Christopher Somerville

Aspenden, Herts

Jun 262010

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

Facebook Link:

A cold, cloudy morning had settled over Hertfordshire, but that hadn’t stopped the thrushes fluting their triple phrases in the trees around Aspenden. What a pretty place, all plastered cottages and deep thatched roofs. The bells of St Mary’s Church rang us out of the village, past park-like paddocks and on west between hedges thick with crab apple blossom and dog roses. We stooped to sift flints out of the dark earth of the fields, looking for the bevelled edges that might betray a scraper or arrow-head worked thousands of years ago.

Beyond Tannis Court lay a thicket full of early purple orchids and rain-spotted silverweed fronds. ‘Moat’ said the map, and there it was, a shadowy dip behind the trees, full of mossy boughs and a glint of water. Site of the old manor house? Bruno the black labrador, who came up to inspect us, couldn’t have cared less. Curiosity satisfied, he turned his attention to a rank piece of fox-stinking hedge, while his owner gave us a cheery hello.

We turned down a lane past impossibly pretty Rumbolds under its thatch, and came to Back Lane. The rutted green lane was far too long and unwavering to be anything other than a Roman road – Stane Street, in fact. The cross-country road from St Albans to Colchester had been made two thousand years ago by men who left thick red tile fragments and oyster shells to be kicked out of the earth by today’s walkers.

The Sunday rambling club of the Letchworth Arts and Leisure Group came shouting and laughing along Back Lane. Where were they heading? ‘Haven’t a clue,’ they chortled, ‘we’ve left our leader behind back there, and he hasn’t caught up yet!’

Forget-me-nots, the blue trumpets of self-heal, white stars of stitchwort, drifts of bluebells. This was a really delightful old highway, hedged and ditched, passing in secret through the countryside. We left it near Cherry Green, and followed the muddy path to Button Snap.

In the early 19^th century the curiously named little cottage, remote then as now, belonged to poet and essayist Charles Lamb. Poor dutiful Lamb with his crippling stutter and his failed love affairs, claustrophobically entwined with his bipolar sister Mary who had stabbed their mother to death in a fit of mania. Walking on along the lane to Aspenden it was good to think of the twitchy poet striding the garden at Button Snap, liberated from mental strife for a few hours at least among the wide green fields of Hertfordshire.

Start & finish: Fox Inn, Aspenden, Herts SG9 9PD (OS ref TL 361282)

Getting there: Centrebus (www.intalink.org.uk) Service 700 (Stevenage-Stansted) to Buntingford (1 mile). Road: A10 to Buntingford, minor road to Aspenden

Walk (7 miles, easy grade, OS Explorer 194): Leaving Fox Inn, left along road. Ahead at bend near church (‘Bridleway 003’). In 400 yards follow 001/Buttermilk Farm, then 007/Tannis Court. At ‘Private Property’ notice in 2/3 mile, right (yellow arrows/YA) past Tannis Court, over Old Bourne stream (333283) and through thicket with moat. Emerging (319285), cross field to road. Left past Rumbolds to Cottered Warren. Right opposite The Lodge, then left (014/Moor Green) between ex-barn houses, through gate (YA) and on (YA) to Back Lane Roman road (320277). Left (red arrow) for 1 3/4 miles. Cross valley bottom; through gate; in 300 yards, left (blue arrows) to Button Snap (348265). Left, passing Wakeley Farm entrance, on track for 1½ miles to Aspenden.

NB – Detailed directions, online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Fox Inn, Aspenden (01763-271886; www.theferryhouseinn.co.uk) – really good, friendly place

More info: Sittingbourne TIC (01438-737333); www.enjoyhertfordshire.com

www.ramblers.org.uk

Fingle Bridge and Castle Drogo, Devon

Walks No Responses »

Jun 192010

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

Facebook Link:

I hadn't made a mistake after thirty years – the ridgetop village of Drewsteignton, perched on the northern edge of Dartmoor, was still totally charming. There were the pretty cottages and the Drewe Arms as I recalled them, bowed low under thatch on the diminutive village square, all presided over by the tall tower of Holy Trinity church. When I was last here the pub had been run as a front-room business by Mabel Mudge, 83 years old and spry as a lamb. ‘Oh, you remember Mabel!’ smiled the man I got chatting to on the path over to the River Teign. ‘Yes, she retired when she got to 99. Seventy-five years she ran that place, and it never changed a bit.’

There was a wonderful view from the neighbouring ridge back to Drewsteignton huddled on its hilltop, and a sight of moor ponies grazing the gorse with streaming manes and tails. The bridlepath ran at the rim of the Teign’s steep wooded gorge, then slanted down through oak and silver birch to where the river ran flashing with sunlight under the three ancient arches of Fingle Bridge. I lingered, watching children skimming stones between the cutwaters, before following the Fisherman’s Path on its rocky, rooty, twisting way, close above the river.

A gang of four tiny tots hooted and squeaked as they fished for bubbles with sticks, and high overhead a buzzard went circling over the walls of Castle Drogo. At the bridge below the castle I struck up a side path, climbing past the L-shaped thatched house of Coombe, snug among fruit trees in its peach of a dell.

If there was ever a fairy-tale castle … Castle Drogo looks down from a spur of rock, 300 feet to the Teign in the wooded gorge below. Edwardian tea tycoon Julius Drew excavated himself a Norman ancestry, decided to build himself a proper old castle, and got Sir Edwin Luyens to make his dream come true in stark granite. No Mad King Ludwig touches here – all is plain, strong and massive, a triumph of restraint. Marked ways lead from the gorge paths to the castle by way of beautiful gardens of roses and spring flowers. No wonder Drogo is called ‘the last great castle in England’.

When I got back to Drewsteignton and into the Drewe Arms, I saw it had changed – more than a bit. But it’s still a cosy place to raise a glass under the beams in celebration of Mabel Mudge and all that’s great about the West Country village pub.

Start & finish: Drewe Arms, Drewsteignton, Devon EX6 6QN (OS ref SX 736908)

Getting there: Bus – Dartline 173 (Exeter-Chagford), Country Bus 279 (Totnes-Okehampton; Sundays, public hols). Road: From A30 east of Okehampton, A382 through Whiddon Down. In ½ a mile, Drewsteignton signed to left.

Walk (6 miles, moderate, OS Explorer OL28): From Drewsteignton Square, left; round right bend; 20 yards past old school, left (‘2 Moors Way’/MW) down lane. Ahead in bottom of valley (‘Castle Drogo/CD’) up steps. Follow fence up fields and over ridge. Through kissing gate; in 15 yards, left (732900); follow ‘Fingle Bridge’ fingerposts for 3/4 of a mile down to road (743901). Right to Fingle Bridge; don’t cross; right along river (‘Fisherman’s Path, CD’) for 1 ½ miles to bridge below Castle Drogo (721895). Right uphill (CD). In 1/3 of a mile, right (720900; ‘Hunter’s Path’); follow MW back to Drewsteignton.

Some steep steps; some rocky ledges in gorge with handrail (watch kids/dogs!)

NB – Online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Drewe Arms, Drewsteignton (01647-281224; www.thedrewearms.co.uk); Fingle Bridge Inn (01647-281287; www.finglebridgeinn.com)

Castle Drogo (NT): 01647-434118; www.nationaltrust.org.uk/castledrogo/)

Mabel Mudge: http://yeosociety.com/biographies/Aunt%20Mabel.htm

More info: Okehampton TIC (01837-53020); www.visitdevon.co.uk; www.ramblers.org.uk

Slieve Gullion, Co. Armagh, Northern Ireland

Walks No Responses »

Jun 122010

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

Facebook Link:
'Ever smelt pine needles properly?' enquired my companion, walker and naturalist Ron Murray, as we strolled the Forest Drive along the southern flank of Slieve Gullion. 'Crush 'em like this between your finger and thumb.' I suited action to words, and sniffed deeply. A spicy blast of orange as pungent as a marmalade factory.

We left the trees and climbed, short and sharp, to the southern peak of Slieve Gullion. This big dark hump of a mountain forms the centrepiece of a remarkable volcanic landscape set in the green farmlands of South Armagh. Powerful subterranean convulsions 60 million years ago caused the ancient Slieve Gullion volcano to collapse, sending a ripple of molten rock outwards like a stone thrown in a pond. The circular ridge solidified, then weathered over ages into the guardian hills of the Ring, a ten-mile-wide circle of craggy mini-mountains encircling Slieve Gullion like courtiers round a king.

Surprisingly few walkers venture into the countryside south-west of Newry to climb the mountain and savour for themselves one of the most spectacular high-level views in Ireland, a hundred-mile circle from the Mountains of Mourne to the tumbled hills of Antrim and the billowy Sperrins, the green-and-brown mat of the Midland plain and the Wicklow Hills beyond Dublin, as tiny and pale as tin cut-outs.

I turned away from the breathtaking prospect at last, to find Ron beckoning from a little low doorway of stone set deep into the side of the cairn. On hands and knees I followed him inside, to find a chamber walled with stones neatly shaped and fitted. A neolithic passage grave under a Bronze Age cairn, say the archaeologists. Not at all, retort the romantics. Here is the house of the Cailleach Beara, the unspeakably wicked witch who turned the mighty hero Fionn MacCumhaill into a feeble old man when he dived into the Lake of Sorrows to retrieve her golden ring.

Ron and I strode the windy summit ridge past the Lake of Sorrows. A massive, half-finished millstone lay half in and half out of the water. ‘A miller pinched it from the Cailleach Beara’s house,’ said Ron, ‘but it brought him such bad luck that he decided to put it back. When his donkey had got it this far, the poor thing fell down dead. That’s where it stayed from then on. No-one quite fancies moving it …’

Start & finish: Slieve Gullion Forest Park car park, Drumintee Road, Killeavy, Newry, Co. Armagh BT35 8SW (OS of NI ref (OS ref J 040196)

Getting there: Bus: Service 43 (Newry-Forkhill) to Forest Park entrance

Road: N1/A1 Dublin-Newry; B113 (‘Forkhill’); in 3½ miles, right (‘Slieve Gullion Forest Park’) to car park.

Walk (8 miles, moderate, OS of NI Discoverer 29; Ring of Gullion Way/RGW blue arrows): Top left corner of car park, left up path through trees. In ¼ mile join Forest Drive (038191), up slope, then level, for ¼ mile to RGW post on left (035190). Right up drive, past metal barrier; left uphill for 1½ miles to car park (018200). Beyond picnic table, right at white post, steeply uphill. South Cairn (025203) – Lake of Sorrows – North Cairn (021211). Aim north for Sturgan Mountain (left of Cam Lough), then white house between you and lake. Fork right at grassy ‘lawn’ with boulder beyond, aiming for house. At road (025230), right for 3 miles, passing Killevy Old Church (040221), to Forest Park entrance (046199). Right to car park.

Lunch: Slieve Gullion Courtyard coffee shop, or picnic by Lake of Sorrows

More info: Slieve Gullion Courtyard (028-3084-8084); www.discovernorthernireland.com

Cadsden, Chequers and Coombe Hill, Buckinghamshire

Walks 3 Responses »

Jun 052010

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

Facebook Link:

It was hard to leave the comfort and good cheer of the Plough at Cadsden, but the sound of rooks cawing among the blossoming treetops fetched us out at last along the Ridgeway into a cool, cloudy Buckinghamshire afternoon. Large edible snails were crawling on the grassy slopes of Grangelands hill, where half a dozen hungry red kites wheeled overhead. What a fantastic success story the re-introduction of red kites to the Chiltern Hills has been! Twenty years ago there were none of the big fork-tailed birds here; today there are so many pairs – 300 at least – that they can’t even be counted accurately.

If you are looking for a wildflower walk, this circuit is a slice of heaven. In the beech and oak woods, where the new leaves gleamed a shiny lime-green, we found yellow archangel, wood sorrel, delicate white anemones and carpets of blue and white bluebells. Out in the cornfields, groundsel, scarlet pimpernel and beautiful yellow and violet heartsease. As for the chalky grassland of the open downs – cowslips and primroses, jack-by-the-hedge and herb Robert, speedwell and forget-me-not, guelder rose and early purple orchids …

Rounding the corner of Whorley Wood we came suddenly on the sublime prospect of the shallow valley where Chequers sits, the handsome red brick Elizabethan manor house making a centrepiece for some very subtle landscaping. It seems extraordinary, and admirably English, to be able to stroll across the driveway of the Prime Minister’s country retreat without so much as a by-your-leave – though the CCTV cameras tell you that any private enterprise in the shape of a detour would likely be discouraged with extreme prejudice.

Up through Goodmerhill Wood we went, following the Ridgeway to the tall Boer War monument at the prow of Coombe Hill. A pause here for a glug of water and a stare over what must be a hundred-mile view, away over fields, woods and hill ranges, as far as Salisbury Plain and the Malvern Hills on a good clear day. Then we quit the Ridgeway for a woodland track along the edges of Low Scrubs, where twisted beech and hornbeam made a dark and mysterious Grimm’s fairytale of the old coppice wood.

Peewits were tumbling over the beanfields around Dirtywood Farm, and a pair of crows swooped on a red kite like fighter boys from Biggin Hill. Bandits at Angels Five! We dropped steeply down through Ninn Wood, brilliant in late afternoon sunshine, until the Plough Inn hove up ahead, a cosy port in a green sea of leaves.

Start & finish: Plough Inn, Lower Cadsden, Princes Risborough HP27 0NB (OS ref SP 826045).

NB Pub car parking only for walkers who are customers; please ring, book a table and ask about parking

Getting there: Train (www.thetrainline.com; www.railcard.co.uk) to Monks Risborough (1½ miles); Bus (www.arrivabus.co.uk) Service 300 Aylesbury-HighWycombe to Askett roundabout (2/3 of a mile); Road: Cadsden signed from Askett roundabout on A4010 (Princes Risborough-Wendover)

Walk (7½ miles, moderate, OS Explorer 181): From Plough, left along road; in 10 yards, right, and follow Ridgeway path (fingerposts, white acorns) for 3¼ miles to pass Coombe Hill monument (849067). In 300 yards, through kissing gate; right off Ridgeway up sunken lane (‘Bridleway’) for 150 yards to wide crossing track. Left for 100 yards; right (853067) along wide track. In 200 yards, left on woodland track (yellow arrows/YAs on trees). Follow path with fence on left for 1 mile past Upper Bacombe to road at Dunsmore (862052). Right past pond; in 50 yards, left over stile; take left-hand path (fingerpost) to cross 4 successive stiles in fences. Keep above Dunsmore Old Farm. At foot of slope, left along track. At end of fence, right (860048; blue arrow/BA) uphill through wood to Little Hampden Common (857040). Right along road past cottages; up track (‘South Bucks Way’); in 150 yards, left (‘Riders Route’, BA)’ in 20 yards, left (YA) on footpath out of trees. Forward (YAs) along 2 field edges and into wood. Follow wood edge; in 200 yards, just past deep hollow on left, fork left (851039; yellow arrow on tree) to edge of wood. Skirt Dirtywood Farm (signs, arrows) to cross road (845037). On up lane (fingerpost) for 300 yards; on left bend, forward through gateway (842037; YA) along field edges, past Cross Coppice and on into Ninn Wood (YAs). Cross trackway (833041), over stile (YA), on to descend to T-junction of paths. Right (YA); descend and bear left (YA); in 100 yards, at meeting of 4 tracks, right (YA) to pub.

NB – Detailed directions, online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch/B&B: Plough Inn (01844-343302; plough-at-cadsden.co.uk) – welcomes walkers

More info: Princes Risborough TIC (01844-274795); www.visitbuckinghamshire.org; www.chilternsaonb.org; www.ramblers.org.uk

NB Lincolnshire Wolds Walking Festival until 6 June: www.woldswalkingfestival.co.uk

Edgehill, Warwickshire/Oxfordshire

Walks 1 Response »

May 292010

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

Facebook Link:

On the afternoon of 23 October 1642 two nervous and inexperienced armies, each of about 15,000 men, faced each other at Edgehill on the Warwickshire/Oxfordshire border. It was the first serious confrontation of the Civil War between Royalists and Parliamentarians. The Royalists occupied the great north-south ridge that dominates the Warwickshire plain where the Parliamentary army was deployed; but they forsook that advantage, descending the slope to fight it out in the fields below. By nightfall both sides were claiming victory in an inconclusive battle; a thousand men lay dead among the hedges and ditches, and three times that number were nursing wounds.

On a gale-tossed morning, looking out of my bedroom window in the Castle Inn on the edge of the escarpment, I was lord of a fifty-mile view, with the battlefield directly below. The fields where a thousand men died were striped with medieval ridge-and-furrow. The village of Radway, all golden stone and deep thatch, lay alongside the killing grounds. In the church I found the effigy of a Royalist officer in curly wig and knee-coat: Henry Kingsmill, Captain of Foot, ‘unhappily slaine by a Cannon Bullett.’ His grieving mother waited nearly 30 years after her son’s death, only erecting his memorial once the monarchy was firmly back on the throne and in popular favour.

I crossed the ridge-and-furrow and struggled back up the escarpment by way of steep King John’s Lane (what was that wicked monarch doing here?). Two long-distance paths, Centenary Way and Macmillan Way, run the length of Edgehill ridge and provide a wonderful grandstand view over the plain to the far hills. I walked for miles, pushing into the wind and savouring the prospect. ‘Mornin’!’ hailed an Ancient Mariner, stumping by on a stick. ‘Bit breezy!’

At last the path edged away from the ridge. I crossed the county boundary, turning my back on the windy heights of Warwickshire and descending into the calm of a hidden cleft in the Oxfordshire wolds. In a sunken lane going down to Hornton I met two shifty gents and their lurchers. ‘Hungry, mate? You’re only five minutes from the Dun Cow.’ Ha, ha, very funny – that delightful inn doesn’t open on a weekday lunchtime. But the beauties of Hornton’s thatched houses, their rich gold stone and air of deep-sunk contentment seemed refreshment enough on this vigorous day.

There was laughter in the Rose & Crown along the way in Ratley, thrush song in the yew outside the square-built church. Some kind of spring-time God must be in his heaven, I thought, as I stole a pinch of sage from a wayside bush and made up the fields towards Edgehill.

Start & finish: Castle Inn, Edgehill, Banbury, Oxon OX15 6DJ (OS ref SP 374474)

Getting there: Bus (www.johnsonscoaches.co.uk) service 269 Banbury-Stratford. Road: M40 Jct 12; B4451 to Gaydon; B4100 towards Warmington; right to Edgehill.

Walk (10 miles, moderate grade, OS Explorer 206): Go down footpath by inn (‘Battlefields Trail’/BT). In 30 yards, right (blue arrow/BA) down woodland path. Right at bottom (BA). In ¼ mile, left (377478; kissing gate, yellow arrow/YA) down field to Radway. Left along road. Opposite church, left down Westend. At Church Farm, right fork of footpath past right end of cottage (‘King John’s Lane’ fingerpost). On for ¼ mile; left (366475) up King John’s Lane.

At top of ridge, forward (‘Centenary Way/CW, Macmillan Way/MW’). In ½ mile cross farm lane at Edgehill Farm. In ⅔ mile, left up A422 at Sun Rising (very dangerous blind bend! Take care!); right along CW/MW. In ⅔ mile CW forks right (356450), but follow MW ahead, down to lane. Left (354446; MW) to cross road. Continue with fence and hedge on your right (MW) down into valley for 1 mile to pass barn (371440). At end of 2^nd large field past barn, where MW passes through gate as broad track, leave MW, turning left uphill to cross stile on skyline (376435). Diagonally left across fields (YA; ‘D’Arcy Dalton Way’/DDW). At road, left to cross A422; right along its verge; in 300 yards, left (382439; DDW) for 1 mile along bridleway past Hornton Grounds into Hornton. (Dun Cow PH to your left – see note below on opening times!).

Forward past school; follow Millers Lane uphill to cross road (392455). Bridleway (BA, fingerposts) for 1 ¼ miles to Ratley (NB – very muddy around Poplars Farm – 390461!). In Ratley, left down Featherbed Lane past Rose & Crown; left past church; left opposite Old Post Office, past Manor Farm (stone stile); on across fields (YAs). At top of rise, over stile (379471); right (BT) to road. Right for 50 yards; left (YA, BT) to Castle Inn.

NB – Online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Note: some very muddy parts – boots/gaiters advised!

Lunch: Dun Cow, Hornton (01295-670524; open every evening, but lunchtimes Sat, Sun only; open weekday lunchtimes by prior arrangement; please phone); Rose & Crown, Ratley (01295-678148; www.roseandcrownratley.co.uk)

More info: Banbury TIC (01295-753752);

www.visitcoventryandwarwickshire.co.uk; www.ramblers.org.uk

Castleton and Lose Hill, Peak District, Derbyshire

Walks 5 Responses »

May 152010

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

Facebook Link:

A milky sky, a cold wind, and the chaffinches going crazy in the trees around Castleton. Maybe it was the promise of a long-delayed spring implicit in the tender leaf buds sprouting at the tip of every twig, or perhaps they were just getting their mating chops together. Whatever about the birds, the nip of the wind and the scud of the sky had Jane and me stepping out sharply enough as the church clock chimed half past eleven.

Castleton lies cradled in a natural amphitheatre of hills whose rocks are seamed with rich deposits of lead. The mineral was mined from a series of caverns along the line of the hills – Peak, Speedwell, Treak Cliff and Blue John itself, its name derived from the beautiful pale purple bluejohn stone so popular with jewellery makers and ornamental carvers. This early in the year there were few visitors in the show caves and bluejohn shops. Most folk moving in the hills around Castleton today were walkers like ourselves, only too delighted to be stretching the winter slackness away.

Below the rocky gorge of Winnats we looked back across fellsides striped with dark stone walls and dotted with small stone barns, to see the black ruin of Peveril Castle perched like a raven on its crag above the huddled houses of Castleton. In the chill dark mouth of Peak Cavern below the stronghold once squatted a whole tribe of rope-spinners, their lungs and joints sacrificed to the dampness they needed to tease the fibres together. Lead miners lived and died in even worse case. What desperate conditions our ancestors put up with, just because they had to.

A bunch of schoolchildren were munching sandwiches at tables outside Treak Cliff Cavern. ‘We’ve done our big walk already!’ they squeaked proudly. Tired? ‘Naah! We’re going to play football when we get back to the hostel!’

We crossed the bumpy old mine-spoil ground with its velvety nap below the striated cliff of Mam Tor, and went crabwise up the long slope to Hollins Cross on the ridge, where ant-like figures were striding. Up there the wind blew at double strength, smacking and shoving us along the flagged pathway towards the big dark cliff of Back Tor. Here with a Kit Kat apiece we snuggled down in the lee of a handy peat hag for a few minutes, and took in the view north up the long valley of the River Noe. Edale village was a scatter of toy houses far below, and the old purgatorial start of the Pennine Way up Grindsbrook Clough cut a deep dark scar into the fellside.

A step more along the ridge to the summit point of Lose Hill, and we were looking down on the whole glorious length of the Castleton valley – our forward view for the homeward path.

Start & finish: Castleton Visitor Information Centre, Castleton S33 8WN (OS ref: SK149830)

Getting there:

Rail: (www.thetrainline.com; www.railcard.co.uk) to Hope (2 miles); buses (www.derbysbus.info/times) from Bakewell, Matlock, Sheffield.

Road: From A57 at Ladybower Reservoir – A6013, A6187.

Walk: (5½ miles, moderate grade, OS Explorer OL1):
Cross road; up lane by 3 Roofs Café. At road, right (148828); uphill (‘Speedwell Cavern’), then field path to cross road at Speedwell Cavern (140827). Left-hand path (yellow arrows) above Treak Cliff Cavern (136831) to Blue John Cavern (132832). Right to road; right to car park; across waste ground under Mam Tor Cliff to Mam Farm (133840); up hillside to Hollins Cross (136845); ridge to Back Tor and Lose Hill (153854). Paved path down to cross stile (155851); bear right for 100 yards to cross another stile; left along fence, then downhill through trees (157848). In 30 yards, just before fingerpost, right downhill to bypass Losehill Farm. Lane downhill to Spring House Farm. Just past house, right along lane (156840, ‘Castleton’ fingerpost) past Losehill Hall. Where drive swings left, keep ahead through wicket gate (152838). Ahead across fields, then along lane to road (148835). Ahead into Castleton.

NB – Detailed directions, online maps, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk.

Lunch: Picnic on Back Tor

More Info: Castleton Visitor Information Centre (01629-816572; www.peakdistrict.gov.uk); www.peak-experience.org.uk; www.ramblers.org.uk.

Peak District walking festivals 2010: www.visitpeakdistrict.com/walkingfestivals

Corrour Station to Glen Nevis, Rannoch Moor, Scotland

Walks 3 Responses »

May 082010

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

Facebook Link:

Not many who venture the Road to the Isles are lucky enough to have fellow walkers as seasoned and reliable as Richard and Guy Spencer. While I’d enjoyed a plate of lamb casserole and a pint of bitter, followed by eight hours’ deep and dreamless, in the companionable comfort of Corrour Station House (a matchless walkers’ guesthouse right on the railway platform, superbly run by Beth Campbell on behalf of the Corrour Estate), Richard and Guy had been bivouacking on hard tack in Staoineag Bothy out on Rannoch Moor. That’s the way ex-soldier Richard likes it. As for Guy, being a black Labrador, he generally goes along with Richard’s say-so.

Corrour calls itself the loneliest railway station in Scotland. The Station House shines a tiny beacon of light, warmth and good cheer in the vast wastes of Rannoch. We set out early, descended to the shores of beautiful Loch Treig, and turned west through a narrowing pass below the tumbled slopes of Creag Ghuanach, walking against the flow of the peat-stained Abhainn Rath river.

Out here it’s true wilderness, one of very few places in Britain that can truly claim that label: bog, loch, rock and water, an elemental scene. A couple of bothy huts, Staoineag and Meanach, lie along the banks of the Abhainn Rath, but other than that you can hardly believe anyone has ever come here. Yet this modest, muddy track, snaking around as it climbs gently west to the watershed of Abhainn Rath and Water of Nevis, was once a famed cattle-droving route known as the Road to the Isles, along which the hardy drovers herded Highland cattle towards the great fairs of Crieff and Falkirk.

We strode on across heather and bog to ford the Abhainn Rath where it came bouncing and chattering down from its high corrie under Stob Ban, the White Point. A few minutes for a sandwich and cuppa, and we were following the track below the mighty shoulder of snow-streaked Ben Nevis. The Road to the Isles dropped to thread the gorge of the Water of Nevis with its 200-ft Steall waterfall, a breathtaking spectacle. A final mile on a flywalk ledge above the gorge, and I was easing the boots from my steaming feet in the Glen Nevis car park and giving Guy a congratulatory pat.

This is a tough walk, but not a daunting one. Do it with a friend, plan properly, and pick decent weather. You’ll never forget it.

Start: Corrour Station House, Corrour Estate, by Fort William PH30 4AA (OS ref NN 356664)

Finish: Upper car park, Glen Nevis

Getting there: Train (www.thetrainline.com; www.railcard.co.uk) to Corrour Station.

Getting back: Stagecoach (0871-200-2233; www.stagecoachbus.com) run summer bus service from Lower Falls car park in Glen Nevis to Fort William; or taxi (Jamie’s 01397-701778; Fort William Taxis 01397-700000; plenty more).

Walk (14 miles to Upper car park, 15¾ miles to Lower Falls car park/ allow 8-10 hours; hard grade; OS Explorers 385, 392): From Corrour Station House, cross line; right (NE) along west side of railway; follow track down to turn left along shore of Loch Treig. Cross footbridge at Creaguaineach Lodge (309689); left (west) along north bank of Abhainn Rath for 5 miles to ford it by Tom an Eite (242695). Continue west for 5 miles on north bank of Water of Nevis, through Glen Nevis gorge to car park (167691).

NB – Wet, boggy, trackless in places. Many burns to ford. A tough, lonely walk for map-readers with stamina, experience and proper equipment including food.

Lunch: Picnic

Accommodation: Corrour Station House (01397-732236; www.corrourstationhouse.co.uk) – unique, very welcoming walkers’ guesthouse. Staoineag and Meanach Bothies: contact www.mountainbothies.org.uk

www.ramblers.org.uk

Cannock Chase and the Trent Canals, Staffordshire

Walks No Responses »

May 012010

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

Facebook Link:

A table full of cheery Midlands pensioners were getting to work on their ice cream sundaes as Jane and I left the Barley Mow and set off across Milford Common into the woods of Cannock Chase. Tits and finches whistled in the treetops, and our boots stirred a litter of weightless leaves. The woodland ponds lay cold and black, mirrors of a long winter sent packing by a few mild days of spring that had brought sticky buds to the ash trees and a gleaming sheen to the leaves of as-yet-unbroken daffodils.

Cannock Chase, an ancient no-man’s-land of hummocks and hollows, mine heaps and quarry scoops, has been greening over for centuries. This is what the neighbouring Black Country would look like if the Industrial Revolution had not ravaged it so thoroughly. Nowadays the diggings and delvings of the Chase hold a mosaic of spring-fed meres and tussocky bogs, threaded by a maze of paths. We followed the Heard of England Way, then the Staffordshire Way up sandy rides flanked by venerable, deeply fissured silver birches, and by bilberry bushes whose every green shoot had been nibbled down to the woody root by hungry deer in their end-of-winter starvation.

The Chase is a place to get lost in, a wanderer’s paradise where a million West Midlanders come for recreation and are never seen again – not by Jane and me today, anyway. We sat on a bilberry bank to admire a haze of purple and gold willow shoots, lingered under the slopes of Harts Hill to hear a wren boldly chittering for a mate, and hopped the stepping stones in the Sher Brook to our hearts’ content. Dogs splashed after sticks in the pools of Sherbrook Valley, and over in Abraham’s Valley a great spotted woodpecker flashed scarlet, white and black as he gave a hollow oak a battering.

From the green enclosures of Cannock Chase we emerged into the open country through which the River Trent snakes round the northern edge of the Chase. The sky expanded, the ground smoothed out into broad, flat river meadows in which the mansion of Shugborough Hall lay like a giant wedding cake on a croquet lawn. You can’t have a Midland scene without canals, and so it turned out here – the Trent & Mersey to carry us north along its towpath to Haywood Junction, the Staffordshire & Worcestershire to lead us past grebe-haunted reedbeds and fields of spring lambs to the Barley Mow and the borders of Cannock Chase once more.

Start & finish: Barley Mow PH, Milford, Stafford (ST17 0UW) – (OS ref: SJ 973212)

Getting there:

Train: (www.thetrainline.com, www.railcard.co.uk) to Stafford (4 miles); Arriva bus 825 (Stafford – Rugeley) to Barley Mow (info: 0871-200-2233 ww.arrivabus.co.uk)

Road: On A513, Stafford-Rugeley.

Walk: (8½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 244):

Cross A513; left along Milford Common. Opposite Shugborough Park gates, 2 paths diverge (975210); take further one (bridleway fingerpost) past one pond to another (974207). ‘Heart of England Way’ (fingerposts) to Mere Pits (978201); left (‘Trail 5, Punchbowl’); in 250 yards, right on Staffordshire Way (981202) for 1 1/3 miles. At pools (986186) left across Sher Brook; up and over into Abraham’s Valley. Left (999186) for 1 1/3 miles (blue arrows) to car park. Follow road across A513 (004207) to Navigation Farm bridge (004213). Left along Trent & Mersey Canal to Great Haywood Junction (995229); left along Staffs & Worcs Canal to Tixall Bridge (975216). Left down road to Milford Common and Barley Mow PH.

Lunch: Barley Mow PH (01785-665230)

Info: Stafford TIC (01785-619619; www.enjoystaffordshire.co.uk); www.visitcannockchase.co.uk

www.ramblers.org.uk

Berkhamsted Common, Herts

Walks No Responses »

Apr 242010

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

Facebook Link:

An old favourite, this Hertfordshire walk – and, like many such, a delight whatever the season. Last time out, the trees of Berkhamsted Common had been of that rich, juicy gold you only get after a long hot summer. Today I was looking forward to seeing what the long cold winter had done to the woods and hedgerows. Through Berkhamsted snaked the Grand Union Canal, smoking with early mist. Chaffinches were trolling on the broken walls of Berkhamsted Castle, and in the bushes around the site where William the Conqueror accepted the homage of the Saxon nobility of Britain after riding here through the autumn countryside of 1066, flushed with his victory at Hastings.

Picturing the chaos and terror that the Norman invaders brought with them, I headed up the fields from Berkhamsted along hedgerows where the celandines, usually heralds of spring, lay tightly curled in waxy green spearblades. There was something grand and bracing about this uphill march through the sleeping Hertfordshire landscape, from memories of one famous battle to the site of another, all but forgotten, that lovers of access to open country ought to have as an equally red-letter day in history.

Berkhamsted Common occupies the ridge north of the town, a sprawl of open ground where locals had always enjoyed the right to roam. When Lord Brownlow arbitrarily railed off a great chunk and added it to his Ashridge Estate in 1866, he thought he’d encounter little opposition. But an equally autocratic and bloody-minded grandee, Augustus Smith, took exception. Smith paid a gang of tough London navvies to come and tear down the three miles of railings by night – and leave them neatly rolled up for Brownlow to collect in the morning. The locals reclaimed their common land, and Lord Brownlow had to ‘retire hurt’.

Today Berkhamsted Common is a thick wood with a maze of footpaths. I trod its tangled ways as far as Lord Brownlow’s country seat of Ashridge House, a vast Georgian mansion modelled by James Wyatt for the 7th Earl of Bridgewater as a Gothic extravaganza with turrets, battlements and a thousand-foot-wide frontage. From the house it was back into the trees, among the grey old seniors of Frithsden Beeches. These wonderfully gnarled beech trees of the Chiltern slopes were ancient when Ashridge House was built. I stood under their

pale, contorted limbs, looking up. Hardly a bud, not a breaking leaf to be seen. But over the meadow beyond the trees a lark was spilling out song like seed – spring’s favourite doorkeeper.

Start & finish: Berkhamsted station, Herts HP4 2JU (OS ref TR015660)

Getting there: Train (www.thetrainline.com; www.railcard.co.uk) to Berkhamsted; Road – M25 (Jct 20); A41

Walk (6 ½ miles, moderate grade, OS Explorer 181): Left out of station – Berkhamsted Castle (995082) – north up Brownlow Road; path towards Well Farm; in 400 yards, left (996088 – FP fingerpost). NW up hedge paths for 3/4 mile – through hedge, turn right (991097 – post with 3 yellow arrows/YA), heading NNE past pond – into Berkhamsted Common woods (993102). Just before Brickkiln Cottage, left on bridleway (post; blue arrows/BA). Follow south wood edge; right (991107) to north edge. Left (992108; BA) – Coldharbour Farm (989113; BA) – Woodyard Cottage (987117). Just beyond cottage, left over stile (YA) – north through trees to Ashridge Park golf course. Turn right; aim right of Ashridge House (994122) – road for 3/4 mile – 300 yards beyond Crome Hill entrance, right (4-finger post; take left-hand of 2 bridleways) – south through Frithsden Beeches (‘bridleway’, then ‘Grand Union Canal Circular Walk’ arrows) – Well Farm – Berkhamsted.

NB – Online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Picnic

More info: Hemel Hempstead TIC (01442-234222)

www.visiteastofengland.com; www.ramblers.org.uk

Levisham, North York Moors

Walks 1 Response »

Apr 102010

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

Facebook Link:

It was blowing fit to take the tiles off when I finally ventured out up Levisham’s single street in the early afternoon. But the last of the morning’s torrential downpours was already marching off northwards across the North York Moors, and the neat red-tiled roofs of the stone cottages that faced each other across the green looked safe enough for now. The rain had given Levisham’s resident diminutive pony a make-over, though – its coat was matted with balled fur like a poodle’s.

Out in the fields west of the village, the southern sky was a bubble-bath of silver and blue, shot with brilliant shafts of wintry sun. Power lines howled in the wind, hawthorn hedges whistled, the grass hissed and gunsmoke clouds raced overhead. It was fantastically exhilarating being blown about, especially once I had got into the raving and gesticulatory woods of Newton Dale. Yellow catkins whipped across my line of sight, and the uncannily melancholy and evocative owl-hoot of a steam locomotive came up on the wind from Levisham station on the North York Moors Railway far below.

They were waiting for Sir Nigel Gresley, an oily-handed man in a boiler suit told me at the level crossing – not the great steam locomotive designer, but his namesake engine and the rake of enthusiasts’ coaches she’d be pulling. With the short spring afternoon half gone already I couldn’t wait around, even for a glimpse of that sleekly streamlined and magisterially beautiful machine. Instead I raised steam and tackled the bank up to the sun-streaked summit of Levisham Moor, where the wind took me in the small of the back and shoved with brutal strength.

I bowled along like a runaway Pullman, past Dundale Pond and its concertina ripples, through seething clumps of sedge, by moorland streams blown into charging torrents. Down under stiffly bobbing thorn trees where last autumn’s scarlet berries lay across the path like beads, down to where the clefts of Dundale Griff and Pigtrough Griff ran together. A rollercoaster path south through dancing larch and hazel woods, and then a last mile west into a china pink sunset, with the owl hoots of Sir Nigel Gresley blowing faintly to me down the still rising gale.

Start & finish: Horseshoe Inn, Levisham, N. Yorks YO18 7NL (OS ref SE 833907)

Getting there: Rail – North York Moors Railway (01751-472508; www.nymr.co.uk) to Levisham station (on walk route). Road – Lockton, then Levisham, signed off A169 between Whitby and Pickering.

Walk (4½ miles, moderate, OS Explorer OL27): From Horseshoe Inn, right down ‘No Through Road’ with chapel on left. In 400 yards at left bend, ahead over stile (831906); follow wall for 2 fields; stile into woods (824905); right on path for 1/3rd mile to foot of incline. Left over stile (822911); down hedge (yellow arrows); through gate into woods (821911). Through woods to road beside Levisham NYMR station (819911). NB Starting point if coming by train. Right up road for ¼ mile; at top of climb, right (819914; ‘footpath’ post) to transect hairpin bend. Recross road; left up bank path. Forward at top (822918), following wall. At corner, ahead (yellow arrow) on green track to 5-finger post at Dundale Pond (829919). Follow ‘Dundale Griff to Hole of Horcum’ for 2/3rd mile to path junction (839918). ‘Hole of Horcum’ points left; but go right (‘Levisham), following woodland path for 1½ miles to road (833903). Right into Levisham.

NB – online maps, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk.

Lunch: Horseshoe Inn, Levisham (01751-460240; www.horseshoelevisham.co.uk).

Accommodation: Moorlands Country House Hotel, Levisham (01751-460229; www.moorlandslevisham.co.uk).

More info: Pickering TIC (01751-473791); www.visityorkshire.com

www.ramblers.co.uk

Older Entries Newer Entries