among gorse bushes, its walls built of concrete sandbags, topped by a pyramidal seamark of stone. Inside a central pillar held up the roof, like some Neolithic tomb abandoned and forgotten. Built during the Second World War to ward off the German invasion that never came, the pillbox gloried in a most exalted title – the ‘Cumberland Machine-Gun and Anti-Tank Rifle Emplacement’.

We turned for home along the wide channel of Skinburness Creek, whose waters were already ebbing seaward. From the rain-darkened prairie of Skinburness marsh across the creek came curlew bubbles, wigeon whistles and the excited piping of many waders as the receding tide uncovered the mud flats once more, a well-stocked larder for all these wintering birds.

Start: Sea View car park, Silloth, Cumbria CA7 4AW (OS ref NY 106537)

Getting there:
Bus 400 from Carlisle; 60E (Skinburness-Maryport)
Road – from Carlisle, A595, A596 to Wigton; B5302 to Silloth

Walk (7¼ miles, easy, OS Explorer 314): Follow Promenade, then sea wall path north-east for 3½ miles to Grune Point (144569). Clockwise round tip of peninsula; follow path/track back along south side. At first houses of Skinburnessbank, right (129560, fingerpost) up green lane to north side of peninsula; turn left for 2¼ miles back to Silloth.

Lunch: Fairydust Emporium, Eden Street, Silloth (01697-331787, facebook.com/fairydusthq) – truly delightful café/restaurant

Accommodation: Golf Hotel, 4 Criffel Street, Silloth CQ7 4AB (01697-331438, golfhotelsilloth.co.uk)

Info: Silloth TIC, Solway Discovery Centre, Liddle Street CA7 4DD (01697-331944), golakes.co.uk; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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Today was one of those ‘Shall we?’ days – a morning of chilly winds over County Durham, and a weather forecast of spitting showers followed by proper rain. It wasn’t really conducive, the thought of pulling on all the raingear and setting out through a dank and dripping Hamsterley Forest. But in the end we were glad we did.

‘Oh, it can get a bit clarty up there in the forest,’ said the jolly young ranger in the Visitor Centre. We hadn’t heard that local word meaning ‘mucky’ for many a day. And a bit clarty it turned out to be, once we’d got off the hard-surfaced tracks.

We had a look at the ranger’s map and decided on the Three Becks Walk, thoroughly waymarked and well laid out. The Bedburn Beck, charged with rain, went bouncing down under the trees, a vigorous young stream of water stained toffee-brown with peat from the moors. The forest steamed, a heady whiff of bark, resin and damp pine needles.

Timber climbing frames beside the trail catered for youngsters with energy to burn. In its maturity Hamsterley Forest plays a role as a leisure woodland for walkers, cyclists, runners and riders, but when it was created in the 1930s, it was as a severely commercial softwood forest.

Back then the north-east of England was in the grip of the Great Depression, and local pitmen and shipyard workers who had lost their jobs were only too happy to be paid for planting young trees in their millions. They lived on site in barrack-like wooden huts, still to be seen near the Visitor Centre.

We followed the Three Becks Walk west among the pines and larches, their hard dark presence softened by borders of beech, oak and sycamore. There was a steady trickle of chaffinch song, a background chitter of wrens, and in the treetops the excited thin squeaking of goldcrests foraging high up.

Soon we forked off the surfaced track, up a stony forest path bound together with knotty conifer roots. Clearings opened up, large areas left to grow scrubby where spindly rowans and silver birch swayed to the windy swirls of rain.

A steep descent on a slippery track, across Bedburn Beck and up through Frog Wood on an old drove road to a view over a gate onto open moorland rusty with heather sprigs and bracken. Down past the ruin of Metcalf’s House, once an inn for the drovers, with an apse-shaped bread oven at the house end. And a return along Redford Meadows beside Bedburn Beck, a beautiful lush end to the walk in steady rain, watching for dippers along the stream and breathing in the scent of the wet exhaling forest.

Start: Hamsterley Forest Visitor Centre, Co. Durham DL13 3NL (OS ref NZ 092312). Car park £6/day.

Getting there: Hamsterley Forest is signed from A68 (Darlington-Tow Law) at Witton-le-Wear.

