Christopher Somerville

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


A cold morning nipping at the nose and fingertips, and a clear blue sky fitted like a bowl over East Berkshire. The paths between Moor Green Lakes were a stodge of dark mud, but the open fleets of water winked and glittered in the low winter sun.

Wintering wildfowl love these flooded gravel pits, packed with food and secure from disturbance. A dozen cormorants stretched their wings to dry on the stony ridge of Plover Island. Chestnut-headed wigeon with ginger foreheads sailed together in a silent company, while the white flanks of tufted duck showed up bravely in the sunlight, the brilliant gold of their eyes only revealed in our binocular lenses.

We followed the chuckle and swish of the fast-flowing River Blackwater past contorted willows and leafless hazel whips where catkins were dangling. Soon we had left behind the eternal background screeching of black-headed gulls on the lakes, and were headed north past a paddock where a horse in a quilted winter jacket patterned with zebras snorted out twin jets of steamy breath as it gave us the sideways eye.

Among rhododendrons, berried hollies and tall pines in the tangled grounds of Ambarrow Court we passed a frosty hollow where a huge Victorian mansion once stood. During the Second World War the Royal Aircraft Establishment took over the house and conducted top secret research here into early forms of radar.

The railway line from Reading to Aldershot runs dead straight through the pinewoods beyond, and we followed a trackside footpath up to the station at Crowthorne, its windows extravagantly gabled like a Bavarian hunting lodge.

Beyond Crowthorne a byway led through more coniferous woodland, before cutting south in a beeline for the heathy heights and hollows of Finchampstead Ridge. Here on sandy soil glinting with mica chips we stood under the tall pines of a spinney at the edge of the ridge, looking out over thickly wooded country.

Here was the place to breathe in the cold air of a winter afternoon scented with pine resin, the landscape before us a blur of bright sun striking through the misty exhalations of the forest.

How hard is it? 5¾ miles; easy; lakeside and woodland tracks

Start: Moor Green Lakes car park, Finchampstead, RG40 3TF (OS ref SU 806628)

Getting there: Train to Crowthorne
Road – car park is 1 mile southwest of Crowthorne (A321 Sandhurst-Wokingham)

Walk (OS Explorer 160): Head towards lakes. In 700m, left (806621), following Blackwater Valley Path/BVP). In 1 mile just before road, left through barrier (819619). In 450m cross road (821623). At next road, right (822627); ahead on path (‘Ambarrow Court’). Cross A371 (824627, take care!). Through car park; ahead between metal bollards. At path T-junction, left; in 50m, left (red marker). In 50m, right at fingerpost to railway (827627). Don’t cross; left beside line; in 250m, right across railway (825630). Left beside line to road at Crowthorne Station (823638). Left to roundabout (821637); take Restrictive Byway/RB opposite. In 800m, left at 6-finger post (814641, RB). In 200m, left (813641, RB) for 700m to road (811634). Right; on bend, head past NT notice (‘FPC’). Follow path to left; head for bench at spinney viewpoint (809633). Descend path on right to track crossing (808632), left. In 400m pass metal barrier (810630); right down lane to road (809627); right to car park.

Lunch: Tally Ho, Fleet Hill, Eversley, RG27 0RR (0118-973-2134. brunningandprice.co.uk/tallyho)

Accommodation: The Kingsley at Eversley, Reading Road, Eversley RG27 0NB (0118-907-6322, thekingsley.co.uk)

Info: Moor Green Lakes Group (mglg.org.uk)

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


Chilworth station on a cold, cloudy winter’s afternoon, the little train disappearing clickety-clack down the line and our feet itching for a good step-out among the Surrey Hills.

This region of upland heaths and open commons was thought wonderfully remote and wild when arty folk from London began to venture down the railway in late Victorian times. In Chilworth and neighbouring Blackheath they left a legacy of gorgeous Arts & Crafts houses, with tall brick chimneys, wonky walls, and upper storeys hung with mellow red tiles.

In the banks of Sample Oak Lane the coppiced hazels were already hung with catkins, and the very first green spear blades of bluebell leaves were pushing up through the moss in the outskirts of Blackheath Forest. Two robins sprang up from a beech log and battled furiously breast to breast in mid-air, wings winnowing and thorn-like beaks ajar, each intent on making this patch of breeding territory its own.

The path climbed gently through hummocks and hollows, at one moment a stodge of dark peaty mud, the next a pale sandy strip in the heather. Leafless bilberries made a geometric green tangle through which dogs went pattering, drawn by scents unfathomable to mere humans.

We topped out on open ground of sombre colours – heather, moss, bronze-hued bracken and tall pine trees, all bedded on the greensand ridge that underlies this landscape. Nightjars and Dartford warblers nest here in summer, but today the rooks and red kites had the airways to themselves.

Rain came spattering across the heath, then a pale watery sun drifted from the clouds and turned the pine trunks pink. We passed an ancient oak, a knobbed and twisted old monster with limbs flung wide, and turned back west past a cottage deep in the trees on an acre of grass, as snug and lonely as any of Grimm’s woodcutter’s abodes.

At Blackheath the cricket field lay battened down, its gabled pavilion shut. Handsome houses with railed porches and neat gardens lined the road, where a fingerpost pointed to ‘This Way, That Way, Somewhere Else’.

A bridleway led over the heath and down a deep, dark holloway towards Chilworth. In a beautifully laid hedge a little flicker of movement caught the eye – a goldcrest, its forehead embellished with gold, a tiny bright bird as plump as a dormouse, intent on picking sustenance from the bare twigs with a bill almost too miniscule to see.

How hard is it? 5½ miles; easy woodland and heath tracks.

Start: Chilworth railway station, near Guildford GU4 6TT (OS ref TQ031472)

Getting there: Rail to Chilworth. Bus 32 (Guildford).
Road: on A248, signed from Shalford on A281, south of Guildford.

Walk (OS Explorer 145): From station, down Sample Oak Lane. In ⅓ mile, fork left by shelter labelled ‘Brantyngeshay’ (032467, fingerpost/FP). In 100m fork left (blue arrow/BA) on bridleway. In 300m dogleg right/left past Blackheath Common signboard (035465, BA). Keep ahead over cross-tracks (occasional BAs and FPs). In ½ mile, at another Blackheath Common signboard (043462), left on broad track.

In 150m fork right (045461, BA) through trees. In ½ mile at wide clearing (050460), fork right past ‘Beth Edwards’ bench. In 250m, sharp right at 1 Lipscombe Cottage along drive (053458), soon a woodland path. In 300m cross track (049458). In 200m pass cottage (046458, stile, ‘Fox Way’/FW). At Candleford Cottage, right (044457, FP, FW) for ⅔ mile to Blackheath village.

At right hand side of cricket field, left (036461) on track to road (033462). Left; at crossroads, right (‘That Way’); in 100m, left (032463, ‘Bridleway’ fingerpost) on bridleway, keeping ahead over side tracks. In ¼ mile, just beyond ‘Tangley Way’ house, fork left (028464) ‘Downs Link’).

In ⅔ mile, at Deer’s Leap Cottage on left (020465), right on lane past Great Tangley Manor Farm. In ⅓ mile, at T-junction (025469, FP), left beside wall to A248 (025471). Right to station.

Lunch/accommodation: Percy Arms, Chilworth GU4 8NP (01483-561765, thepercyarms.net)

Info: surreyhills.org; Guildford TIC (01483-44433)

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


A cold and blowy midwinter’s morning over the chalk downs where Oxfordshire meets Berkshire. The racehorses exercising near Sparsholt Firs blew steamy breaths, and a brisk south-westerly wind shook the hawthorns and shivered the puddles along the upland tracks.

We squelched through mud as pale and glutinous as pancake batter to reach the grassy track of the ancient Ridgeway across Hackpen Hill. Long views opened across downland fields clipped and stubbled for winter, with leafless beech spinneys, rounded by the wind, standing along the ridges.

A redwing flew up into a bush and then straight and level across the stubble, displaying a dusky red flash along its flanks. Berries not yet plucked by the birds hung wrinkling in the thorn trees through which the strong breeze came whistling.

The roll of the land hid the depths of the dry chalk valley to the north. Down there at Childrey Warren archaeologists recently made an extraordinary discovery. Among the remains of 26 people, buried some two thousand years ago, they found the skeleton of a woman placed in a bizarre ritual position, legs splayed, hands on head, feet amputated and placed beside her. Beneath her body lay another, that of a new-born baby.

We walked on along the Ridgeway, speculating on all the births, deaths and ceremonies this 5,000-year-old track must have seen. Bygone travellers took their lives in their hands when they set out in winter along the Ridgeway, where after prolonged rain the mud could lie deep enough to trap or even drown the unwary. Today a spattered trouser leg was the worst inconvenience we faced.

Down in the vale the clustered houses of Letcombe Bassett lay below chalk slopes corrugated and hollowed by the storms and floods of millennia. The Ridgeway dipped and rose, a broad green ribbon, to reach Gramp’s Hill. Here we turned down a farm road, southward into a sheltered valley where the wind dropped to a gentle sigh in the sycamores.

A flock of fieldfares, slim grey cousins of the redwings, flew purposefully across the way with cackling cries. Beside the path pale green catkins jigged on hazel twigs and dried heads of cow parsley nodded stiffly, animated by the wind.

The rutted track snaked up again to pass the rusty barns and sheds at Stancombe Farm. Opposite, by contrast, lay the organically farmed, immaculately kept domain of Sheepdrove Farm – a dewpond with a duck house, tree plantations with permissive paths, new hedges, wildlife corridors. An agricultural landscape ahead of the curve, as wildlife-friendly farming begins its journey to becoming the norm across our countryside.

We turned for home through the Sheepdrove fields. Jackdaws congregated raucously in the trees, and half a dozen red kites went sideslipping over a beanfield, their chestnut backs glowing in the low winter sun.

How hard is it? 6½ miles; easy; clear downland tracks

Start: Sparsholt Firs car park, near Lambourn, OX12 9XB (OS ref SU 344851)

Getting there: Sparsholt Firs is on B4001 between Lambourn and Wantage

Walk (OS Explorer 170): Walk east along Ridgeway. In 1¾ miles on Gramp’s Hill, right along road (370840). Beyond Parsonage Hill Barn keep ahead on grassy track (367834). In ¼ mile, at ‘Ridgeway closed to motor vehicles’ sign, fork right (367830). In nearly 1 mile pass Stancombe Farm entrance on right (356820); in ½ mile at red barn, right (349816, ‘Byway, No Through Road’). In 700m by houses (346823), keep left on grassy byway; in 1½ miles at B4001 (341845), right to car park.

Lunch/Accommodation: Greyhound Inn, Letcombe Regis, Wantage OX12 9JL (01235-771969, thegreyhoundletcombe.co.uk

Info: nationaltrail.co.uk, sheepdrove.com

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


Above the thatched cottages of Selworthy, the whitewashed tower of All Saints Church looked out across a wide green valley to the high undulating skyline of the Exmoor hills. A perfect view for a perfect winter’s day of blue sky and brisk wind.

A buzz like that of an angry wasp showed where someone was busy cutting wood in Selworthy Combe. The path rose through the trees between banks of tiny trumpet-shaped mosses. A robin perched on a post, puffing out his red breast and trilling a silvery call, quite unafraid as we passed within touching distance.

A brook came rustling down over neat little log spillways, its soft rich chuckle accompanying us all the way up through the oak and holly groves to the moor above. A contrast as abrupt as a knife cut, abandoning the shelter of the woods for the open moor where a biting wind ruffled the seas of heather and gorse running away to the horizon.

The National Trust and Holnicote Estate take great care and trouble over these 12,000 acres of upland, moor and combes. The woods are sensitively managed, the farms well run, and the hundreds of miles of footpath properly signposted.

We followed a broad bridleway through the gorse to the cairn on Selworthy Beacon. From here the view was mighty, over the rolling Exmoor hills, east and west along the curved cliffs of the Somerset coast, and out north across a Bristol Channel as pale as ice to the misty shores of South Wales under a long triple bar of cloud.

Above us only sky, as blue as delicate porcelain. We skirted a harras of Exmoor ponies, long tails billowing in the wind, and struck east along the South West Coast Path with the sea at our left elbow. A long cattle train of belted Galloway heifers went gadding and lurching along the skyline at a clumsy canter, delighted to be out in the open air.

The coast path led between sheep pastures through wind-stunted gorse bushes as stout as trees. A solitary bee buzzed among the gold gorse flowers, first raider of the year.

We turned inland and dropped down to Wydon Farm, hidden in a cleft so steep that, like Lucy in ‘The Tale of Mrs Tiggy Winkle,’ it looked ‘as though we could have dropped a pebble down the chimney.’

The homeward path lay along high-banked farm lanes. Tiny lambs bleated in quavering voices for their mothers, and a little egret stepped fastidiously along a streamlet, searching with gimlet eyes for any morsel to assuage its winter hunger.

How hard is it? 5½ miles; moderate hill walk, very well waymarked

Start: All Saints Church car park (£1 donation), Selworthy, Minehead, Somerset TA24 8TR (OS ref SS 920468)

Getting there: Selworthy is signed off A39 (Minehead to Porlock)

Walk (OS Explorer OL9): Left along road; right by church and follow ‘Selworthy Beacon’ fingerposts for 1 mile to Selworthy Beacon (919480). At cairn/trig pillar, left for 100m; right down to South West Coast Path (917481). Right along SWCP; in 1½ miles, right (938476, ‘Wydon ½’ fingerpost). In ½ mile at Wydon Farm, right (938470) on road. In 400m fork right (939466, ‘Hindon’). At Hindon Farm, left (933466) up track to road (931464). Ahead; in 300m, right (932461, ‘Selworthy Beacon’). At East Lynch Farm fork right (929462, ‘bridleway’). In 100m fork right again; in 50m, left (927463, stile, ‘public footpath’). Along fence to stile (935464); half right to road (923466); left into Selworthy.

Lunch/accommodation: Ship Inn, Porlock TA24 8QD (01643-862507, shipinnporlock.co.uk)

Info: nationaltrust.org/selworthy

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


The River Severn’s estuary was at a fantastically low tide as we crossed the ‘new’ bridge on a day of no cloud whatsoever. Looking seaward through the stroboscopic flicker of the bracing wires, we could see the tidal outcrop of the English stones fully exposed and slathered in red mud.

Downriver, the little hump of Denny Island off Portishead stood marooned in a huge desert of sand. Other sand and mud banks lay around the widening tideway like beached whales.

We were heading to Llanvihangel Crucorney, a placename whose sound put the immortal walking writer John Hillaby in mind of ‘a toy train scampering over points’. Llanvihangel Crucorney lies in the River Monnow valley that forms the eastern boundary of the Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons. It’s a great jumping off point for walks westward into those mountains, but today we were aiming east to climb The Skirrid (Ysgyryd Fawr, the ‘big split one’), a tall hill that lies north-south with its head cocked and spine raised like an alert old dog.

The Skirrid is made of tough old red sandstone lying in a heavy lump on top of thin layers of weaker mudstone – hence its history of slippage and landslides. We came up to it in cold wind and brilliant sunshine across fields of sheep, skirting its western flank through scrub woods, gorse bushes blooming yellow and holly trees in a blaze of scarlet berries, with the dark purple crags of the northern end hanging over little rugged passes of landslide rocks fallen in a jumble.

The ascent is short, steep and stepped, but it’s the sort of ‘starter mountain’ that families with six-year-olds can manage. Many were out – mums, dads, children, students, ‘maturer’ folk such as us.

Once at the peak in this unbelievably clear weather we gasped to see the landscape laid out in pin-sharp detail a thousand feet below and fifty miles off – Malverns, Black Mountains; farmlands rising and falling towards Gloucestershire and the Midlands; the slanting tabletops of Penyfan and Cribyn over in the Brecon Beacons; Cotswolds, Mendip, Exmoor; and the south Wales coast trending round into far-off Pembrokeshire.

Nearer at hand a grey streak of softly glimmering sea showed the tide rising in the Severn Estuary past Brean Down’s promontory, the slight disc of Flat Holm and the hump of her sister island Steep Holm, their lower edges lost in mist so that they looked like floating islands in some fabulous sea.
How hard is it? 6½ miles; strenuous short climb, some stumbly parts.

Start: Skirrid Mountain Inn, Llanvihangel Crucorney, Abergavenny NP7 8DH (OS ref SO 326206)

Getting there: Bus X3 (Hereford-Abergavenny)
Road – Llanvihangel Crucorney is on A465 (Abergavenny-Hereford)

Walk (OS Explorer OL13): Opposite church, lane (gateposts) to cross A465. Down drive; right at wall (325204); follow Beacons Way/BW arrow waymarks. Pass wood-framed barn; in 100m, right (328202, BW, gate). Follow BW across fields to lane at Pen-y-parc (336192). Right; beyond ‘Steppes’ house, left (332191, stile); follow BW to foot of Skirrid (333186). Right on path along west side of Skirrid to rejoin BW at southern foot of mountain (327169). Follow BW up to Skirrid summit (331183). Return; in 200m, sharp left beside hollow (331181); path descends to north foot (333185). Retrace BW back to lane at Steppes (332191). Left; in ½ mile, opposite Llwyn Franc, right (325190, gate, fingerpost ‘Crossways’). Follow hedge on right to gate/stile (325192). Half left across field, crossing Great Llwyn Franc drive (324193); on down to Crossways House (323200) and Llanvihangel Crucorney.

Lunch/Accommodation: Skirrid Mountain Inn, Llanvihangel Crucorney (01873-890258, skirridmountaininn.co.uk)

Info: Abergavenny TIC (01873-853254, visitwales.com)