Christopher Somerville

john

Owslebury & Upham, Hants

Sep 262020

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

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When Sir Henry Seymour of Marwell Hall, flushed with Protestant zeal at the Reformation, found that the priest of St Andrew’s Church at Owslebury had been saying Latin Mass, he had the man arrested. The priest escaped, returned to the church, and was shot at the altar. It didn’t pay to cross Henry Seymour – he counted King Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell as his brothers-in-law.

Rough times at Owslebury back then; but not today, with apples ripening in the village gardens and the old houses trim under their thatched roofs. Beyond the churchyard we picked up the Monarch’s Way path, and followed it along green lanes through steeply rolling countryside of corn stubbles, cattle pasture and scattered woods.

A young roe deer was feeding on the stubble near Austin’s Copse, raising its head every few seconds to flap the flies out of its ears. At Woodlock’s Down Farm a beautiful young horse, black and glossy, galloped across his paddock, snorting with sheer joie de vivre.

The paths around pretty brick-and-flint Upham were bounded with old hedges coming into fruit for autumn – scarlet haws, shiny purple elderberries, greeny-black clusters of guilder rose berries, and quadripartite spindle berries beginning to pink up.

Turning west, we crossed a field where Jane spotted an unnaturally regular shape among the stones. It was a flint scraper, four inches long, its edges scalloped, its business end chipped to a blade-shape, an artful hollow in one side in which the thumb fell precisely where its pressure could be best applied. A tool still fit for purpose after lying in the earth for who knows how long. Ten thousand years? Twenty?

We crossed a Roman road, present on the map but smoothed out of existence by the ploughing of millennia. The homeward path skirted Marwell House, then headed north across the roll and dip of harvest fields and horse paddocks towards Owslebury, where the rooks were beginning to gather for their evening rituals.

Start: Ship Inn, Owslebury, Hants SO21 1LT (OS ref SU 511233)

Getting there: Bus 63 from Winchester
Road – Owslebury is signed from B2177 (Bishop’s Waltham-Winchester), 1 mile from Fisher’s Pond on B3354.

Walk (7 miles, easy, OS Explorer 132): From Ship Inn, left along road (‘Petersfield’). In 300m, right through churchyard; right (515234, fingerpost/FP) along lane (‘Monarch’s Way’/MW). In 400m, through barrier (517230); left along track for ½ mile to cross Lower Baybridge Lane (521226). Up Phillips Farmhouse drive; in 350m, left at deer gate (521222) along edge of Austin’s Copse.

In 350m, left along Greenhill Lane track (524221). In 400m, right (529223, yellow arrow/YA, ‘Footpath Only’) along hedge. Follow YAs and FPs for ½ mile to pass Woodlock’s Down Farm (533217). In 100m, left (532216, 3-finger FP); follow FPs and YAs to road at White Hill (538209). Right into Upham; in 200m, left at grass triangle to pass Brushmakers Arms PH (540206). Right at phone box. Past church, right (538206, ‘Owslebury’); in 100m, left (‘MW’, FP).

Follow MW for 1¼ miles to cross Red Lane (521214). Ahead (YA) through neck of Sladford’s Copse. Along field edge with hedge on left. In 400m, left through hedge gap (517214, YA); right with hedge on right; in 100m, right (stile, YA). Follow fence on right (stiles, YAs). In 150m, right through gates (515214); over stiles then right (513214, stile, YA) up fenced path to Whaddon Lane (512216).

Right; in 200m, right (512217) up Lower Baybridge Lane. In 550m left (517220, wicket gate, FP) up 2 fields with hedge on left; down to cross valley to stile (514228) and fenced path to Owslebury.

Lunch: Ship Inn, Owslebury (01962-777756, owslebury.org.uk); Brushmakers Arms, Upham (01489-860231, thebrushmakersarms.com) – booking advisable at both

Accommodation: Crown Inn, Bishop’s Waltham SO32 1AF (01489-893350, crowninnbishopswaltham.co.uk)

Info: Winchester TIC (01962-840500)
satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Walderton & the Devil’s Humps, West Sussex

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Sep 192020

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

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After days of wild weather and whitened seas along the Sussex coast, a quieter morning dawned over the South Downs. In the hamlet of Walderton, master thatcher Chris Tomkins had his straw bundles and pegs laid out along the gutters of a flint and brick cottage, all handy for the day’s work.

