Christopher Somerville

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

Facebook Link:

Six men bearing enormous reindeer horns cavort together, advancing and retiring, enticing and threatening. Lumpy-bumpy melodeon music accompanies their ritual, crowds of onlookers cheer them through the village streets. This is the ancient Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, performed every Wakes Monday in this Staffordshire village.

We start today’s walk in the village church of St Nicholas, and here on the wall behind the organ hang the venerable sets of reindeer horns, each a thousand years old, mounted on curious little wooden heads. Not long after sunrise on Wakes Monday the priest-in-charge blesses the horns before the dancers set out with them, a nice blend of the Christian and pagan.

The bells of St Nicholas ring out over Abbots Bromley as we walk away from the brick cottages and half-timbered old houses of the village. The hazy bloom of a hot summer’s morning lies over the steeply rolling countryside.

On the ridge near Spring Bank Farm, young cattle are sheltering from the heat in their shed. From here we look back to Abbots Bromley among trees on its hillside, and to the misty grey outlines of the great cooling towers at Rugeley, their waists nipped in like monstrous flamenco dancers.

At Beacon Bank Farm we get into a lane of hazel hedges between shady oaks, from whose upper leaves tiny caterpillars come abseiling down on glistening threads. At Hart’s Farm the young heifers blow through their nostrils as they stand in straw, emitting their characteristic warm, biscuit smell.

The royal hunting forest of Needwood once covered all this countryside. Now its fragments lie widely scattered. We sit on a medieval earthen bank in Hart’s Coppice, our feet among oak leaves, listening to blackbird and warblers making mid-afternoon music in the cool of the woodland canopy. Uncountable insects add a harmonic background hum.

Around Dun’s Field farm the stiles are choked with brambles and blackthorn. We clear a way at the cost of a few scratches, and follow a track across the broad acres of Bagot’s Park between fields of wheat and oilseed rape.

A wistful glance as we pass the silver silos of the Freedom Brewery, and we haul our thirsty throats and hot faces homeward along the Staffordshire Way. The fields shimmer in the sunshine, hoverflies hum their monotone refrain, and all colours are leached out in the heat of the afternoon to the dull gold of the crops and the green of trees so dark they look tar black against the pale blue sky.

Start: St Nicholas’s Church, Abbots Bromley, Staffs WS15 3DD (OS ref SK 079246)

Getting there: Bus 402A, 403, Uttoxeter to Burton-on-Trent
Road – Abbots Bromley is on B5014, signposted (B5013) from A51 at Rugeley.

Walk (7 miles, easy, OS Explorer 244): From church to village green at Buttercross. Right along High Street; left (084244) up Radmore Lane. In ½ mile pass Radmore farm; in 100m, right over stile (091249); fork left (fingerpost) across field to far corner (stile). Same line across next field to cross footbridge (094249). In 50m, right (stile, yellow arrow/YA). Straight uphill, then half left to shed (097250). Through gate; half left across field to gate. Ahead to 2 gates by The Clump wood (100242). Left through left-hand gate; along hedge (stiles) for 350m to lane at Beacon Bank Farm (099255).

Right; in 300m pass gates of Four Oaks (101257); in 240m, fork left (103259) to Hart’s Farm (103261). Between house and shed; on through farmyard between sheds; through gate at far side; follow farm track for 200m to go through gate (105264, YA). Bear left up flank of Hart’s Coppice to enter wood (106265, stile, YA). Ahead across track; on through trees with ditch on left for 200m to leave wood (107266, stile, YA).

Path across field; cross footbridge (100269, YA); on down field edge. In 200m at angle of field, right (101271, stiles, YAs, footbridges) across brook. Up field to shed; cross stile (110273); across following stile (YA); left with hedge on left to cross 2 adjacent stiles in corner of field (109274) at Dun’s Field farmhouse. Bear right past cattle grid; left along field roadway (108276) for 1 mile to pass Freedom Brewery (093270). In another 250m, left (090269) along field edge in valley bottom on Staffordshire Way (marked by YAs with ‘knot’ logo).

In 600m bear right round field edge (094264); ahead over stile (SW) through trees; up hill. In 500m, left through hedge (089263, SW, fingerpost). Follow hedge on right. In 200m, right through hedge (090261, YA) across field. Left along hedge on your left (YA), on path becoming green lane to road (087255). Ahead to Abbots Bromley.

Conditions: Some bramble-choked stiles near Dun’s Field Farm; secateurs/stick are useful!

Lunch: Café on the Green, Abbots Bromley (01283 840275) – excellent home cooking

Accommodation: Marsh Farm B&B, Uttoxeter Road, Abbots Bromley WS15 3EJ (01283-840323)

Abbots Bromley Horn Dance: Monday 10 Sept 2018; abbotsbromley.com/horn_dance

enjoystaffordshire.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

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

Facebook Link:

The steam trains of the South Tyne Valley Railway were slow enough by all accounts. But travellers in the slowest of them could never have had the leisure to spot all the wild flowers that Jane and I saw as we walked the footpath that now runs along the old railway. All this under a blue Northumbrian sky where white cumulus clouds 30,000 feet tall rolled with soundless majesty.

Along the farm lane to Lynnshield, black and brown heifers tittuped and snorted in pastures where oystercatchers circled above their nests, crying their sharp pik! pik! alarm calls. Beyond the farm we headed south at the rim of Park Burn’s deep canyon, where the burn rushed over rocky falls. Sphagnum was using the clumps of sedge as foundations for building its big pink and green cushions of moss, deep and damp enough to wet a finger thrust in among them.

We picnicked under the footbridge, watching sand martins popping in and out of their nest holes in the banks. Then it was on south by way of dusty spoil-heaps of old coal pits, and a tangle of dubious paths around the stone-built steading of West Stonehouse. Here we paused for a superb view north over many miles of moor and upland. Out there the landscape lumped up into the characteristic breaking-wave skyline of the Whin Sill’s volcanic ledge, where Hadrian’s Wall rode right at the edge of sight.

Down again through sheep pastures into the wide green valley of the River South Tyne. It was hard to equate the sluggish dark tideway through Newcastle-upon-Tyne with this young river of clear water, running fast round islets of pebbles piled up in winter floods. We followed it north to where the great grey bulk of Featherstone Castle raised its battlements and window arches.

Just upstream stood an abandoned clutch of stark red brick buildings, black-windowed and sinister – the remnants of Camp 18. Here after the Second World War, German officers were put through a process of ‘de-Nazification’, before being repatriated to help rebuild their ruined country. A humane, far-sighted initiative, the first step in the process of Anglo-German reconciliation.

Start: Featherstone Park car park, Featherstone Rowfoot, near Haltwhistle NE49 0JF (OS ref NY 683607)

Getting there: Car park is 1 mile east of Featherstone Castle (signed from A689 at Lambley)

Walk (8 miles, moorland and farm tracks, OS Explorer OL43): From car park cross road and on along old railway (South Tyne Trail, ‘Haltwhistle 3’). In ½ mile fork left at Park Village (687615); right across railway, to road. Right; in 150m, left (fingerpost/FP, ‘Broomhouse Common’) along farm drive to Lynnshield (695612). Skirt to right round buildings (arrows); on to gate. Beyond, fork right at waymark post (697613, yellow arrows/YA). Follow fence on right to wall gate (700613, YA). Right along gorge edge; in 600m fork right at post (702608, YA) to cross Park Burn on footbridge (700605).

Ahead to gate; green lane to road (690600); ahead for ¼ mile to larger road (696595). Left; in ⅔ mile at top of hill, right into Pinewood Grove chalet park (699587, FP ‘Yont the Cleugh’). In 10m, left through gate (YA); ahead to pass site office and farmhouse (697586). Through gate, down path to cross Christowell Burn; right up to gate. Half left across field to gate at West Stonehouse (695586).

Right; in 50m, left round end of barn; pass cottage on right, then between farmhouse on left and barn with steps on right. Through gate on right (YA); on to ladder stile (LS); on to gate, and cross farm track by Birch Trees house (694586). Half left and through gate (YA). Up field with fence on right to LS (691584); on to LS by corner of Beaconhill Plantation (689583). Right (stile, YA, FP) through plantation (occasional YAs), down to stile (687585). Forward to cross road (686586, LS).

In 150m at waymark post (YA), ahead downhill for 700m with fence on left, then across fields to farm at Coanwood (681590). Ahead through gate (YA); immediately left (stile, YA) along field edge to stile (YA) into lane (678589). Right between houses, and down to road. Sharp left, down through gate (FP, ‘Lambley Bridge’). At cottage (676589), right on path heading north beside River South Tyne for 1¾ miles. Just past Featherstone Castle, right up road (673612) for ¾ mile to car park.

Conditions: NB – poor waymarking around West Stonehouse.

Refreshments: Wallace Arms PH, Featherstone Rowfoot (NB no food); Blenkinsopp Castle Inn, Castel Home Park, Brampton CA8 7JS (01697-747757)

Accommodation: Kellah Farm, near Greenhead, Haltwhistle NE49 0JL (01434-320816, kellah.co.uk) – proper friendly farm B&B

Info: visitnorthumberland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

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

Facebook Link:

A blustery grey morning was giving way gradually to a sky of scattered blue over the Northamptonshire farmlands. At East Haddon, Sunday lunchers clinked their glasses in the Red Lion, and somewhere near the recreation ground a children’s party was getting under way with tremendous music and megaphone announcements.

The building stone hereabouts is all honey-coloured ironstone. The rich, dark gold soil lay stiff with flints and water-smoothed pebbles. The farmers had left generous headlands around the fields, growing ground for thistles and white campion, yellow and purple vetches, tall rusty docks and pink spears of willowherb.

Slate grey clouds hung low above the northern skyline, where a strip of brilliant blue piled with whipped cream cumulo-nimbus inserted itself between heaven and earth. A church tower, peeping among trees, heralded Holdenby, a dream of an orderly estate village with handsome stone houses and high-gabled cottages around a broad oak-shaded green. Long gone is the great Elizabethan house with its 80,000 square feet of bulk and its 123 windows, where King Charles I endured a gilded captivity between the end of the Civil War and his eventual execution in 1649.

Beyond Holdenby the pastures rolled out northwards toward low hills. Medieval ridge-and-furrow undulated below the grass, more sensed than seen. We skirted Holdenby North Lodge, where two glossy horses in the absolute nick of health came up inquisitively to see what apples or mints we might be hiding in our pockets. They scorned my proffered handful of grass with snorts of aristocratic contempt.

The path crossed huge, hedgeless cornfields where the red brick barn of Tithe Farm lay half hidden in a fold of ground. A glimpse of the wind-furrowed grey lake of Ravensthorpe Reservoir, where fly fishermen rhythmically flogged the water from tiny boats, and we set back south along a well-found field path.

Oats, beans and barley grew, just as in the old nursery song. The ripe oat seeds hung like so many million silver bells, trembling in the breeze. Lime green shield bugs clung among the oats, and damselflies hovered, vanished and materialised a foot away, their electric blue bodies barred with black. Overhead, elephantine clouds moved massively across the sky, subtly backlit by a sun that never left their shelter all afternoon.

Start: Red Lion Inn, East Haddon, Northants NN6 8BU (OS ref SP 670682)

Getting there: Bus 96 (Rugby-Northampton)
East Haddon is signed off A428 between Rugby and Northampton

Walk (7 miles, easy, OS Explorer 223): Opposite Red Lion, up Mill Lane. At sports field, left (yellow arrow/YA) along field edges. Clockwise round three sides of 3rd field to gate (679677); left past Rowell Leyes barn. At foot of slope, left (678673) along field margin for 800m to bridleway (683668). Left (‘Holdenby’), following bridleway to road in Holdenby (695678).

Left to road (695680); cross, and follow Macmillan Way (black arrows/BLA) to Holdenby North Lodge. Cross stile into field to right of house (695687); left over next stile, and through farmyard. BLAs point west through paddock (stiles), then along field edge. In 400m (688686, gate on left), right across 2 fields. At foot of slope (687691), ahead with hedge on left; in 200m, left through hedge (687693, BLA, blue arrow/BA). Diagonally across field, over footbridge (686696); follow hedge on left to Teeton Road (680701).

Left; in 100m, left (NB – another 100m along road gives a view over Ravensthorpe Reservoir) at footpath fingerpost. Along field edge with hedge on right. In 300m, right through hedge (678698), across corner of field to footbridge. Half right across next field; through hedge in top right corner (677694); down field edge. In 150m right (stile); left along hedge (YA), then across open field to stile (676688). Half right in front of Rye Hill Farm; beyond ponds, right off drive (674687, YA). Follow hedge, then fenced path past sewage works (672685). Keep stream on right before bearing left to stile (arrow) and road (672682). Right to Red Lion.

Lunch: Red Lion, East Haddon (01604-770223, redlioneasthaddon.co.uk)

Accommodation: Murcott Mill, Long Buckby, Northants NN6 7QR (01327-842236, murcottmill.com)

Info: northamptonshiresurprise.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

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

Facebook Link:

As we crossed Stowford Bridge on the northern outskirts of Ivybridge in proper summer sunshine, the slopes of Dartmoor rose to the north under a blue sky. A stony lane brought us up there, climbing between hedges thick with bedstraw and foxgloves, among which the velvety wings of small heath butterflies flicked open and shut.

Out on the moor cattle and sheep grazed, muzzles all down. Two contrasting landscapes lay in view – harsh green and brown slopes of bare moorland ahead, with a white scab of china clay workings to the west, and the broad stretch of the South Hams of Devon behind us, a patchwork of hedges, woodland, green pastures and the yellow squares of meadows just cut for silage.

Extracting china clay was one of the most important Dartmoor industries in bygone times. In 1911 a narrow-gauge tramway was built from Ivybridge to the Redlake works in the middle of the moor. We followed its snaking course along the flanks of Weatherdon Hill, across stream trickles where dragonflies with biplane wings and electric blue bodies hunted the sodden green jungles of moss.

Beyond the piled granite boulders of Hangershell Rock a stone row crossed the old tramway. No-one knows when this monument of stubby, shin-high standing stones was erected – perhaps 4,000 years ago – but here it still stands, defying time and weather.

A harras* of moor ponies was gathered round a pond, their manes and tails streaming like the steeds of pre-Raphaelite knights. Nearby stood Spurrell’s Cross, weather-beaten and stumpy, a marker of pink granite sparkling with mica, raised by medieval monks to mark the meeting place of two of their routes across the moor. Here we sat, munching chocolate eggs (nutritious, no – delicious, yes) and gazing north-east over thirty miles of tumbled lowlands.

From Spurrell’s Cross we headed south towards Wrangaton along the old monks’ road, a groove in the heather and grass worn by countless boots and hooves. We dropped down to cross Lud Brook at a ford of pink granite rubble. At the foot of Western Beacon we found the old tramway once more, and turned along it for home with half of south Devon spread out gloriously before us in the late afternoon sun.

*Please retain this word – it’s the correct term for a group of these wild ponies!
Start: Stowford Bridge, Cole Road, Ivybridge, PL21 0EY approx. (OS ref SX 641567)

Getting there: Rail to Ivybridge (half mile footpath to Stowford Bridge)
Bus 20A (Plymouth – Macandrew Walk, Ivybridge)
Road – Ivybridge is signed off A38 Exeter-Plymouth. Parking spaces on Cole Road near Stowford Bridge.

Walk (7 miles, easy underfoot, OS Explorer OL28): Cross Stowford Bridge (‘Harford’). In 300m, right opposite Stowford Farm (642570, ‘2 Moors Way’/2MW) up lane. In ½ mile, through gate onto moor (645576); half right on 2MW. In ½ mile, left along tramway track (651583). In 1½ miles, right at pond (658599) for 150m to Spurrell’s Cross. From here, south on broad grass track, keeping Ugborough Beacon on left. In ⅔ mile (663589 approx), keep stream valley close on right, descending to ford Lud Brook (662587). Left along right bank; in 400m through gate (661583); down grass path to gate (661579, ‘Private Property’). Right along edge of Access Land; in 100m, through gate; bear left on grass path round lower slopes of Western Beacon. In ½ mile (658572), right along tramway track. In ¾ mile, left (649575) to moor gate; return to start.

Conditions: Best avoided in mist.

Lunch: Picnic

Accommodation: Anchor Inn, Ugborough, PL21 0NG (01752-690388, anchorinnugborough.co.uk) – excellent, comfortable village inn.

visitdartmoor.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

Facebook Link:

The Surrey Weald, a great thickly wooded lens of land, lies on a band of ironstone in the shadow of the North Downs. Once it was a smoky, noisy, clangorous industrial hub, part of the medieval iron-making centre of England. You’d never know it now, though, so snug and quiet lie the villages tucked into valley bottoms along the tortuously winding lanes that thread the woods.

Coldharbour is no more than a scatter of cottages loosely based on the Plough Inn. We started off north along Wolvens Lane, a sun-dappled holloway under sweet chestnuts and knobbly pollarded beeches whose roots hung at the rim of the lane, half in earth, and half in air. Flickers of grey and tan betrayed the movement of horse riders down parallel tracks, moving quietly and all but unseen through the woods.

A path dark with hollies and yews led west, down to the fast water race of the Tilling Bourne in its valley-bottom bed, and to the beautiful mill pond at Friday Street. In the quiet beech woods along Abinger Bottom the tree roots grasped the earth like many-knuckled grey fingers.

A quick sandwich in the Stephan Langton Inn, named after the former Archbishop of Canterbury – a local boy, he led the push to force King John to sign Magna Carta in 1215. Then on through quiet beech woods along Abinger Bottom where the tree roots grasped the earth like many-knuckled grey fingers.

On the slopes of Leith Hill, the highest point in Surrey, we broke clear of the trees and stood between pine trees looking out from the greensand ridge, many miles across the wooded Vale of Surrey and north Sussex, a smoky grey and blue prospect over the Wealden landscape. Up on the viewing platform at the top of nearby Leith Tower the panorama sprang outwards, further and further, south to the South Downs around Goodwood and the trees on Chanctonbury Ring 25 miles off, north to a pale grey smear that might have been the Dunstable Downs a full fifty miles away, and the dream-like spectral towers of the London skyline.

In 1765 Richard Hull of Leith Hill Place built the brick-and-ironstone tower sixty feet tall in order to claim a thousand-foot summit for Surrey. He lies buried here, not arrogantly at the apex of his creation, but humbly beneath its foundations, with the world climbing upon his back to enjoy the sensational view he opened for us all.

Start: Plough Inn, Coldharbour, near Dorking, Surrey RH5 6HD (OS ref TQ 151441)

Getting there: Bus service via Dorking railway station – 433 (Mon, Thur); 50 (Tue, Fri).
Road – Plough Inn is on Coldharbour Lane, 3½ miles south of A25 at Dorking.

Walk (6½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 146. NB: Detailed directions, online maps, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): From Plough Inn, cross road; take lane to right of bench (‘Byway’). In ¾ mile pass Wolven Cottage Stables on right (145452); in 100m, left past metal barrier; path inside edge of wood. In 250m, fork left at wooden barrier (142451) and on for 500m, descending to gravel bridleway at Tilling Springs (139449). Right; in 100m, right along Greensand Way/GW. In ½ mile at Mare’s Nest, right along road (135457); fork immediately right and continue on GW. In ½ miles pass entrance to Mandrake House (nameplate); in another 100m, left (135465, stile, yellow arrow/YA) across field, then Tilling Bourne stream.

Up slope, across road (131462) and on past Wotton Estate notice. In 150m, over path crossing (130462, fingerpost/FP) and on. In 400m, steep descent to kissing gate and path crossing with bridge ahead (126462). Don’t cross bridge; turn left with stream on right for 450m to cross road by pond at Friday Street (128458). Ahead to pass Stephan Langton Inn.

At end of road, ahead through barrier and on south (‘public bridleway’). In 700m, left along road (127449). In 100m, fork right and on. In ½ mile (127440) fork right. Cross road above house; follow woodland track to road. Left to bend; left (128438, ‘Broadmoor’); immediately right (‘Bridleway’) on woodland track for ¾ mile to Leith Hill Tower (139432). Follow ‘Coldharbour Common Walk’/CCW signs north-east, descending to go through gate (141433, CCW). In 200m go over crossing path and on (142434, blue arrow/BA). In 300m, at meeting of paths, bear right ahead (144437, BA); in 200m, through gate (146438); on past cricket field for ½ mile to Plough Inn.

Lunch: Plough Inn, Coldharbour (01306-711793; ploughinn.com) or Stephan Langton Inn, Friday Street (01306-730775; stephanlangton.pub). Tea: Leith Hill Tower kiosk (10am-3pm)

Accommodation: Plough Inn, Coldharbour; or Henman Bunkhouse, Broadmoor RH5 6JZ (01306-712711, https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/holidays/bunkhouse-henman-surrey)

Leith Hill Tower: open daily, 10-3

visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk