Christopher Somerville

Cefnllys & the Ithon Valley, Powys

Jan 302016

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

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The last of the morning’s bright sun shone on Cefnllys’s little grey Church of St Michael on its saddle of ground above the River Ithon. In 1893 the Rector had been so keen to lure the congregation of this scattered rural parish to his new church in nearby Llandrindod Wells that he ordered the roof of St Michael’s taken off. Two years later, defeated by the stubborn loyalty of the parishioners to their medieval chapel, he had the church restored and re-opened for worship.

They build to last in this part of Wales. Solid old farmhouses stood above the snaking Ithon as we walked a bank of ruddy brown bracken high above. But the twin castles that once crowned the peaks of Cefnllys are no more than heaps of stones now. In their 150-year history they were besieged, taken, retaken and burned out – part of the savage history of Welsh rebellion against the English overlords.

In the field beyond Neuadd farm two black-and-white horses with feathery legs stood outlined like gods on the ridge. We followed a bridleway down to a bend of the fast-flowing Ithon, where a treeful of fieldfares swooped from oak to ash in the blink of an eye. A gang of chattering starlings went whooshing across the rooftops of Brynthomas farm, chased by the first spits of rain out of the sullen western sky.

These tangled lanes of Radnorshire are quiet enough to walk with pleasure. A farmer in a mud-splattered Land Rover chuntered by, raising one large hand in laconic greeting. At Rhewl we found a boggy old green lane, and squelched along it through rushy fields and the tumbled stones of long-dissolved farmhouses.

As the wind and rain pattered on our coats we took to an old drove road running across the open green uplands of Pawl-hir. Lumpy hills rose and fell along the horizons all round, every hillside with its loose white scatter of sheep. The Ithon reappeared, bouncing in glittering runs of water through the oakwoods below our homeward path, and a rainbow planted its foot in a pot of gold somewhere beyond Cefnllys.

Start: Shaky Bridge car park, Cefnllys Lane, 2 miles east of Llandrindod Wells, Powys, LD1 5SR approx. (OS ref SO 085612)

Getting there: Cefnllys Lane is off A483 roundabout at the southern end of Llandrindod Wells, marked ‘County Hall’. Follow it east for 2 miles to Shaky Bridge car park.

Walk (8 miles, moderate, OS Explorer 200): From car park, cross Shaky Bridge; uphill to church (085615). From east side of churchyard, aim across field to go through gate; left along green track. At Neuadd, left through gate (090618, yellow arrow/YA), skirting house to road. Left; in ¾ mile, opposite Cwm, right (099626, ‘bridleway’) through right-hand of 2 gates. Follow hedge on left; then down long field to River Ithon (105622); left along it to road (106622).

Right past Brynthomas (107620); in 250m, right (‘Hundred House’). In ½ mile, just past barn at Rhewl (113612), right through gate; past farmyard on right; on along green lane. In 200m fork left on green lane, continuing with overhanging trees on right. Through metal gate and on. 600m from Rhewl, pass through ruins of Trawsty (108609). Cross stream, and head a little left, keeping above and to left of house, to cross wooden fence/hedge, then field to gate into road (104608) at Upper Cwmbrith.

Left up road past Trawsty-bach (104607); on up bridleway (blue arrows/BA). In ¼ mile near Careg-grog, fork left through gate (104603, BA) along track. In another quarter of a mile, track bends left; but keep ahead on bridleway through gate (106599), descending slope with gully on right. In 500m you reach foot of slope, with scrub trees on right and patch of tussocky bog ahead. If bog is wet, bear left to join farm track and follow it to road, turning right for 400m to reach entrance to Bwlch-llwyn’s drive (113597) where bridleway meets road. If bog is dry, descend to cross deep, narrow ditch, then bog patch, aiming for conifer clump. Cross fence on far side of bog, then field, to reach road by conifer clump at entrance to Bwlch-llwyn’s drive (113597). Right along road; in 300m, on sharp left bend, keep ahead (111596, ‘Byway’). Follow byway west for 2 miles. Pass Pen-rhiw Frank (084600); descend slope; on left bend just before road, right through gate (082603, YA). Follow green lane with hedge on left, then in woods, north for ⅔ mile to Shaky Bridge.

Conditions: Field paths muddy; can be very wet. Wear hill-walking gear.

Lunch: Picnic

Accommodation: Metropole Hotel, Llandrindod Wells LD1 5DY (01597-823700, metropole.co.uk). Comfortable, long-established spa hotel.

Info: Llandrindod Wells TIC (01597-822600)

visitwales.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Winchcombe and Belas Knap, Gloucestershire

Walks No Responses »

Jan 232016

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

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A church bell was ringing nine in the morning as we set out from Winchcombe, one of Gloucestershire’s nicest towns to linger in with its chic little shops and golden houses of oolitic Cotswold limestone. It’s a good place to walk out of, too, dropping down between the pretty estate cottages of Vineyard Street with a green ridge of hills in prospect to the south.

We passed the tall gatehouse of Sudeley Castle and struck out across squelchy fields of medieval ridge-and-furrow, the mud under our boots as pale and thick as batter. The view eastward opened over the deep valley where Sudeley Castle lay set with towers like a cathedral among well-kept pastures and woods of pale wintry mauve and brown.

The sun was a greasy button of silver in a thick grey cloak of cloud as we passed Wadfield Farm, whose hedge of holly and beech whistled in the wind. A track flecked with dull gold stone led up past Humblebee Cottage, and from the road above we followed the well-trodden path up to Belas Knap at the crown of the hill.

Belas Knap is truly impressive, a magnificent long barrow nearly 200 feet in length, lying north-south along its ridge. Its northern portal, deliberately blocked with an enormous chockstone, lies between walls that curve outwards like the flippers of a giant turtle. What those who built the great tomb some 5,000 years ago intended when they constructed the dummy entrance is unclear – perhaps to deter robbers, or maybe as a spirit door to allow the dead free passage.

We walked a circuit of Belas Knap. Then it was back down to Humblebee Cottage and a slippery grass track to Newmeadow Farm where they were shifting loads of dung and straw from the cattle shed to the steaming muck heap in the yard.

A muddy path led on north past the intriguingly named wood of No Man’s Patch towards the broad green parkland around Sudeley Castle. King Henry VIII’s sixth and final wife, Katherine Parr, remarried and lived here after his death. Sometimes she’s seen at one of the castle windows, a wan figure in a green dress, gazing out and watching the world go by.

Start: Back Lane car park, Winchcombe, GL20 5RX (OS ref SP 024284)

Getting there: Bus 606 or W1 from Cheltenham
Road – M5 Jct 11, A40 to Cheltenham, B4632 via Prestbury and Cleeve Hill to Winchcombe.

Walk (6 miles, easy, OS Explorer OL45): Follow ‘Town Centre’ to High Street. Right; in 150m, left down Vineyard Street (‘Sudeley Castle’). Follow road past castle gates and on; in 300m, right (025278, ‘Winchcombe Way’/WcW) off road. Follow WcW across fields (kissing gates/KG, footbridge, yellow arrows/YA) for 1¼ miles, up past Wadfield Farm (026264) and Humblebee Cottages (023259) to road. Right for 600m; at car park left (020262, ‘Belas Knap’) on well-trodden path for ½ mile to Belas Knap long barrow (021255).

Return to Humblebee Cottages. Just below cottages, right (waymark post with YA on left) past cottages. In 300m, through gate and turn left (025257, ‘Gustav Holst Way’/GHW) along fence, down to Newmeadow Farm (029261). Right along track (YA, GHW); in 700m, left at fingerpost (035259, ‘Windrush Way’/WdW). Follow WdW north through succession of gates/stiles, some unwaymarked. In 600m, at north end of No Man’s Patch wood (032265), half right across two fields (directional posts). At WW fingerpost just short of a road, right (031271) across brook; at far side, left (KG), then half right up grass slope past post. Aim left of Sudeley Castle. Opposite castle, through double gates (030276); bear half left (not ahead, as KG and YA suggest!) past playground to drive (028278). Left to gatehouse, return to Winchcombe.

Conditions: Can be very wet and muddy in fields

Lunch: Plaisterer’s Arms, Abbey Terrace, Winchcombe (01242-602358, plaisterersarms.co.uk) – friendly pub

Sudeley Castle: 01242-604357, sudeleycastle.co.uk. Open early March – end Oct

Info: Cheltenham TIC (01242-522878)
visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Churchtown, Offa’s Dyke & Kerry Ridgeway, Shropshire

Walks No Responses »

Jan 162016

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

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On a bright winter afternoon we studied the big OS map in the hall of the Castle Hotel at Bishop’s Castle. We were looking for a short, sharp walk, something to shake down some excellent bangers and mash. Churchtown, a few miles west, looked just the job – the rollercoaster ups and downs of Offa’s Dyke for exercise, and the ancient Kerry Ridgeway for the views.

There’s no town at Churchtown – just a church and a house or two sunk in a deep valley. We headed north up the knee-cracking rampart of Offa’s Dyke, a good stiff puff uphill. When Offa, 8th-century King of Mercia, ordered the great boundary built between his country and the badlands of the wild Welsh, he meant it to last, and it has – a solid raised bank and attendant ditches, running north and south like a green scar across the face of the Welsh Border.

We plunged into the Edenhope Valley, crossed the stream and plodded up another steep stretch of dyke to where the Kerry Ridgeway ran along the crest of the hills. Sunlight and hail showers chased each other, the wind roared in the holly hedges, and the view northwards swung from the distant whaleback peaks of the Berwyns and the green knuckles of the Breidden Hills round to the craggy Stiperstone outcrops of the Long Mynd and the radar globes on Titterstone Clee. A fifty-mile view under sun, storm and a rainbow.

This is tumbled country, overlooked from on high by the Kerry Ridgeway. We followed the former drover’s road to the few houses of Pantglas, then headed south across sheep pastures and steeply down to where the neat slate-roofed farm of Lower Dolfawr lay tucked out of sight in its roadless valley.

Across the little rushing stream, up around the silent farmhouse and sheds, and up again along a holloway all but choked with gorse and broom, to the broad pastures on Edenhope Hill. A last battering from the wind, a scud along a rutted trackway, and we were descending into Churchtown down King Offa’s mighty landmark and memorial.
Start: St John’s Church, Churchtown, near Bishop’s Castle, Salop SY9 5LZ (OS ref SO 264873)

Getting there: From A488 Clun road, 3½ miles south of Bishop’s Castle, turn right, following ‘Bryn’, ‘Cefn Einion’, ‘Mainstone’ and then ‘Church Town’.

Walk (4½ miles, strenuous, OS Explorer 216): From car park, cross road; follow Offa’s Dyke Path north for 1½ miles to Kerry Ridgeway/KR (258896).

Left along KR. At Pantglas, fork left (247896, KR); in 150m, just past Upper Pantglas cottage, left (fingerpost) through gate. 100m up track, right over stile (yellow arrow/YA); left along fence; left over stile at far end (248892, YA); right along fence past pond. Through gate at field end (not right over stile); down slope through next gate (249889). Left (YA) downhill; in 300m, hairpin right to bottom of track (251887), to cross river.

30m after crossing river, before farm buildings at Lower Dolfawr, right up bank. Through gate (YA); skirt to left around farm and along conifer hedge. Right up bank, through gate (251885, YA). Up hollow path to gate (YA). On up hollow path among broom and gorse bushes through felled plantation. At top, through gate (255884); keep same line across field to road near pump house on Edenhope Hill (258881). Left; in 50m, at left bend, keep ahead on green trackway for 600m to meet Offa’s Dyke (263878). Right to Churchtown.

Conditions: Steep ascents/descents on Offa’s Dyke; path through felled plantation above Lower Dolfawr rather overgrown.

Lunch: Picnic

Accommodation: Castle Hotel, Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire SY9 5BN (01588-638403, thecastlehotelbishopscastle.co.uk) – friendly, characterful, very help.

Info: Church Stretton TIC (01694-723133)
visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Blakeney to Salthouse, North Norfolk

Walks No Responses »

Jan 092016

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

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The black-backed gull was having a real struggle with its breakfast down on the muddy banks of Blakeney Quay. We stopped to watch it battle a flapping flatfish that kept writhing out of its beak like a monstrous silver tongue. Eventually gull had fish subdued, and we turned our steps seaward along the mile-long creek that nowadays connects Blakeney with the North Sea.

Looking back from the shingly shore at the distant red roofs and flint-and-brick walls of Blakeney, it seemed incredible that the town was once abutted by the sea. The enormous apron of salt and freshwater marshes that has grown through silt deposition along the North Norfolk coast has cut Blakeney off from the sea, but it has also made the former port a wonderful place for birdwatchers and walkers.

Redshank piped nervously among the marsh pools. A flock of dark-bellied brent geese, newly arrived for the winter from northern Russia, scoured the grassy marshes for food. Wigeon in twos and threes went hurrying across the sky with fast wingbeats. Canada and greylag geese sailed in company on a fleet of water. The more we looked, it seemed, the more there was to see.

We turned the corner by the sea, and made for the white cap and sails of the great coastal windmill at Cley-next-the-Sea. Like neighbouring Blakeney, Cley is now separated from the sea by a long mile of marshes. It, too, is entirely charming, a Londoner’s weekend dream with its flint walls, red roofs and narrow, curving street round whose blind corners bus drivers and pedestrians dice with one another. You can get home-made lavender bread and spinach-and-ricotta filo parcels in Cley’s picnic shop – not exactly traditional Norfolk fare, but a good indicator of the change that has come to these delectably pretty villages of the marshes.

We passed under the sails of the windmill and went seaward along the floodwall towards journey’s end at Salthouse. Samphire grew scarlet, green and yellow along the marsh edge. A black brant goose, a rarity in from America, bobbed its white shirt-tail. Pinkfooted geese in long skeins passed across the cloudy sky, and a grey seal swam off the shingle beach with a powerful breaststroke while he checked us over.

Beach pebbles laid a carpet of many colours along the strand: black, white, amber, grey, ochre and jade. Goldfinches jockeyed among yellow-horned poppies whose long seedpods quivered in the wind off the sea. Hundreds of golden plover stood huddled by a pool, close-packed like one wind-ruffled organism. All nature seemed intent on its own business in the marshes, indifferent as to whether we were walking there or not.

Start: Blakeney Quay car park, NR25 7ND (OS ref TG 028441)

Getting there: Coasthopper Bus (Hunstanton-Cromer) – coasthopper.co.uk.
Road – A149 from Hunstanton.

Walk (6½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 251. Online map, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): From car park, climb steps and walk seaward along flood bank (‘Norfolk Coast Path’/NCP), following path for 2¾ miles to Cley-next-the-Sea. Follow road through village (take care! Narrow, sharp, blind corners!). In 500m, left (045439, signed) to Cley Windmill. Follow NCP seaward along floodwall to Cley Beach for 1 mile, then right (east) along shingle bank for nearly 2 miles. Opposite Salthouse Church, inland (078444, yellow arrow) to A149 (076437). Left to bus stop/right to Dun Cow PH. Return to Blakeney by Coasthopper Bus.

Lunch: Dun Cow PH, Salthouse (01263-740467, salthouseduncow.com)

Accommodation: Blakeney Hotel, Blakeney Quay, NR25 7NE (01263-740797, blakeney-hotel.co.uk) – really comfortable, classy and obliging.

Info: Wells-next-the-Sea TIC (01328-710885)
visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Melrose to St Boswells, Scottish Borders

Walks No Responses »

Jan 022016

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

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The cowled face of the nun stared down from the dusky red wall of Melrose Abbey. There was an upward curl at the corners of her sandstone lips, a smile of quiet amusement put there by a long-forgotten stone carver six hundred years ago. I was smiling myself, having just heard the tale of what archaeologists found inscribed on the container that held Robert the Bruce’s heart, when they unearthed it at the abbey in 1996. No inspiring last words or ringing exhortation from the iconic Scottish king, but a splendidly prosaic note: ‘Found beneath Chapter House floor, March 1921, by His Majesty’s Office of Works.’

St Cuthbert’s Way rises southward out of Melrose, a broad green path climbing to a saddle between the dramatic camel humps of the Eildon Hills. A short, steep upward haul – perfect for sorting out a post-Hogmanay heid* – and I was standing at the peak of Eildon Mid Hill, looking across to the multiple ramparts on Eildon Hill North where the Romans once built a signal tower.
*Please keep ‘heid’!

These abrupt, conical hills are thick with legend. The best and most extraordinary is an early medieval ballad concerning Thomas the Rhymer, a poetical youth who meets a beauteous lady on the Eildons. She is the Queen of Elfland, and Thomas is whirled away for an adventure full of blood, sex and magic.

On the summit of Mid Hill I stood as long as I could in the cold wind, gazing from the distant Cheviots in the east to the low blue ridges of Ettrick Forest along the western skyline. Then I skeltered downhill, out of the wind and on down St Cuthbert’s Way to Bowden and a sheltered green lane that led east to Newtown St Boswells. The River Tweed wraps a couple of snaky coils around the edge of town, and I followed a bushy path along the south bank. The water rushed noisily over shallows and shillets, sucking at the opposite shore.

Behind a screen of trees, Dryburgh Abbey and its glories of architecture lay hidden. That was for tomorrow – today I was content to walk beside the softly roaring Tweed, looking back to the high humps of the Eildon Hills and thinking of Thomas the Rhymer and his elfin lover.
Start: Market Square, Melrose TD6 9PL (OS ref NT 548340)

Getting there: Rail: Borders Railway (scotrail.co.uk) to Tweedbank; taxi (07929-232923 – £5), or Border Abbeys Way (2½ mile walk) to Melrose.
Bus: 95 Edinburgh-Galashiels, 68 Galashiels-Melrose
Road: Melrose is signed from A68 (Jedburgh-Lauder)

Walk (7½ miles, moderate, OS Explorer 338. Online maps, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): From Market Square, south uphill, under A6091. In 100m, left (547339; ‘St Cuthbert’s Way’/SCW); bear left on edge of woodland. Up steps; up gravel path (SCW); uphill for ¾ of a mile to saddle between North and Mid Hills (551325). Climb either/both; back to saddle; south (SCW) for 1½ miles to B6398 in Bowden (554305). Dogleg right/left across road, down lane (‘Bowden Kirk’); in 250m, left (555303). Follow SCW for 1⅔ of a mile into Newtown St Boswells. Cross B6398 (578315); ahead, following SCW/Border Abbeys Way under A68 (581317). Follow SCW, ascending and descending steps, for ½ a mile to reach suspension bridge over River Tweed (589320). Don’t cross bridge; continue along south bank for ¾ of a mile to B6404 (594311). Right for Bus 67 or 68 to Melrose.

Lunch/Accommodation: Buccleuch Arms, The Green, St Boswells TD6 0EW (01835-822243, buccleucharms.com)

Melrose Abbey: 01896-822562; historic-scotland.gov.uk

Ballad of Thomas the Rhymer: sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/child/ch037.htm

Info: Peebles TIC (01896-822283)
visitscotland.com satmap.com

Hindon and Great Ridge Wood, Wiltshire

Walks No Responses »

Dec 192015

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

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The great rural writer W H Hudson stayed at the Lamb Inn at Hindon in 1909 while he was writing his classic book, A Shepherd’s Life. He watched fledgling throstles, flycatchers and pied wagtails make their maiden flights from their nests in the ivy above his bedroom window, and rejoiced that the village had become ‘sober and purified’ since the bad old days.

The gamekeepers, beaters and shooters who packed the bar of the Lamb the night before our walk were celebrating a good day in the open air with plenty of beer and plenty of talk, their wind-reddened faces growing ever more rosy in front of the log fire. This part of South Wiltshire is pheasant-shooting country, and almost the first thing we heard as we stepped out next morning was the flat ‘pop-pop!’ of shotguns from distant ridges.

The broad track of the Wessex Ridgeway led us through fields where yellow-faced siskins flitted in the hawthorn bushes. Once across the roar and swish of the A303, we followed a quiet green valley up into the skirts of Great Ridge Wood. Hudson came here day after day, revelling in the silence and solitude of the ancient wood. He met no-one – locals had been banned from their traditional right of gathering firesticks in the wood since the introduction of pheasants reared for the shoots.

All was quiet in Great Ridge Wood for us, too, a century later, tracing the route of the Roman road that once brought lead from Somerset’s Mendip Hills to Old Sarum. A cold wind rose, tossing the fir tops and the flame-like leaves of the young larches. At the edge of the wood we saw a line of shooters and dogs in the valley beyond, patiently waiting for the beaters to initiate their morning’s sport.

Another ancient trackway brought us south again off the ridge, walking beside milky green fields of winter wheat. Dusky pink spindle berries hung in thick clusters in the hedges, and the track rose and fell in a beautiful tumble of downland valleys, silent and still under a pearly winter sky.
Start: Lamb Inn, Hindon, Wilts SP3 6DP (OS ref ST 910329).

Getting there: Bus 25, 26 (Salisbury-Gillingham)
Road: Hindon is signed off A303 between Wylye and Mere.

Walk (7¾ miles, easy, OS Explorer 143): From Lamb Inn, right past church. In 150m, just past Fairmead bungalow, right (909330; ‘Bridleway’ fingerpost/BFP in left hedge) along fenced path of Wessex Ridgeway. At road, left (912333); at left bend, ahead (913337, BFP) between hedges, then across fields to A303 (920346). Right alongside road for 300m; left across it (922346); through gate (BFP) and up valley. Keeping fence, then track at bottom on your left, follow grass path for ¾ mile to join track (926358); follow it up to T-junction in woods (928361). Left; in 50m pass grass track on left; in another 150m, left (928362) on grassy ride between tall and short conifers. In 650m, at T-junction, right (921362); in 200m, left along wide forest road.

In 1 mile, at edge of wood, left on track (906362); in 200m, right (BFP) inside trees. In ½ mile, at end of trees at T-junction, left (898364) along track. In ¾ mile, at bottom of valley (898354), keep ahead on right-hand of 2 parallel tracks, rising to pass inside Bockerly Coppice. At top of rise, at gate into open field, 2 tracks fork left into wood (899351). Take right-hand one (BFP) inside top edge of wood. On down to cross A303 (901343, take care!). Uphill in tunnel of trees. At reservoir at top (903339), ahead on track to road (904336); left to Hindon.

Conditions: Take great care at 2 crossings of A303!

Lunch/Accommodation: Lamb Inn, Hindon (01747-820573, lambhindon.com) – lively local inn, scented by log fire.

Ramblers Festival of Winter Walks, 19 Dec – 3 Jan: ramblers.org.uk/winterwalks

Info: Salisbury TIC (01722-342860)
visitengland.com satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Abberley Circular Walk, Worcestershire

Walks No Responses »

Dec 122015

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

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On a short winter’s afternoon in Worcestershire I set off from the Manor Arms at Abberley to go wherever the waymarked Abberley Circular Walk might lead me.

The old village of Abberley is a thoroughly charming place of red brick cottages and timber-framed farmhouses, cradled among steep wooded hills. I climbed away up the flank of Abberley Hill, where sheep as tame as dogs came trotting up to have their ears scratched and their bouncy fleeces patted.

Up at the crest, the Abberley Circular Walk joined hands with the Worcestershire Way and ran away east along the narrow spine of Abberley Hill among bare woods of sycamore and sweet chestnut. A view opened south through leafless trees across green farmland to the miniature mountains of the Malvern Hills, ancient jagged peaks, pale mauve under a streaky gold sky.

Down by the side of Shavers End quarry the path grew slippery over fallen leaves. There was a glimpse between the trees of a giant abandoned delving with flooded pits and great sections sliced out of the hillside. Aymestry limestone for road-building was extracted here in thousands of tons from strata over 400 million years old, contorted and sandwiched and turned upside down by gargantuan upheavals in the earth’s crust, nowadays so solid and immobile-seeming.

Down at the northern end of the hill the Abberley Circular Walk couldn’t quite make up its mind what to do. I followed the narrow road, and soon saw the path dipping away decisively along the edge of red ploughlands and sheep pasture towards the pond at Netherton House. Here the Abberley Circular Walk dropped hands with the Worcestershire Way and set off through the steep fields for home.

I passed a hop field – a rare sight only a few years ago, but now on the increase thanks to the success of the microbrewery industry. Long straight lines of pergolas carried a tangle of brown tendrils, the few unharvested hop flowers yielding an oily fragrance when pinched between finger and thumb.

Back in Abberley, the chancel of St Michael’s is all that remains of the village’s 13th-century church. Here I found a Green Man with leafy side-whiskers, and a curious epitaph to a shy 17th-century lady, ‘a Person of Extraordinary Faith, high Generosity and great Charity, mixed with extreme secrecy & modesty, as if her left hand knew not what her right hand did.’
Start: The Village, Abberley, Worcs WR5 6BN (OS ref SO 753679)

Getting there: Bus 758, Worcester to Abberley Stores (½ mile)
Road: M5 Jct 5, A38 Droitwich bypass; A4133 to Holt Heath; A433 through Great Witley. In another mile, right on B4202; in ½ mile, right to Abberley Village.

Walk (5 miles, moderate, OS Explorer 204. Online maps, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): From Manor Arms, cross road (‘Shavers End’); right up lane (‘Wynniatts Way’, ‘Abberley Circular Walk’/ACW). In 100m, left (ACW) through gate; follow ACW up field, steeply up through woods to road (751674). Right (ACW); in 150m, left along Worcestershire Way/WW. Follow WW for 2 miles to road beyond quarry (771682); left along road. WW deviates from map route here – follow it along road for 350m, then right (WW, ACW) down hedge and continue to Netherton House (764688). WW turns right here, but go left and follow ACW waymarks back to Abberley.

Conditions: Some steep, slippery sections of Worcestershire Way in woods

Abberley Circular Walk:
worcestershire.gov.uk/downloads/file/5208/abberley_circular_walk_leaflet

Lunch/Accommodation: Manor Arms Inn, The Village, Abberley (01299-890300, themanorarms.co.uk) – friendly, warm and stylish

Info: Droitwich TIC (01905-774312)
visitengland.com satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Kintbury and Hamstead Park, Berkshire

Walks 2 Responses »

Dec 052015

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

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A blustery afternoon with a driving sky and reports of trees down across Berkshire. It was a day just like this, according to an anonymous poet of the school of William McGonagall, when the old church tower at Kintbury blew down;

‘Fate had decreed, come down he must,
And Boreas then gave him an extra gust,
And down he went with a crashing fall,
Clocks, birds, bats, the green ivy and all.’

The church bell, often cursed by the villagers for its loudness, rolled into the River Kennet, and tolls there still – according to legend. But all we heard as we set out was the ting-ting of the level crossing bell, and the rattle of the London-bound train.

It’s a very long time since the Kennet & Avon Canal provided ‘logistics solutions’ to the broad green countryside of the Kennet Valley. We walked its muddy towpath by still waters through a tangle of willows, reeds and marshy ground. A fisherman had hooked a rainbow trout, but it got away with a mighty splashing as he drew it to the bank. ‘That’s the trickiest bit,’ he sighed ruefully, ‘when they catch sight of the net!’

At Hamstead Lock we cross the humpy canal bridge and entered the green spaces of Hamstead Park. Fine specimen oaks and chestnuts, some very old and storm-blasted, raised skeletal limbs to the racing clouds. A pair of red kites hung on their elbow crooks and bounced in the wind over our heads, craning their heads to assess us from on high.

We came up from the pools and lakes along the Kennet and followed a path beside an ash coppice where ripe sloes hung from blackthorn twigs. They looked so tempting and felt so plump I just had to pop one in my mouth. Ugh! Bitter aloes and blotting paper, as ever.

A tedious stretch of road through Hamstead Marshall led to rutted fields around Barr’s Farm where Friesian heifers came cantering up to check us out. The silvery light of a stormy winter’s evening streaked the west as we turned away from the long line of the Berkshire Downs and dropped back down to Shepherd’s Bridge and the homeward path along the old canal.

Start: Kintbury Station, Berkshire, RG17 9UT (OS ref SU 386672)

Getting there: Rail to Kintbury
Road: Kintbury is signed off A4 between Hungerford and Newbury. Use Dundas Arms car park opposite station (ticket from pub).

Walk (7½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 158. Detailed directions recommended – download them with online map, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): Left (east) along north bank of canal for 2½ miles to Hamstead Lock (423670). Cross canal; on right bend of road, left (kissing gate) into Hamstead Park.

Ahead (yellow arrow/YA), following tarmac drive. Pass lake (428667) and curve right; in another 500m, at right bend into The Mews (428661), keep ahead off drive, through kissing gate (YA). Ahead up hedge; in 100m, ahead across grassland to drive (428659). Left; at left bend by memorial, right through gate (431657, YA). Aim a little right to find gate into trees (429656, YA). Follow path and YAs for ¾ mile to road (421651). Right along road through Hamstead Marshall (take care!).

In ¾ mile, right (412657, ‘Marsh Benham’). In 250m on right bend, left (411659, stile, YA), aiming half left across field to farm track (407659). Right/north up track for 700m to lane (406665). Left to pass Peartree Cottage; in another 100m at junction, right (403665, stile, YA). Aim for middle tree of three; same direction to far left corner of field by conifer plantation (401668). Join grassy track; keep ahead along it. In 150m on left bend, right over stile (400670); descend field to cross Shepherd’s Bridge (398672). Left to Kintbury Station.

Conditions: Take care on road through Hamstead Marshall!

Lunch/Accommodation: Dundas Arms, Kintbury RG17 9UT (01488-658263, dundasarms.co.uk) – warm, stylish stopover

Info: Newbury TIC (01635-30267)
visitengland.com satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Dunwich and Dingle Marshes, Suffolk

Walks No Responses »

Nov 282015

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

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A tangle of trees has almost smothered Dunwich’s famous ‘last grave’. But still the solitary curly-topped headstone of Jacob Forster clings to the cliff edge above the hamlet on the Suffolk coast, the last relic of the church of All Saints that toppled to the beach in 1922. Just inland, the grand flint walls and gateways of Greyfriars priory enclose an empty square of grass.

These remains are all that speak to us today of medieval Dunwich, the great trading port whose churches, hospitals, squares and houses were utterly consumed by the sea. A model of Dunwich in the village’s excellent small museum shows the extent of what was lost, and it made a sobering image to take with us as we set out across the green hinterland of Dingle Marshes.

A brisk wind pushed us along the flinty tracks through copses of old oak and pine trees. The grazing meadows, dotted with black cattle, stretched away east towards a dun brown line of brackish marshes below the long straight bar of the shingle-banked sea wall. There’s a feeling of country walked by many, but known by very few.

Beyond Dingle Stone House stretched the great reedbeds of Westwood Marshes, burnt orange and green, whispering in a million scratchy sibilants. A flock of a hundred pinkfooted geese lined the edge of a fleet of still water. Tiny bearded tits bounced and flitted through the reed heads, trailing their long tails low behind them and emitting pinging noises like overstretched wire fences. Over all floated the kingly black silhouette of a marsh harrier, circling with deliberate flaps of its wings as it scanned the reeds for mice and frogs.

We crossed the Dunwich River and came up on to the shingle bank. An instant switch of view and perspective, out over a slate grey sea and round the curve of the bay to Dunwich under its sloping cliff and the distant white sphere of Sizewell nuclear power station. Sea inundations are increasingly common hereabouts, overtopping the shingle bank and flooding the freshwater marshes behind – part of the ongoing dynamism of this coast and its all-devouring neighbour the sea.

Among the shore pebbles a flat black stone caught my eye. It was a worked flint tool, dark and ribbed, snugly fitting in my palm, its edges scalloped by some ancient maker. Dunwich Museum has it now – one more stage on its journey from hand to hand through the millennia.

Start: Dunwich car park, Suffolk, IP17 3EN (OS ref TM 478706)

Getting there: Dunwich is signed from A12 between Yoxford and Blythburgh

Walk (6¾ miles, easy, OS Explorer 231. Online map, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): At car park entrance, left up footpath (fingerpost, ‘Suffolk Coast Path’/SCP arrow). Just past ‘last grave’ on left (479704), turn right through Greyfriars wall, across monastery site, through archway. Right along road; in 100m, left down footpath (fingerpost) to road with Dunwich Museum on right (477706). Left; fork right at church (‘Blythburgh’). In 150m, right past Bridge Farm (474707) along SCP. In 1½ miles, leaving Sandymount Covert (483728), fork right along marsh path. In ¾ mile, just past windpump ruin (487737), right down steps, over footbridge, along boardwalk. In ⅔ mile, right across footbridge (495742, SCP) to shingle bank; right to Dunwich.

Condition: Final 2½ miles is on shingle.

Lunch/Accommodation: Ship Inn, Dunwich, IP17 3DT (01728-648219, shipatdunwich.co.uk) – cosy, friendly village inn.

Dunwich Museum: Open March-October, varying times; also for parties by arrangement. 01778-648796, dunwichmuseum.org.uk).

Info: Southwold TIC (01502-724729); thesuffolkcoast.co.uk, touchingthetide.org.uk
visitengland.com satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Romaldkirk and Scarney Hill, Durham Dales

Walks No Responses »

Nov 212015

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

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The trouble was – not how to find the Rose & Crown in Romaldkirk, but how to persuade myself to leave its warm and cheerful bar and go out into the teeth of a bitterly cold day. It’s so cosy in here, can’t I just …? No? Oh, all right, all right, I’m coming …

Once outside, wrapped like an Inuit on a particularly harsh day, I woke up and began to savour my surroundings. The trackbed of the old Teesdale Railway makes a fine marching route, and we got into a good rhythm stamping along its cuttings and up and down the gullies where the bridges used to be. The distant hills of Upper Teesdale were dissolving behind grey slides of rain, but that didn’t bother us in our weatherproof cocoons.

Beside the former Banklands Quarry we took to the narrow hill road that climbs steeply to the heights of Romaldkirk Moor. The dark conifer spinney at the crown of Scarney Hill seethed with wind as we went past. A wonderful view opened southwards towards the long undulating ridges of Stainmore Forest, and nearer at hand the landscape ranged away in big sedgy fields where tattered sheep grazed with their backs to the weather and fleeces streaming before the wind.

We speculated about a building isolated on the moor, as tall as a house, with ruinous stone steps going up to a front door ten feet above ground level. A sturdy old barn, or a fortified house from lawless times among these hills? The wind snapped off that chain of thought, driving us off the hill and down to the fields around Gill Field farm.

Gill Field and its neighbour, West End, were shuttered tight and silent. No dogs barked, nobody stirred as we slipped through the squeeze stiles and wicket gates, bowling along with the weather at our backs to find the level track of the Teesdale Railway waiting to carry us back to Romaldkirk. And when we got back there, and lifted the polished brass sneck of the door, and inhaled the scents of dogs and log fires and other weather-battered walkers in safe haven … well, contentment found us ready and waiting.
Start: Rose & Crown, Romaldkirk, Durham DL12 9EB (OS ref NY 995221)

Getting there: Bus service 95, 96 (Barnard Castle – Middleton-in-Teesdale).
Road: Romaldkirk is on B6277 between Barnard Castle and Middleton-in-Teesdale.

Walk (6¼ miles, easy, OS Explorer OL31. NB: online maps, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): Cross B6277; up road opposite (‘Tees Rail Path’/TRP signs on lamp posts). Beside old railway signal, right (992220, TRP) and follow TRP. In 1½ miles, left along road at Banklands Barn (972232). Follow road for 1½ miles past radio mast (974220) and Romaldkirk turning (975218). At T-junction cross Hunderthwaite road (980210); follow farm drive to Gill Field. At farm (981203), through gate into yard; through squeeze stile at left corner of house; across garden and through wicket gate; half left to cross stile. Across large field to bottom left corner (986201). Left through gate; follow wall to West End farm (988200). Pass to left of buildings; right through 2 successive gates; half left to farm drive; left through gate; on along drive. In 650m, beside stone gatepost in a dip, right through gate (994203, yellow arrow). Cross field to kissing gate; left along TRP; in 1 mile (993216) follow signs into Romaldkirk.

Lunch/accommodation: Rose & Crown, Romaldkirk (01833-650213, rose-and-crown.co.uk) – perfect cosy base for winter walking.

Information: Middleton-in-Teesdale TIC (01833-641001 – winter opening, 10am-1pm); thisisdurham.com visitengland.com satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

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