Walk (5½ miles, easy, OS Explorer OL31): Follow the well-waymarked Three Becks Walk (white arrow on orange square) all the way round. NB Hamsterley Forest contains many walking and cycle trails, so look out for the right waymarks! On the return leg, vary the route by following Riverside Walk (blue arrows) from the road at Low Redford Bridge (081310). Turn right along road here to cross Aisford Beck; in 80m, left through car park (080309, ‘public footpath’ fingerpost) and follow Riverside Walk back to Visitor Centre.

Conditions: well surfaced, well waymarked trails. Trail maps available from Visitor Centre.

Lunch: Hamsterley Café, Visitor Centre.

Info: Hamsterley Forest Visitor Centre (01388-488312, forestryengland.uk); satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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A cock crowed from a farmyard and wood pigeons cooed in The Rookery as we walked out of Eartham. The distant calls bestowed a sense of peace on this breezy midday after weeks of summer heat.

This corner of West Sussex countryside dips and rolls from cornfields to woods. The clouds in a grey and silver sky pressed down, sealing in pockets of heat among the recently harvested fields. I followed the outer row of stubbles for the pleasure of hearing the dry stems swish and crackle against my boots.

A path in the cool shade of Nore Wood led north in a subaqueous green light to Stane Street, one flinty holloway among many converging under the beeches. Out across the open landscape of the downs we followed this 2,000-year-old way, built by the Romans soon after their invasion as a thoroughfare between their coast port of Noviomagus (Chichester) and Londinium. The raised ridge of the agger or road embankment, metalled with flints and mounded between ditches, still stood man-height, a seam of rabbit-burrowed earth and stones running northeast in a ruler-straight line.

We walked in the shelter of a clump of whitebeam, their green fruits swelling among the crinkly leaves. Some of these old trees were huge; I stepped out round the skirt of one enormous low-growing veteran and reckoned a circumference of at least 200 feet.

From Gumber Corner, another meeting place of ancient tracks, we went south over Great Down on a ridged, grassy path between fields of dark Zwartble lambs sporting white tail tufts. The Sussex coast spread out ahead, from the snout of the Isle of Wight on a blue-grey sea to the white miniature alps of the sunshades at Bognor’s Butlins.

Shady green Butt Lane was floating with thistledown parachutes. We passed derelict Downe’s Barn, a handsome old brick and flint building for which the National Trust have great plans after repair – bat and owl boxes, wildlife ponds and outdoor adventures.

Past Courthill Farm, where writer Hilaire Belloc found escape from his high-pressure London life in the early 1900s, and past a large triumphal arch perched on Nore Hill, a folly conceived as a picnic shelter by Anne, Countess of Newburgh, to give employment to local men out of work after the Peninsular Wars.

We came down to Eartham towards evening, the declining sun polishing the harvest patterns in the stubble fields and turning the empty flower cups of knapweed into a sprinkle of reciprocal suns among the grasses.

Start: George Inn, Eartham, West Sussex PO18 0LT (OS ref SU 939094) – please ask permission to park, and give The George your custom.

Getting there: Bus 99 (Petworth-Chichester)
Road – Eartham is signed off A285 (Petworth-Chichester)

Walk (8 miles, easy, OS Explorer 121): From inn, right along road; round left bend (‘Slindon’); on next right bend, fork left down lane (fingerpost/FP; yellow arrow/YA; pink arrow/PA). In 700m, ahead across field (947094); inside wood, left (949095, FP ‘bridleway’/BW). North through Nore Wood, following PA and blue arrows/BA. In ⅔ mile, at post with YA and BA (952102), sharp left (BA) downhill. At bottom of slope, The Plain, go across track (951105; ignore BAs pointing left and right). Ahead up forest ride for ⅔ mile to 6-way meeting of tracks at bench (952114, 6-finger post).

Follow Stane Street/Monarch’s Way/MW (3rd right, ‘Bignor’) NE for 1¼ miles. At bench and 4-finger post, go through gate (967126); right (MW, PA, BW); in 150m, right at Gumber Corner (BW) to follow BW south across Great Down. In 1⅔ miles, just before gate, right (967101, FP, BA); in 40m, through gate; left (FP) along track. In 700m pass BW turning on right (965095); in another 250m fork right (965092, FP); in 30m, FP points left, but fork right to pass Downe’s Barn in 100m (965091).

In ½ mile, right at road (960086); in 100m, right (‘Bignor Hill’); just before Courthill Farm buildings, left up stony lane (960088). In ½ mile pass Row’s Barn (953091); in 200m, round right bend; in 30m, left along edge of trees (951092). At top of slope, enter trees (949092); right up green lane (BA); in 200m, left (FP) across field and back to Eartham.

Lunch: George Inn, Eartham (01249-814340, thegeorgeeartham.com)

Accommodation: Blackmill Spinney, Blackmill Lane, Norton, Nr Chichester PO18 0JU (01243-543603, blackmillspinney.co.uk).

Info: Chichester TIC (01243-775888); visitchichester.org; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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Trawden lies in a narrow dale – the name signifies a trough-like valley – between the old mill towns of Nelson and Colne and the high empty moors of the Lancashire/Yorkshire border. We left this cheerful, friendly village gearing up for a festival with stalls and silver bands, and climbed a cobbled lane south towards the open country under a blue sky.

Out in the fields, well-tended gritstone walls divided the large square pastures. The cockerels and dogs of Trawden made Sunday music far below, their cries fading under the sharp alarm calls of curlew in the sedge clumps as we gained height towards the twin Coldwell reservoirs. The water sparkled in little sandy bays where oystercatcher parents piped their fledgling chicks in line astern along the shore.

An old moor lane led east at the foot of the rough slopes of Boulsworth Hill. Rutted and walled, paved with slabs deeply indented by boots, hooves and cart wheels, it gave superb views north over the walled fields and farmsteads of the Forest of Trawden, a Saxon hunting forest gradually overtaken by farming, milling and mining. Back west rose the shapely bulk of Pendle Hill, burdened with legends of witches and evil spells, today just a beautiful hill in plain sunshine.

Deep brackeny cloughs brought hill streams twisting down from the heights to the south. We crossed Turnhole Clough and followed the Brontë Way down to the sprawling shell of Wycoller Hall, Charlotte Brontë’s model in Jane Eyre for Mr Rochester’s lonely house of Ferndean Hall. A melancholy ruin – blank windows, chilly stone halls – in a gorgeous leafy dell.

A glass of pink lemonade, cold and refreshing, in the little tearoom at Wycoller, and we found the homeward path through fields where sheep lay panting in the shade of upright gritstone slabs that served for fencing.

The pale blue shoulder of Pendle Hill rose on the far skyline as an aiming point, and from down in Trawden the thump and blare of a silver band came in atmospheric blasts across the still, sun-scorched fields.

Start: Trawden Arms PH, Trawden, Lancs BB8 8RU (OS ref SD 912388)

Getting there: Bus M3, Trawden-Accrington
Road – Trawden (B6250) is signed off A6068 in Colne.

Walk (8 miles, field paths and moorland tracks, OS Explorer OL21): Fork left off B6250 at Trawden Arms, up lane. In 450m cross road (912384); path to right of Trawden Literary Institute, past garages (fingerpost) into fields (911383). Ahead uphill beside wall; past radio mast (909378). At Pasture Springs Farm dogleg right/left (908377). At Moss Barn, right along front of house (907374); through gate (yellow arrow/YA); cross field to stile into plantation (YA).

Left; in 30m, ahead (YA); follow path through trees. At wall (906372) bear right through plantation to stile/footbridge onto moor (905370, YA). Half right, aiming a little left of wind turbine, to ladder stile overlooking Lower Coldwell Reservoir (903367). Ahead to gate onto road (903364); left for 350m; left onto bridleway (903361, fingerpost), following ‘Pennine Bridleway’ and ‘Wycoller’. After 3 miles, cross Turnhole Clough (941379); in 300m, left (943381, ‘Brontë Way, Wycoller’) for 1 mile to Wycoller.

Pass Wycoller Hall ruin (933392) and packhorse bridge; follow Trawden road out of village across road bridge. In 200m on right bend, go through wooden gate on right of farm track (930394, fingerpost). Diagonally across field to stile; on with fence on left; through metal gate, and fork left uphill (928393, YA) past Bracken Hill Farm. On west across fields (YAs, ‘Trawden’ fingerposts), aiming for Pendle Hill ahead.

In ¾ mile cross farm track at Higher Stunstead (916390) and on along lane down to Trawden. At B6250 (912389), left to Trawden Arms.

Lunch: Trawden Arms (01282-337055, trawdenarms.co.uk) – cheerful, popular village pub.

Tea: Wycoller Tearoom.

Accommodation: Old Stone Trough, Kelbrook, Barnoldswick BB18 6XY (01282-844844, oldstonetrough.co.uk) – convenient, great value.

Info: trawdenparishcouncil.org.uk; visitlancashire.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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Famous figures from British history lined the arcades inside St Mary’s Church, Chidham – Sir Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth II, The Beatles in their round-collared suits. Each little doll had a teasel for a head. Sunday School is obviously a lot of fun for the children of Chidham.

What a charmed place they live in, too. The Chidham Peninsula, in profile like a horse’s head, bulges southward from the inner shoreline of Chichester Harbour. This flat salient of land, its cornfields bounded by hedges and its margins bright with wild flowers, lies among countless mudbanks and creeks where the whirr and screech of seabirds is heard all day long.

From the church we followed country lanes and the margins of stubble fields to the eastern shore, where the pale mauve rays of sea aster and bushy purple heads of sea lavender smeared the saltmarshes with colour.

Across the ebbing tide stream of Bosham Channel the stumpy church spire and red brick houses of Bosham rose beyond gleaming mudflats draped with brilliant green weed. There was a pungent whiff of salty mud drying into cracked squares, and a distant chink of halyards and flap of sails as a squadron of children put out from Cobnor Hard in a flock of tiny dinghies.

The seawall path led south, dividing the marshy tideway from the dull gold of the Chidham Peninsula’s wheatfields. Away to the north, the darkening woods of summer rode the long ridge of the South Downs. This was West Sussex encapsulated – swelling downs, rich farmland and a level coast deeply indented by the creeping sea.

Down at the southern end of the peninsula the path rounded Cobnor Point. A line of gnarled old oak trees, stunted by salt, leaned arthritic limbs towards the sea. The view opened out towards the still invisible mouth of Chichester Harbour, where the ebbing water scudded with yachts and home-made sailing boats – a vigorous, active, outdoorsy scene.

A stiff south-westerly breeze caused all the boats to heel as one. It caught the skirts of our coats and sailed us up the western flank of the Chidham Peninsula, wind-tossed and heading for harbour in the Old House At Home inn.

Start: Old House At Home Inn, Cot Lane, Chidham, West Sussex PO18 8SU (OS ref SV 787040)

Getting there: Train to Nutbourne Station (787058 – 1 mile). Road – A27 to Chichester; A259 Havant road to Chidham; left at Barleycorn Inn down Cot Lane; Old House At Home, 1 mile on right.

Walk (5½ miles from Old House At Home, 7½ from Nutbourne Station; easy; OS Explorer 120): Leaving Old House At Home, right past church; on along road. At corner of Cot Lane and Chidham Lane (791040), ahead (fingerpost/FP) on grassy verge past glasshouses. Field edge path to road (794041). Turn left; in 50m, right (FP, ‘Pedestrians Only’) along private road. At end of road, hedged path (FP) to shore (799040). Right for 3¾ miles to Chidham Point on west side of peninsula (779042). Here coast path turns inland and rejoins the newer inland floodbank path. In another 200m, right at 3-finger post (781046); follow field edge path to Cot Lane (788044); right to Old House At Home.

Conditions: Coast path on west side of peninsula can be flooded at top of tide. Tide times: tides.willyweather.co.uk

Lunch: Old House At Home, Chidham (01243-572477, theoldhouseathome.co.uk)

Accommodation: The Bosham B&B, Main Road, Bosham PO18 8EH (01243-572572, chichesterbedandbreakfast.co)

Info: Chichester TIC (01243-775888); visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk