Christopher Somerville

Downhill and Benone Strand, Co. Derry, Northern Ireland

Jul 042009

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

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Frederick Hervey, 4^th Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Londonderry from 1768-1803, was a remarkably broad-minded man. In that intolerant era of Penal Laws against Catholics, the Bishop allowed the local priest to celebrate Mass in the Mussenden Temple, one of the follies he erected around his preposterously extravagant Downhill Estate on the cliffs outside Castlerock. Hervey was also fabulously red-blooded and eccentric, fond of his wine and the ladies, addicted to foreign travel and art collecting, apt to have himself borne around in a palanquin and to drop spaghetti on the heads of pilgrims passing below his balcony in Rome.

Jane and I entered Downhill on a brisk windy morning under the knowing grins of the ounces or mythic lynx-like beasts that guard the estate’s so-called ‘Lion Gate’. Beyond lay the Bishop’s enormous Palace of Downhill in poignant ruin, its grand fireplaces hollow and stark, its windows blank, state rooms carpeted with grass and open to the sky. In the heyday of Downhill this incredible centre of luxury high on the cliffs had an entrance facade flanked by Corinthian pilasters, with a double stair leading to the door. There was a State Dining Room, a State Drawing Room, and a two-storey gallery for the Bishop’s superb art collection, all covered by a magnificent dome. Facade and double stair still stand, but now the interior walls, once beautified with exquisite plasterwork, are sealed with functional Ministry-of-Works concrete, the elaborate mosaics are gone from the chimney breasts, and buttercups and clover have taken the place of Wilton and Axminster. It’s a strange, uncanny and altogether haunting atmosphere in the empty shell of the Palace of Downhill.

Down on the brink of the basalt cliffs beside the domed Mussenden Temple, we looked out on a most sensational view: the sea shallows creaming on seven clear miles of sand that ran west in a gentle curve towards the mouth of Lough Foyle, with the clouded hills of ‘dark Inishowen’ beckoning from far-off Donegal.

That proved a quite irresistible call. Down on the strand we pushed into the wind. Waves hissed on the tideline, sand particles scudded by. Surfers rode the waves like water demons. The black and green rampart of the cliffs was cut vertically by white strings of waterfalls, the falling cascades blown to rags in mid-plummet. All this vigour and movement whipped us onwards to where the preserved sand dunes of Umbra rose between strand and cliff foot. A complete change of tempo here, sheltered among the sandhills, down on our hands and knees among pyramidal orchids of blazing crimson, yellow kidney vetch, lady’s bedstraw sacred to the Virgin Mary, and tall spikes of common spotted orchids of such a seductive milky pink and blue it was all I could do not to take a surreptitious lick at them.

Lying prone in the dunes, looking back through a screen of marram grass and clovers, we saw the dark pepperpot shape of the temple on the brink of Downhill cliff. Had the bold Bishop of Londonderry kept a mistress in there, as stories say? I rather hope he had, and his palanquin and spaghetti-tureen, too.

Start & finish: Lion Gate car park, Downhill Estate, Castlerock BT51 4RP (OS of NI ref C 757357)

Getting there (www.nirailways.co.uk): rail to Castlerock (½ mile), Ulsterbus service 134. Road: On A2 between Castlerock and Downhill Strand

Walk (6 miles, easy grade, OS of NI Discoverer 04): From Lion Gate car park explore Walled Garden, then Downhill Palace ruin, then Mussenden Temple (758362). Return anti-clockwise along cliff. From Lion Gate cross A2 (take care!); right downhill beside road on pavement. Short stretch with no pavement leads to foot of hill. Right under railway; left along Downhill Strand. After 1 ¼ miles, where river leaves dunes, look left for Ulster Wildlife Trust’s Umbra Dunes notice (732359). Follow fence through dunes to descend on Benone Strand. Continue to Benone (717362 – lavatories, Visitor Centre, sometimes ice cream vans). Return along beach and A2 to Lion gate car park.

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

Lunch: Pretty Crafty Studio (signed across A2 from Lion Gate) for a cuppa and cakes

Accommodation: Downhill Hostel (028-7084-9077; www.downhillhostel.com) at foot of hill – dormitory (from £12) or private (from £35 dble, £60 for 4 adults). Whole hostel bookable.

More info:

Downhill (NT): 028-2073-1582; www.nationaltrust.org.uk

Coleraine TIC: 028-7034-4723; www.discovernorthernireland.com

Badgers: Little Stoke Woods, Mendip Hills, Somerset

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Jul 042009

If anyone can steer you within watching range of the elusive badger, Meles meles, it is David Thurlow, Natural England’s warden who looks after the National Nature Reserves of Ebbor Gorge and Rodney Stoke in the Mendip Hills. David knows every cranny and cave of this delectable slice of north Somerset. Morning, noon and late at night he immerses himself in the habits and habitats of wild creatures – including those nocturnal beings such as bats, otters and badgers that most of us would love to see, but are resigned to viewing only on film. Our problem is, quite simply, our status as humans – large, conspicuous, noisy, strange-smelling, diurnal, and generally threatening and unwelcome to the animal kingdom.

I’d always longed to get a proper unhurried look at a badger, one of the UK’s largest, most populous and yet least-observed native mammals – Old Brock himself, lord of the underworld, as big as a mastiff, with bone-crushing jaws and earth-moving paws, builder of vast subways under our fields and forests. Now it looked as though my small dream might come true.

At 7 pm we set off four strong from the Rodney Stoke Inn – my wife Jane and I, David Thurlow and his colleague, volunteer warden Rod Hoskins. In David’s Land Rover we jolted up an old cart track to the top of the hill. ‘In general,’ Rod told us, ‘you’d expect badgers to be coming out of their setts around 8 o’clock in the evening, pretty much all year round. They’ll clean themselves, have a stretch and a scratch, and then go hunting for worms or beetles or whatever they can find. In the winter they’re a bit dopy – though they don’t hibernate, contrary to what most people think – but in summer, this time of year, the cubs’ll be wanting to play.’

The first spot we tried was top of David’s list, but the wind was all wrong for it tonight. But his back-up place, down the slope and across an unmown hayfield, proved absolutely perfect. The four of us crept through the grass and into the skirt of the wood about 30 feet downwind of the sett, disposed ourselves around a log as low to the ground as possible, and settled down in silence to watch and wait.

After a few minutes a gentle nudge and motion of the head from Rod drew my attention to the shadows under the trees just beyond the nearest tunnels. Something large and dark was moving rhythmically there. At first it was hard to see what was happening in the thickening twilight, but then the shape detached itself from the trees and moved into the open – a big badger cub a few months old, stretching and yawning after enjoying a luxurious scratch on a tree stump. A grey body two feet long with humped shoulders, a dramatically striped mask of black and white, a surprisingly long and thick tail. All of a sudden the badger was flat on the ground with another cub on top of it – a sibling which had sprung out from ambush in a flying leap. They rolled over, snarling and grinning and kicking, play-fighting like the hyped-up teenagers they were. Then two more appeared as if parachuted into the clearing, to join the melée. It was a strangely moving episode of play, so similar to what one had seen one’s own children do, yet capable of being broken and dispersed by the slightest cough or rustle on the spectators’ part.

A flicker of movement much closer to us, and two female badgers came cautiously out of a tunnel mouth some thirty feet off. They snuffled closer and closer, sweeping their snouts sideways across the earth in search of food, an older sow and a younger one, looking up every now and then to assess our alien shapes for any sign of threat. Unable to see us clearly or to smell us, they were wary, but more intent on their feeding than on us.

To have those vivid black and white faces and those ancient but seldom-seen presences almost close enough to touch was a magical experience. Jane and I would have stayed transfixed all night. But after half an hour the badger party broke up. The females wended their ways, the youngsters went crashing off in line astern to see what they could find to eat in the now darkened wood. And we got up slowly and went out across the field, startling grazing roe deer as we made our way back to the Land Rover, stretching and scratching and grinning at one another like a troupe of awakening badgers.

David and Rod’s badger-watching hints

Look for a sett with signs of activity – bedding hauled out, tunnel mouths polished by body contact, coarse grey hairs on tree trunks and other scratching posts.
Ask the landowner’s permission to watch the badgers.
Wear subdued colours, brown or green, something that blends in with the background. Camouflage is excellent, because it breaks up your silhouette. Choose a warm fabric that doesn’t rustle.
Bring binoculars (8 X 40 is a good magnification), insect repellent, and something soft to sit on.
Approach the sett keeping low, slow and silent.
Be in position by 8 pm, about 20-30 yards away, downwind.
Sit or lie low, so your silhouette doesn’t bulk on the skyline.
Get comfortable, and then keep very still and silent, and be patient; badgers don’t watch the clock.

Help and advice

The Wildlife Trusts (01636-677711; www.wildlifetrusts.org) co-ordinate 47 local Wildlife Trusts across the UK, Isle of Man and Alderney. Many have Badger Groups, and all should be able to help you locate and watch badgers. Natural England (0845-600-3078; www.naturalengland.org.uk) and Scottish Natural Heritage (01738-444177; www.snh.org.uk) organise badger-watching expeditions across their various regions; see also Countryside Council for Wales (0845-130-6229; www.ccw.gov.uk) and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (www.ni-environment.gov.uk).

Badger information: The Badger Trust (08458-287878; www.badger.org.uk)

Badgers by Michael Clark (Whittet Books) is an excellent guide.

Fritham, New Forest

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Jun 272009

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

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A quarter to six on a cool, drizzly morning and Andy Page was there, smack on time outside the New Forest Inn – a man so in love with his native patch that, despite the duties and responsibilities of his post as Head Keeper of the northern sector of the Forest, he’d got himself out of bed before five o’clock just to show me around.

‘I left school and didn’t know what to do,’ he told me as we strolled the banks of the Dockens Water in slowly broadening daylight. ‘But I knew it had to be something out of doors, something to do with the Forest. I wanted to look forward to going to work every day, and that’s just what I’ve done ever since. So I’m a lucky man – I know that!’

The New Forest, one of our most ancient forests, is a complicated mosaic of woodland, water, bog, wetland, scrub and open heath. Everything meshes in with everything else, so that the health of the whole organism is a finely balanced affair. And the pieces of the jigsaw are not fixed – they swap places and character through the centuries.

Above the Dockens Water Andy and I traversed patches of open scrub which had once been dense woodland, as attested by sprays of wood anemone leaves. Delicate yellow flowerheads of petty whin nodded on their thorny stalks among spider webs thickly pearled with raindrops. We slipped and slid through patches of bog where pink heads of lousewort contested the breeze with feathery strands of cotton grass. The holly was properly in flower just now, its pink and cream blooms cupped in the prickly green hands of the leaves.

New Forest ponies have been around here since time out of mind. A month-old foal, so well camouflaged I hadn’t spotted him, got up from his bracken bed on long legs and skittered off to join his mother. We glimpsed a female redstart zapping between the trees, too quick for me but not for my companion. Out in the open heath of Rakes Brakes Bottom we heard the clicking calls of stonechats, the ‘chupa-chup’ of snipe, and the sweet falling cadence of a willow warbler. Among the trees of Sloden Inclosure I stood enchanted by a wood warbler on a twig, reeling out his chittering, wren-like song, the early light showing off the lemon yellow sheen of his belly.

‘There’s a cuckoo – see him flying?’ Andy’s finger pointed up into the cloudy sky. A sparrowhawk shape with a long tail and rapidly beating wings was passing over the trees. How many cuckoos have I heard calling in the spring? But I’d never in a million years have recognised one on the wing. Such was the magic of this rainy early morning in the Forest.

Start & finish: Royal Oak PH, Fritham SO43 7HJ (OS ref SU 232141)

Getting there: M27 to Jct 1; B3079, B3078 towards North Charford; Fritham signposted.

Walk (5 and a half miles, easy grade, OS Explorer OL22): The New Forest is for wandering, so precise instructions are hard to give. General directions for map readers: Royal Oak; north bank of Dockens Water – Rakes Brakes Bottom – right (north) at 220124 approx; left (218131) through Sloden Wood – right at Watergreen Bottom (206125). Sloden Inclosure – left (209128) – right (207132) between Sloden and Amberwood Inclosures – Hiscocks Hill – Fritham.

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

Lunch: Royal Oak PH, Fritham (023-8081-2606).

Accommodation: The New Forest Inn, Emery Down, Lyndhurst (023-8028-4690; www.thenewforestinn.co.uk) – £75-85 dble.

More info: Lyndhurst TIC (023-8028-2269; www.thenewforest.co.uk)

Walks led by keepers/rangers: tel 023-8028-6840; www.forestry.gov.uk

Rye and Peasmarsh, East Sussex

Walks 2 Responses »

Jun 202009

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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The little hilltop town of Rye oozes charm, from its red roofs and cobbled laneways to its ancient timber-framed smuggler’s pub, the Mermaid Inn. Weatherboarded brick houses line the steep streets, their window-frames picked out in black and white, roses and hollyhocks blooming along their walls and round their dimity doors. On a pin-sharp summer’s morning I climbed the tower of St Mary’s Church (steps of stone and brick, treads of wood, wobbly ladders, hold-your-breath squeezes) to gaze over the town, and further on out across the flat green apron of Romney Marsh where East Sussex gives way to Kent. No wonder Henry James came to live and write here. Who wouldn’t be inspired by all that time-suspended, fabulously evocative beauty at their doorstep every day?

Out on the flatlands I went upstream against the seaward-sliding tides of the River Rother. Across the river rose a wooded cliff, the old line of the coast before the marshes were drained in medieval times. Soon I was across the river and up on top of the rampart, walking through fields of fat sheep with greenfinches darting through the hedges. The fortified manor house of Iden Mote has long gone, but the big horseshoe-shaped moat remains alongside the farm among orchards and oast-houses, symbols of the traditional husbandry of this fruitful region.

The church of St Peter and St Paul lay well beyond its parent village of Peasmarsh, a lovely small Norman building set with several strange animal carvings. Carved leopards playfully swallowed their own tails on the chancel arch. Outside in a drain at the south-east corner I discovered the stone likeness of a running beast – a horned stag, or perhaps a hare – tucked into the church foundations by a medieval mason with pagan sympathies.

From Peasmarsh I followed a path through broad open grazing meadows among more flocks of stout white sheep. Overshot willows with bushy crowns lined the drainage channels. Beyond them Rye rode its hilltop, the red-roofed houses rising in a wave to the church on the crest, like some fabled city in a painting, or an augury of what might happen should the sea rise to reclaim the long-drained marshes of this coast and reach that stranded cliff once more.

Start & finish: Tourist Information Centre, Strand Quay, Rye TN31 7AY (Tel 01797-226696)

Getting there: Train (www.thetrainline.com) to Rye

Road: M20 to Jct 9/10; A2070, A259

Walk (10 miles, easy/moderate grade, OS Explorer 125):
Leaving Rye Tourist Information Centre (918203), left up Mermaid Street to top; right along West Street past Lamb House to St Mary’s Church. Up Lion Street; right along Market Street; left down East Street; right along East Cliff, bending left to pass through Landgate (912205). Continue down to A268; right to roundabout; left on A259 to cross River Rother. Turn left along right (east) bank for 2¼ miles to Boonshill Bridge (936237). Cross river; follow lane past Cliff Farm, steeply up cliff, on for 600 yards to cross road (926237). Continue along right-hand field edge. At far end, field narrows like bottle neck; through hedge in top right corner; on to far end of next field where yellow arrow points forward through gateway (922237).
To visit Bell Inn, Iden, right through gap in hedge before gateway; diagonally left across field to cross stile in far hedge; over next field to cross stile; right to road; left to Bell Inn (918238). Return same way to gateway.
Through gateway; beside hedge for 400 yards/metres to Playden Lane. Ahead to cross B2082 (918233); on up gravelled lane opposite. In 400 yards, right at fork (914232); on past Iden Park for ⅓ mile to road (910236). Right for 75 yards, then left (fingerpost) into orchard. Bear left down nearest ‘ride’ to pass pylon; follow hedge on right, curving left to reach lane (907238). Right; at following right bend, ahead along gravelled lane to pass Iden Moat .
In front of twin oasts, left (899240); in 50 yards fork right through gateway. In another 50 yards ignore FP pointing right; keep ahead (bridleway arrow) on track through orchard. At far side, right through gate (897237); forward down field edge for 300 yards, then left on gravelled track past Old House Farm; on through Cock Wood to A268 in Peasmarsh (886230). Cross road; right for 50 yards; before Cock Horse Inn, left through gates into caravan field. Follow left-hand hedge; in top left corner cross stile, then stile opposite; diagonally across field to bottom left corner; cross stile; continue to road (885225). Right for 50 yards; left over stile. Keep right up hedge; in 75 yards fork left on path across field, keeping parallel with electric cables. Cross stile in far hedge; cross footbridge and another stile; ahead, following direction of waymark arrow on stile footboard, to reach Peasmarsh church (887218).
From church, left along road for 150 yards; on left bend, right (fingerpost; ‘Clayton Farm’) on gravelled track past Clayton Farm (893216); on for 600 yards to pass derelict building on left (897212). Shortly after, ignore right fork and keep ahead at waymark arrow post with hedge on left, through gate (‘High Weald Landscape Trail’/HWLT waymark) and on. Cross stile and plank footbridge (HWLT); on with hedge on left. Through gateway into open field. Continue, keeping to left of line of willows, towards gate on its own diagonally left ahead; go through (HWLT). Aim for right end of line of trees ahead; continue, soon between watercourses, to Rolvendene Farm (916210). Follow yellow HWLT arrows; bear right to River Tillingham on right. Follow it on tarmac path, to cross B2089 near railway level crossing.
For Rye station, left over crossing and first left.
Continue down lane, passing to left of windmill. Just before river, left through gate to cross railway (please take care!); on to road and Rye Tourist Information Centre.
NB – Detailed directions, online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Bell Inn, Iden (see below); Cock Horse, Peasmarsh (01797-230281)

Accommodation: Bell Inn, Iden (01797-280242; www.idenbell.co.uk)

Rye church tower: open daily. 85 steps including steep ladders; some narrow squeezes!

More info: Rye TIC (01797-226696; www.visitrye.co.uk)

Camasunary Bay, Isle of Skye

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Jun 132009

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

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Strathaird is one of the least-known peninsulas of the Isle of Skye, much shorter and slenderer than its big southerly twin of Sleat, much less dramatic in its geology than the basalt masterpiece of northerly Trotternish. Yet it possesses one advantage that the others lack; Strathaird is rooted at the foot of the mighty Black Cuillins, so that walking north from its tip one has those tall and savage mountains, the pride and heart of Skye, constantly in view. And Camasunary Bay, the destination of the precarious coast path running north from the remote community of Elgol, is a wild gem, a strand of grey wave-pounded pebbles backed by a green sward whose two houses, one each end of the bay, stand utterly dwarfed by the mountains that tower behind them.

I suppose I had forgotten just how tricky the path from Elgol actually is: a narrow ribbon of pebbly mud in the hillside, whose seaward edge drops in several places a hundred feet sheer to the rocky shore. Shoved along by a good stout south-westerly wind, I needed all my head for heights, and a sure foot into the bargain, because apart from the hazards of the path itself there was the wonderful forward view as a constant distraction. The two tiny white dots of Camasunary’s houses, three miles away when I first caught sight of them, grew only slowly, but their guardian peaks – the shark’s tooth of 928m Bla Bheinn to the east, the blockier pyramid of 497m Sgurr na Stri in the west – seemed to rear higher and closer each time I glanced towards them. Behind the bay other rounded hills lumped in the middle distance, a telling contrast in shape and atmosphere to the jagged black spine of the Cuillin proper as it gradually revealed itself halfway up the sky beyond.

The coast path dropped to traverse the pebbles of Cladach a’ Ghlinne bay before rising again in another precipitous stretch. At last it set me down quite gently on the boggy moorland that forms the eastern flank of Camasunary Bay. Seals bobbed in the sea, kittiwakes and fulmars planed by on stiff wings, and the pebbles and rushy hinterland of the bay lay spattered with bright primary colours – not clusters of rare flora, alas, but the fractured remains of plastic fish boxes cast up by wind and tide. My final view of Camasunary Bay was from high on the stony track back to the road – a sea-fretted pebble strand, the two miniature houses far apart, and that magnificent backdrop of crumpled mountains.

Start & finish: Car parking bay opposite Cuillin View Coffee Shop, Elgol, IV49 9BJ (OS ref NG 519137)

Getting there: Rail (www.thetrainline.com) to Kyle of Lochalsh, bus 51 to Broadford, 49 to Elgol

Road: A87 via Skye Bridge to Broadford; B8083 to Elgol

Walk(9 miles, moderate/hard grade, OS Explorer 411): From parking bay opposite coffee shop, walk back uphill to start of Camasunary path on left (OS ref: 520139). Walk north for 3 miles to Camasunary Bay (518137); bear right up stony track to B8083 (545172); turn right to return to Elgol.

Conditions: Elgol-Camasunary is a very narrow hillside track above steep drops; possibility of vertigo. Camasunary-B8083 is a rough hill track. Walking boots, windproof and waterproof clothing recommended.

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

Lunch: Cuillin View Coffee Shop, Elgol (01471-866223) – friendly folk, home baking, great coffee, stunning mountain views

Accommodation: Hotel Eilean Iarmain, Sleat, Isle of Skye (01471-833332; www.eileaniarmain.co.uk) – very traditional, welcoming atmosphere; right beside the sea. From £75 single, £100 dble B&B

More info: Portree TIC (08452-255121; www.visithighlands.com);

www.visitscotland.com/perfectwalks

Snape Maltings and Iken, Suffolk

Walks 1 Response »

Jun 062009

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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Young musicians were streaming into the concert hall at Snape Maltings when I arrived on a peerless sunny morning. A Ferris wheel lazily turned beyond the buildings, its occupants masters of a stupendous view all the way down the snaking River Alde to Aldeburgh and the open sea. Snape was en fête this weekend, a grand public party.

When Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears converted the austere old maltings at Snape into a great concert hall in 1966-7, they dreamed of this: all ages, all stages of musical appreciation flocking to enjoy wonderful music in the incomparable, severely beautiful setting of the flat Suffolk coastlands. The Aldeburgh Festival they founded in 1948 has taken on a vigorous life of its own, and how Britten and Pears – iconoclasts and visionaries in their own era – would have revelled in that.

I stuck out along the boardwalk path through the reedbeds along the Alde. Everything in nature seemed lively and full of risen sap and reproductive purpose this spring morning. Shelduck argued over possession of the mudbanks, hawthorn flowers whitened the hedges, and reed buntings were loudly and emphatically declaiming their rights to stem and seed-head. ‘So-I-told-her, so-I-told-her!’ twittered one nestholder hidden among the reeds, almost close enough to touch but quite invisible to me. ‘Did-you? Did-you? Did-you? Frankly, frankly, frankly-my-dearie!’

Over the feathery tops of the reeds the river shimmered with wind ripples and mudflats gleamed in the hazy sunshine. Beyond them the stumpy tower of St Botolph’s Church at Iken showed above trees on the negligible rise of ground where St Botolph founded his monastery in 654AD. Botolph was a man in search of self-excoriation, like so many of those early hermits. ‘The unwearied man of God,’ recorded the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ‘looked about him everywhere, till at last he found by the mercy of God, such a spot at Icanhoh, which was just the Godforsaken, devil-possessed place he was in search of.’

Set in its sunny churchyard in a sea of buttercups, bluebells and anemones, the old church held no devil today, unless it was the faded stone dragon some Saxon sculptor had incised in St Botolph’s ancient cross shaft. I lingered long among the wild flowers and lichened headstones before setting inland.

Pigs lay stunned by the sunshine in self-excavated beds of wet mud. Partridges skimmed the potato fields, and sika deer crept secretively in the shadow of pine trees. Back on the estuary the tide had inched a little closer to the shore. The buntings still bubbled scratchily in the reeds, the river shimmered on, and the old maltings by the bridge rang with the sound of joyful young voices.

Start & finish: Snape Maltings, near Aldeburgh, IP17 1SP (OS ref TM 392574)

Getting there: A12, A1094, B1069 to Snape

Walk (6 ½ miles, easy grade, OS Explorer 212): From Snape Maltings bear right along riverside footpath (blue and yellow Suffolk Coast Path/SCP waymark arrows) for 1 3/4 miles to road in Iken (412560). Left; in 100 yards, left again to St Botolph’s Church (412566). Return along road to fork (413560); bear left (‘Sudbourne, Orford’) for ½ a mile; right at Swallows Corner (418553) along Sandy Lane for ½ a mile. 100 yards past Fir Tree Cottage, road bends right (411551); keep ahead here (footpath fingerpost) to dogleg round Oak Covert and reach SCP at ‘pig city’ (406547). Turn right, following SCP along field edges to road (403559). Right for 100 yards; left, and follow SCP back to Snape Maltings.

Lunch: Crown Inn (01728-688324) or Plough & Sail (01728-688413), Snape

More info: Snape Maltings (01728-687100); Aldeburgh TIC (01728-453637; www.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk/tourism)

Aldeburgh Festival 2009: 12-28 June (www.aldeburgh.co.uk)

Three Cliffs Bay, Gower, South Wales

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May 302009

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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A sunny spring afternoon over South Wales, with a blustery wind gusting along the coast of the Gower Peninsula. Horned cattle stood contentedly munching the grass of the cliff-tops where the vivid blue of bluebells and the acid yellow of gorse vied to overload my eyeballs.

A deep sighing of sea advancing on rocks came up on the wind. The view opening westward over Three Cliffs Bay had me stopped and stunned on the brink – cliffs black in shadow, mirror-grey in sunlight, with the big squared foot of Great Tor planted solidly at the water’s edge, dividing a three-mile curve of creamy, pristine sand. The strata of the cliffs stood tilted almost vertically, as rough as the coarsest sandpaper with their coating of uncountable millions of barnacles.

Down in Pobbles Bay I crept through a wave-cut arch in the promontory, and followed the sinuous curves of Pennard Pill to teeter across its precarious line of stepping stones. Sandy paths led me on round the summit plateau of the promontory – almost an island – of Penmaen Burrows, where the chambered cairn of Pen-y-Crug still crouched, as it has done for 5,500 years, under a monstrous capstone of dully shining quartzite.

Back on the mainland I followed field lanes that wound inland and back towards the coast among forget-me-nots, milkmaids, violets and stitchwort, wild garlic and bluebells, the last of the year’s celandines and the first wild strawberry flowers. I climbed the steep sandy face of Penmaen Burrows and came to haunted, enchanted Pennard Castle looking out over Three Cliffs Bay. History says this was a poorly designed, badly sited stronghold, smothered by blown sand shortly after it was rebuilt in stone around 1300AD. Legend tells how a beautiful princess came to Pennard Castle to be married, and found herself at the mercy of its drunken garrison. These brutes attacked a party of fairies who were coming to the wedding, and the little people caused them and their castle to be buried in a great sandstorm.

I walked the homeward path along the cliffs, looking across the Severn Sea at the blue spine of Exmoor and picturing the princess and the bullies entombed in the dunes. Or did the maiden escape, as some tales tell, to live happily ever after with the fairies? It would be nice to think so.

Start & Finish: West Cliff car park, Southgate, Gower (OS ref SS 554874)

Getting there: M4 (Jct 47); A483, A4216, A4118; before Parkmill, left on B4436 (‘Pennard’); follow ‘Southgate’ to West Cliff car park.

Walk (7 miles, moderate with steep parts, OS Explorer 164).

This is a low-tide walk. Set off shortly after low water (tide times: www.gowerlive.co.uk/tidetimes.php ). If Pobbles Beach covered by sea, follow cliffs to Pennard Castle and return.

West along cliffs for 1 mile, descend to Pobbles Beach (540878). Through cliff arch; follow Pennard Pill to cross stepping stones (538883). Left up path. Near top, left (534884 – ‘Penmaen Burrows’ fingerpost) downhill, then uphill; clockwise round Penmaen Burrows; back to fingerpost. Left to T-junction (534887); right past North Hills Farm, along path to cross A4118 (542891). Up lane opposite, in 200 yards, right to re-cross A4118. Go left of Maes-yr-hâf Restaurant (545892 – ‘Threecliff Bay’); cross stream, right (blue arrow) through woods for ½ mile. Climb steeply to Pennard Castle (544885). Right along cliffs to car park.

Refreshments: North Hill Farm shop, Gower Heritage Centre tearooms, Maes-yr-hâf Restaurant.

Accommodation: King Arthur Hotel, Reynoldston, Swansea SA3 1AD (01792-390775, www.kingarthurhotel.co.uk) – £80 dble B&B.

Information: www.mumblestic.co.uk; www.visitwales.co.uk

Gower Walks Festival 2009: 6-21 June

(www.epmuk.co.uk/GowerWalkingFestival/)

Hebden Water, West Yorkshire

Walks No Responses »

May 232009

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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The chaffinches of Hebden Dale certainly seemed pleased with the day. They were practising their ‘fast-bowler-doing-his-run-up’ songs from every oak and sycamore in the deep, sun-struck valley on this beautiful spring morning – or so it seemed as I descended the gravelly path to where the Hebden Water sparkled among its gritstone rocks. Hebden Dale winds down to Hebden Bridge, one of West Yorkshire’s most productive weaving towns not so long ago, nowadays all cleaned up and classy. Walking by the river up this quiet cleft in the flank of the Brontë Moors, I pictured the smoke and pollution, the roar and clatter of milling that filled the town and its satellite dale scarcely more than a century ago, and found such scenes almost impossible to credit.

Last time I’d walked the dale, the Hebden Water had been charged with storm water and rushed viscous and peat-brown down from the moors. Today the river ran slow and limpid, its dimpled surface reflecting an electric blue flash as a kingfisher streaked by. Broken walls and the remnants of old sluices showed where the mills had once lined the banks. One remains in the dale, the Queen of them all, the handsome neo-classical Gibson Mill, beautifully restored by the National Trust. I stopped in at the Muddy Boots Café for a cuppa and a bit of cake (chocolate, sticky, sinful) and went on up the dale, the chaffinches singing me over the bridges and through the miniature alps of Hardcastle Crags. A steep little climb up the dale side and I was walking up a meadow full of lambs towards the dark stone house of Walshaw.

The long, low farmhouses of these moors, many of them built all of a piece with their cattle barns, always put me in mind of John Wesley and the other passionate non-conformist preachers who set the gunpowder trail of Methodism alight around the farms and mills of West Yorkshire in the mid-18^th century. I don’t know whether Wesley or his fiery colleague, the red-haired Scots pedlar William Darney, ever preached in the barns or outhouses at Walshaw or Lady Royd or Shackleton, the farms along the lane that runs back towards Hebden Bridge along the rim of the dale. But I pictured them there, travel-stained and weary, uplifting their congregations of ploughmen and weavers with glimpses of a promised land.

Start & finish: Hardcastle Crags car park (OS ref SD987292)

Getting there: Train (www.thetrainline.com; www.railcard.co.uk) to Hebden Bridge (2 miles). Bus: from Bradford (500), Keighley (663,664,665) to Hebden Bridge; service ‘H’ from Hebden Bridge station to car park. Road: M65 Junction 9, A646 to Hebden Bridge; A6033 towards Haworth; in 3/4 mile, left to car park (OS ref 987292).

Walk (4 ½ miles, moderate grade, OS Explorer OL21): Follow red-and-white, then red waymark poles down to the river’s edge, then upstream to Gibson Mill (973298). Cross river here; on along left (west bank). In 1/3 mile cross, then recross by adjacent footbridges (971304) to continue on left bank; in another 1/3 mile cross to right bank beside weir and stone hut (973309). Cross side beck by stone bridge; right through stone wall gap; climb steep path on left of beck to farmyard (974313). Right by Walshaw Cottage along stony lane for 1 ½ miles to Shackleton (983295); right here (footpath fingerpost) down crumbling walled field track. Cross stile at bottom; bear left and down through woodland for 1/3 mile to reach upper car park; steps to lower car park and bus stop.

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

Lunch: Muddy Boots Café, Gibson Mill (open weekends, many weekdays: check at http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-hardcastlecrags; tel 01422-844518)

More info: Hebden Bridge TIC (01422-843831 or 368725); www.yorkshire.com

Galtee Mountains, Tipperary, Ireland

Walks No Responses »

May 092009

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

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Never ones to curb their lust for life, my cousin Vicky Clancy and her Irish husband Dermot left me in no doubt about the charms of the Glens of Aherlow Walking Festival. ‘You’ve got to come,’ Vicky declared, unequivocally, ‘you’re going to absolutely and totally love it!’

The Glens of Aherlow Festival, held yearly over the May/June Bank Holiday weekend, is a great occasion. Thousands turn up for 3 days of walking, from half-day saunterers to hard mountain hurdlers. They go out with gusto into the Galtee Mountains, a magnificent but pocket-sized hill range that straddles the Limerick/Tipperary border a few mile north-east of Cork city. They walk all day, talking even harder than they walk, spouting verse and worse, making the hidden hollows ring with shouting and laughter. And that’s all just a preparation for the evening’s crack in Moroney’s of Lisvernane or the bar of Aherlow House Hotel.

Assembling with Vicky, Dermot, Dermot’s irrepressible cousin Ferghal and their many friends under a peerless blue sky in the lane below the splendid peaks of Galtybeg and Slievecushnabinnia, I found I’d somehow joined myself to the ‘A’ group, heroes of the hill, who meant to storm the heights of the Galtees and look down in turn on the Five Lakes.

We set off fifty strong at a clinking pace, all shapes and sizes of rambler, and were scrambling up the steep rock slide above Lough Curra before my breathing had properly caught up with the rest of me. Up on the roof of Galtymore, lord of the Galtees at 3,015 ft, I leaned my sweaty back against the big iron summit cross and stared out over many green and lumpy miles of Ireland. ‘Did you know,’ said walk leader Jimmy Barry to no-one in particular, ‘copper wire was invented in Caragh by two men fighting over a penny.’ That was the start of a most ridiculous shaggy dog story that carried us on above the loughs of Diheen and Borheen, breathless with laughter.

We teetered along the tight path around Greenane, and came down by the pond-like Lough Farbreaga and the beautiful harp-shaped lough of Muskry, with Dermot and Ferghal bounding ahead neck and neck like a couple of Fionn MacCumhaill’s merry men. Spattered with turf splodges and bog water, we stayed a moment to contemplate the still, steely lakes in their bowl of hills. Then it was on along a moorland path, heading for the waiting buses that would waft us down to the sign-off in Lisvernane. And then … ? A pint of Guinness in Moroney’s with new-found friends, a plate of hot potatoes and a bloody good sing.

Start & finish: near Clydagh Bridge, Lisvernane (OSI ref R 873280)

Getting there from Moroney’s pub, Lisvernane: Bus – Festival minibus.

Road: R663 towards Tipperary; first right to T-junction; left for half mile.

Walk (10 miles/16 km approx; about 1,000 m/3,500 feet of climb; hard grade; OSI Discovery 74): From road (873280), steeply uphill to right (west) shore of Lough Curra (866242); climb very steeply to saddle of Slievecushnabinnia (864239); east along ridge for 3½ miles via summits of Galtymore (919 m/3,015 ft; OSI ref 879238) and Galtybeg (799 m/2,621 ft; 890241), along north face of range above Loughs Diheen and Borheen, descending to west shore of Lough Muskry (915245) and track towards Rossadrehid.

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

Lunch: Take picnic

Accommodation: Aherlow House Hotel, Glens of Aherlow, Co Tipperary (tel 00-353-62-56153; www.aherlowhouse.ie) – 4-star lodge (stylish, comfortable, superb mountain views; sleeps 6) over the Festival weekend, around £550 for 4 nights.

More info: www.discoverireland.com

Glens of Aherlow Festival (29 May-1 June 2009; www.aherlow.com)

Scorriton and Huntingdon Warren, Dartmoor

Walks No Responses »

May 092009

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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Whatever the Tradesman’s Arms put in their beef jalfrezi on Curry Night, it revved me right up for a brilliant walk the following day. The hamlet of Scorriton, sitting tight under the eastern rim of Dartmoor, almost lost its pub a few years back, and the shock of that threat galvanised the Tradesman’s Arms into a whole sparky new life. The food’s good, the beer’s excellent, and the social life that revolves around the little inn, from poetry nights to quizzes and singsongs to story-telling, is just amazing. If only all rural communities could respond like tiny Scorriton to the gradual sapping of their resources!

I strode up the stony lane to Chalk Ford like a man on a mission. Misty weather was forecast for later in the day, and though I had my trusty Satmap GPS device in my pack, I didn’t particularly want to find myself in a Dartmoor pea-souper. Once across the rushing River Mardle and up on the moor proper, I found the old track to Huntingdon Warren and hurried along it. When the broad slope of the Warren hove in view beyond the curve of the moor, the ancient settlements, the rabbit warrener’s mounds and the bumpy burial monuments of many millennia stood out unmistakeably.

I got over the lower wall and climbed the hill past the pillow mounds where the farmer/warrener fed and nurtured the rabbits he culled for market. From the crest of the hill I looked down on the ruins of Red Lake china clay works and the huge green and black cone of waste left by the workers. They plagued the merry hell out of the warrener with their poaching raids, undeterred by the security men he posted around his domain.

Back down by the Western Wella Brook I found the little stone-lined hollow of Mattins Corner, with the cross-inscribed stone that Keble Martin set up as a devout young lad in 1909. The future naturalist, painter and author of The Concise British Flora often camped here with his brothers, gaining inspiration from this exceptionally lonely, bleak and beautiful hollow in the moor.

Beyond Mattins Corner stood Huntingdon Cross, carved in granite who knows how many hundreds of years before the Martin brothers created their rough chapel. A gauze of rainy mist came trailing down along the wind. I patted the harsh, weather-smoothed cross for good luck, and then made over Hickaton Hill for Scorriton by luck, GPS, compass and the pricking of my thumbs.

Start & finish: Tradesman’s Arms, Scorriton, Devon, TQ11 0JB (OS ref SX 704685)

Getting there: A38 to Buckfastleigh; signs to Buckfast, then Scorriton.

Walk (OS Explorer OL28):

Easy (4 miles): From village square, pass The Barn B&B and on up lane for 1¼ miles to Chalk Ford (685681). Cross River Mardle; left along lower field edge for ½ mile to Lud Gate (683673). Left down Strole Lane for ¼ mile, left (689673) through Scae Wood to Higher Coombe (700681), Combe and Scorriton.

Moderate (5½ miles, excluding exploration of Huntingdon Warren): From Chalk Ford, diagonally left (SW) up slope for nearly ¾ mile to meet track from Lud Gate at 679678. Bear right and follow track for ¾ mile to Huntingdon Warren wall (667670). Return to Lud Gate; as above to Scorriton.

Hard (6½ miles, as above): At Huntingdon Warren wall, left past Mattins Corner (666665) to Huntingdon Cross (665662). Bear left diagonally up slope of Hickaton Hill, keeping left of large circular enclosure, and follow faint track ENE, then NE for nearly 1 mile to meet Lud Gate track (676671). Right to Lud Gate, as above to Scorriton.

NB: Moderate and hard walks – faintly marked paths, rough open moorland, hard to follow in mist. For walkers competent with map, compass and/or GPS.

Lunch:

Short walk – Tradesman’s Arms, Scorriton (01364-631206; www.thetradesmansarms.co.uk); longer walks, take picnic.

Accommodation: The Barn, Scorriton (01364-631567; www.thebarndartmoor.com) – excellent, welcoming place; £60 dble B&B.

More info: Buckfastleigh TIC (01364-644522; www.visitdevon.co.uk)

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