Small clouds went jostling like sheep along the wooded skyline. Our path led east beside stubble fields, sheltered in that characteristic Sussex Downs landscape of dip and rise, every curve of the chalky land pleasing to the eye and heart.

We scanned the furrows as we walked, looking for the bevelled edges and teardrop shapes of Neolithic flint tools lost or left behind by our distant ancestors.

Down behind the neat cottages and carefully tended gardens of Stoughton stood St Mary’s Church, already here when the Normans landed, a blocky building with narrow windows high up. Inside under a simple beam roof a tapestry round the walls depicted the thousand-year story of the downland village in its cradle of woods and slopes.

Beside the flinty lane that led away from Stoughton stood a plain granite pillar. In the adjacent field 23-year-old Pilot Officer Boleslaw Własnowolski – ‘Vodka’ to the other chaps in the mess of 213 Squadron at Tangmere – died in November 1940 when his Hurricane fighter was shot down by a Messerschmitt Me-109. The Polish flag that swathes the pillar, and the poppy wreaths at its foot, show how this young foreign flyer is still remembered here.

The lane ran up to the crest of the downs, where the little grassy domes of the Devil’s Humps lay in line astern. From these Bronze Age burial mounds we had a stunning view south over the glinting inlets of Chichester Harbour, where the spire of Chichester Cathedral lanced into the cloudy sky against a backdrop of trees, creeks and the dull silver plain of the sea.

Flint-cobbled tracks led us south, skirting the scrubby slopes of Kingley Vale National Nature Reserve, a marjoram-scented heaven of wild flowers and butterflies.

We turned for home along a downland highway past the brooding wreck of a great flint barn, and on through woods of oak and beech where the wind whistled and loose leaves pattered earthwards like multi-coloured rain.

Start: Barley Mow Inn, Walderton, Chichester PO18 9ED (OS ref SU 790106). Open again. Please ask permission to park, and give pub your custom!

Getting there: Bus 54 (Chichester-Petersfield)
Road – Walderton is on B2146 (signed from Westbourne, off A27 Portsmouth-Chichester)

Walk (7½ miles, easy, OS Explorer OL8): Right along road. In 50m, right across bridges; grass path to road. Right; in 50m, left (788107, fingerpost); right along field edges. Cross road (792110); on (occasional ‘Monarch’s Way’/MW signs). In 400m, path forks (796113); keep ahead across field to trees (796116). Inside trees, right (MW, ‘bridleway’/BW); immediately keep ahead downhill to road in Stoughton (801114).

Sharp left to church; return to road; right for 150m. By Tythe Barn House, left (801113, BW) up lane. In 350m pass war memorial (804111); on up to top of rise. Forward to 3-finger post (812106, BW); left along track. In ½ mile pass Devil’s Humps (819110); in another ½ mile, right (824115, white arrow in blue circle/WABC) up path; in 150m, right (blue arrow/BA) up stony bridleway.

In 250m cross bridleway (825113, 4-finger post); on downhill. In 550m pass Kingley Vale signs (827108, KV); on down for 500m, right at 4-finger post (828103). In 550m pass KV gate (824100) and on (BW). In 150m, fork right uphill at edge of trees. In 650m, at KV gate on right, fork left (819102, WABC). In ¼ mile, entering yew grow, fork left at 3-finger BW post (815104).

In 650m, at edge of trees, don’t fork left downhill, but keep ahead (809104) into open. In ½ mile, right at ruined barn (800104); inside trees, left along track. In 650m, fork right (794105) downhill past Walderton Down notice to road (792107); left to pub.

Lunch: Barley Mow, Walderton (02393-631321, thebarleymow.pub) – booking advised. Take-away service also available.

Accommodation: Coach & Horses, Compton PO18 9HA (02392-631228, coachandhorsescompton.co.uk) – open and Covid-compliant.

Info: Chichester TIC (01243-775888, visitsoutheastengland.com); satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Braunston & Launde Abbey, Rutland/Leicestershire

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Sep 122020

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

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September, and that first definite nip of autumn in the breeze. We stood in the circular churchyard at Braunston-in-Rutland, admiring the stumpy charms of the Braunston goddess. Imagine the surprise that workmen got in the 1920s when, relaying the church doorstep, they turned it over to discover this extraordinary pagan idol carved on the reverse, mouth and eyes agape, little round breasts outthrust.

Our path lay west across rough pastures where we stumbled up and down the furrows of medieval agriculture, still printed in these fields. Big billowy clouds went blustering about the sky, at one moment dipping us into shivery shade, the next bathing us in hot sunshine. Goldfinches twittered in the hedge where our approach had driven them from their feast of thistle seeds.

In the recently harvested wheatfields, straw bales the shape of giant cotton reels lay among the stubble like an Andy Goldsworthy installation. A ploughman drew furrows of earth behind his tractor, the soil rich and dark with minerals, while a red kite and a swoop of herring gulls homed in on the worms and insects thrown up by the plough.

We dropped into a green lane, the hedges thick with wild fruit – elderberries, hips, haws, milky white hazelnuts and blackberries green, red and polished jet. Beyond lay Withcote Hall Farm, the stables and big house of beautiful gold stone falling into dereliction.

At Launde Abbey we stopped for tea and cakes. The magnificent Tudor house built by Thomas Cromwell’s beloved son Gregory looked out on a bowl of parkland and sheep pasture, as peaceful and soothing as could be.

The way home lay along the valley of the wriggling River Chater, diminished to a streamlet after the long hot summer. In the green grassy bridleway near Leigh Lodge we met a couple hastening along, bearing plastic bags bulging with ripe blackberries. ‘Blackberry wine!’ they beamed.

A flock of linnets bounced and chirruped in the hedge. The shadows of sheep lengthened across the pastures as the sun dipped, bringing a wash of late afternoon gold to this quiet corner of English countryside.

Start: Blue Ball, Braunston-in-Rutland, LE15 8QS (OS ref SK 833066)

Getting there:
Braunston is 2 miles SW of Oakham (A606)

Walk (8½ miles, easy, OS Explorers 234, 233): From west side of church tower, through gate (yellow arrow/YA); on, parallel with hedge on right. In 3rd field fork left (825065) along left-hand hedge and on (YAs, yellow-topped posts/YTP). In 3rd field beyond South Lodge Farm, half left (814057, YA) to far top corner (812056, YTP). On to hedge gap (810054, YTP). Right, then right along green lane. At road, left (809060, stile, YA) across 2 fields to lane (805060). Dogleg right/left; on (YTPs) to Withcote Hall Farm (798058). Left around barn; at gate with YTP, left along fence (‘Leicestershire Round’/LR). At Dutch barn 798056, gate, YTP) ahead over hill, following YTPs to road at Launde Abbey (796044).

Left; in 150m, right (fingerpost, ‘Belton’) following LR (YTPs). In 1¼ miles, LR turns right (815044), but keep ahead/east for 1 mile. Opposite Leigh Lodge, half left (828041, stile, YA, ‘Rutland Round’) across field to lane (825045, stile, YTP). Right to corner; fork right; keep ahead up west side of Priors Coppice. On to road (831059); right to Braunston.

Lunch: Blue Ball, Braunston (01572-722135, theblueballbraunstone.co.uk). Pop in for drinks, or book ahead for 2-hour dining slot (text/WhatsApp 07377-954176)

Accommodation: Admiral Hornblower, High Street, Oakham LE15 6AS (01572-723004, hornblowerhotel.co.uk)

Info: Rutland Water TIC (01780-686800)
satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Harlech to Llandecwyn, Wales Coast Path, Gwynedd

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Sep 052020

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

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Harlech Castle is a lowering presence, there’s no getting away from it. The great turreted stronghold, one of the seven ‘Ring of Iron’ fortresses sited around north Wales in the 1280s by King Edward I, was planted on its rock above the Dwyryd Estuary to dominate and subdue the rebellious locals.

Dark and ominous-looking, the castle frowned down on us as we left Harlech railway station. Soon enough the Wales Coast Path signs pointed us away across the pasture of Morfa Harlech where shiny brown cattle munched, muzzle to grass.

The seaward view was obscured by a line of woodland, but once past the tattered farm of Glan-y-mor the path rose to a most sensational view. Ahead stood the rugged outliers of southern Snowdonia, all scoops and hollows and sharp ridges. Off in the west the mountains declined to the tumbled hills of the Lleyn peninsula lying out on the sea horizon. Sunlight chased dark blue shadows across this dramatic landscape.

The prospect across the Dwyryd estuary was even better. It was the turn of low tide, the river no more than a glinting coil through wide sandbanks. Just opposite rose the fantasy village of Portmeirion, architect Clough Williams Ellis’s dream collection of towers, turrets, cupolas and campaniles, their pinks and blues thrown into prominence by the backdrop of dark woods.

Far beyond, perfectly placed by celestial hands, the tall grey cone of Snowdon’s peak lifted into a blue sky scudding with clouds. A sensational view to all quarters.

We sat and shared an orange and stared our fill, then went on around the lumpy hill of Ynys Llanfihangel-y-Traethau, the ‘Isle of St Michael on the Shore.’ Round on the far side we found the neat little church of St Michael, Victorian in appearance, but actually built more than a century before Harlech Castle, when this hill was a tidal island and horsemen rode across the sands to worship here.

The Wales Coast Path led on towards Llandecwyn Station, dipping down to run north beside the slowly filling marsh creeks through drifts of pale pink thrift. A farmer sheared his ewes under the sea wall, and a sandpiper alighted on the black slate rocks for a moment before dipping its white breast and skimming off on scimitar wings.

Start: Harlech Station, LL46 2UL (OS ref SH 581314)

Getting there: Rail to Harlech. Bus 38, 39 (Dolgellau-Porthmadog)
Road – Harlech station is on A496, just below Harlech Castle. Car park behind station (‘No Through Road’).

Walk (6¾ miles, easy, OS Explorer OL18): From station, right along A496. In 600m, left (582320, ‘Wales Coast Path’/WCP fingerpost) on path to gate. Left along side of housing estate; follow WCP signs. In ½ mile, half left (WCP, 580327); through 3 gates to edge of wood (578332), Right, following WCP. In ¾ mile, approaching Glan-y-mor Farm, half-left across fields to gate by farmhouse (580345). Right along WCP. In 1½ miles at Llanfihangel y Traethau church (595354), anticlockwise round churchyard wall to gate, then right along wall to gate with WCP. Follow WCP to cross road (599355); in 300m, left across watercourse (603353); follow WCP on seawall path for 1¾ miles to cross railway (617373). Left round base of Bryn Glâs hill; in 300m, right through gate (618376, WCP), past cottages, down drive to road (620376); left to Llandecwyn station. Return by train to Harlech.

Lunch: Old Cheese Market, Harlech (07483-316228)
(open)

Accommodation: Crown Lodge, Ffordd Isaf, Harlech, Gwynedd LL46 2PR (01745-817289, thecrownlodge.uk) – characterful stopover with tremendous views.

Info: visitwales.com; walescoastpath.gov.uk

Harlech Castle: cadw.gov.wales; harlech.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Armchair Walker #10 – India in the Cotswolds

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Aug 252020

I’d just about heard the name of Sezincote, but no more than that. I thought it must be another of those gorgeous Elizabethan manors of golden stone that the Cotswolds are so rich in. Queen Bess probably stayed there; Charles II might have dodged pursuit up an oak tree in the park – that sort of thing. But what we found tucked in below the woods near Moreton-in-Marsh was quite a shock to behold.

A day of grumpy weather – nearly as grumpy as Jimmy Anderson. I kept my phone on constant refresh, trying to keep up with the missed catches, rain delays, Pakistani obduracy and other obstacles falling in the path of England’s Greatest Bowler as he strained to capture his 600th Test wicket at Southampton.

Moreton-in-Marsh is a lovely town with a very wide sheep-straggle of a high street tortured by traffic; Bourton-on-the-Hill a beautiful little sloping village of honey-coloured houses made miserable by 4X4s, fat cars and inexcusably fast and noisy motorbikes pelting down its narrow roadway. Between these two, long fields of harvested barley and wheat with cotton-reel bales of straw regularly spaced, as though giants had temporarily suspended some esoteric game and left all the pieces on the board. Rusty barns, far views across a rolling landscape of green and brown, and church towers and gables of that remarkable golden stone peeping out from trees far and near.

South of Bourton, we came on a slice of the Mughal empire set down in the Cotswolds – the extraordinary house of Sezincote, built in 1805 for Sir Charles Cockerell to the designs of his brother Samuel Pepys Cockerell, who incorporated Georgian, Muslim and Hindu architectural styles in a glorious, jolting mishmash of a building. We walked slowly along the fence at the foot of the slope leading up to the house, marvelling at the minarets, enormous curving orangery, cupolas and great green onion dome capping the whole thing off. George, Prince Regent, visited in 1807, and it’s pretty clear where the inspiration for tarting up his Marine Pavilion in Brighton came from.

Other delights of the walk – huge old oaks with acorns sprouting galls like the tentacles of sea anemones, and a hedge full of large plump bullace, fat as damsons and bitter as sloes, which we picked into a bag. They’ll form a bubble with gin and sugar, and be ready to come out of isolation in a Kilner jar just in time for Christmas.

Ely and River Great Ouse, Cambridgeshire

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Aug 152020

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

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Before monks, adventurers and immigrant Dutchmen drained the fenland of East Anglia for agriculture, Ely was an island in a miasmic fen swamp. The town clings to a gentle swell of raised ground. Planted square across the summit of the hill above the surrounding flatlands, the graceful yet lopsided bulk of Ely Cathedral, the ‘Ship of the Fens’, draws the eye from ten miles off.

Seen from close up, the cathedral is a mighty essay in stonework superbly carved and finished, topped with an elaborate medieval lantern of wood, a unique and cunning replacement for the central tower that came crashing down in ruins in 1322.

Viewed from the banks of the River Great Ouse to the south, the building seems endearingly asymmetrical. On this afternoon of scorching summer heat, the towers and walls wavered as they sailed dusty seas of ripe barley.

Hops hung in the hedges, their jointed flowers not yet bloomed into that sticky, heady savour that Victorian rural writer Richard Jefferies likened to the ‘dreamy fragrance of the fabled haschish.’ The towpath alongside the slow-flowing Great Ouse had been cracked by the short, intense heatwave, and in the fields the sun-swollen barley ears hung low and full, awaiting the harvester.

We crossed the side arm of Braham Dock where the narrowboat Sun lay moored up under a limply flapping red flag. At Little Thetford half a dozen tyro rowers were roasting in their singlets, splashing and scooping the glittering water of the river under the barked instructions of their trainer. It looked a lot of effort on such a breathless afternoon, and we were glad to flop down in the shade of a willow for a drink and a nice long stare over the baking fields.

Above the barley the dark slim shape of a marsh harrier went cruising, slowly flapping its long vee of a wingspan as it searched the dusty rows for anything edible in this lean season.

In the distance a red and silver train bellowed like some fantastic beast. Dragonflies chased each other, and the tiny black silhouette of a hobby skimmed the trees on the lookout for dragonflies.

We followed the grassy track of Holt Fen Drove up to Little Thetford, and then the riverbank north again towards Ely and the high-perched Ship of the Fens as she rode the heatwave and the barley seas.
Start: Fore Hill car park, Ely CB7 4AF (OS ref TL 543801)

Getting there: Train to Ely. Bus 9 (Cambridge-Chatteris).
Road – A142 (Newmarket-Chatteris) or A10 (Cambridge-Downham Market).

Walk (9½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 226): From top right corner of car park, alley to Fore Hill. Left; ahead along High Street. At end, left along Minster Place past Ely Cathedral west end (540803). On along The Gallery. In 200m, left through monastic archway (540800). Ahead through The Park; cross Broad Street (543799); through Jubilee Gardens to river (544709). Right (south) on west bank of River Great Ouse for 3¾ miles. Pass marina at confluence with River Cam (534746); just beyond railway bridge, right across river path and follow Holt Fen Drove to road in Little Thetford (534760). Left; in 100m, right (‘Cawdle Fen Way’). Follow path beside Thetford and Grunty Fen Catchwater drains back to river at Braham Dock (540774). Left for 2¼ miles to Ely.

Short walk (4¼ miles): Little Thetford – Braham Dock – Great Ouse – Holt Fen Bridge

Lunch: Picnic by the river

Accommodation: Royal Standard, 24 Fore Hill, Ely CB7 4AF (01353-645104, theroyalstandardely.com)

Info: Ely TIC (01353-662062); elycathedral.org
Ships of Heaven by Christopher Somerville (Doubleday)
satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Eton & Boveney, Berks

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Aug 082020

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

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Only just upriver from London, Eton – like the past – is Another Country. The town and its famous college occupy the nub end of a flat, sprawling island between the Jubilee River and the River Thames. Enormous meadows, hayfields and commons occupy most of this ground, with the Thames a whispering, reedy presence along the south side of the island.

Disembarking at Windsor & Eton Riverside station, we saw the great Round Tower of Windsor Castle looming large on the southern skyline. Once across the Thames and out into The Brocas – the first of Eton’s meadows – we looked back to see the castle in all its magnificence, one of the classic views of tourist England.

The honk and gabble of Canada geese and the rude quacking laughter of mallard drakes came from the river as we walked the Thames Path west among hikers, wanderers and dog strollers. Soon these fell behind, and we went on through a level landscape as evocative of agriculture as of leisure, where farmers were baling and carting hay from the meadows.

A poignant memorial stone by the river recorded Hiatt C Baker’s gift of this stretch of the bank to Eton College in memory of his son John, a member of the college killed in a flying accident in 1917. ‘A brilliant swimmer,’ recorded the proud father, ‘who spent here many of the happiest hours of his boyhood.’

At Boveney Lock the lock keeper was on duty outside his charming cottage in its meticulously kept garden. Beyond we found the Church of St Mary Magdalene, now in the care of the nicely named ‘Friends of Friendless Churches’. This modest chapel, built of clunch and flint, was founded for the use of Thames bargemen, and the rough simplicity of its interior woodwork seems to fit the place and function perfectly.

We turned back past The Old Place, a house of mellow red brick and twisty chimneys, and followed paths over Dorney Common and North Field towards Eton. Along the neat and tidy High Street were handsome ornate gateways, lovely old houses, boys and masters in white ties and tails, and a wonderful chapel and college library fit – literally – for a prince.

Start: Windsor & Eton Riverside station car park, Datchet Rd, Windsor SL4 1QG (OS ref SU 969774)

Getting there: Rail to Windsor & Eton Riverside
Road – station is on B470, signed off A308 in Windsor (M4, Jct 6)

Walk (6½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 160): Cross Thames on footbridge. Follow Thames Path west. In 2 miles pass Boveney Lock (945778); in 500m, at chapel, right inland (940777). At road (939778), right past Old Place; in 100m, left (fingerpost). At top left corner of field bear right (939783); in 100m, left across Cress Brook footbridge (940783). Half right across Dorney Common. Cross road at cattle grid (943786); on with stream on right to gate and cycleway (943791). Right; in 400m, pass end of footbridge (947791); in another 400m, right (951792, fingerpost, kissing gate) across field, aiming left of phone mast to cross road (954791). On across paddocks (stiles) to North Field (956789). Right; anticlockwise round field to road embankment (959785). Dogleg right/left under road; right along field edge; under railway (962783). Ahead on tarmac road, following ‘Eton Walkway’ to Eton High Street (966780). Right to Thames footbridge and station.

Lunch: Boatman PH, Thames Side, Windsor SL4 1QN (01753-620010, boatmanwindsor.com)

Accommodation: George Inn, 77 High St, Eton SL4 6AF (01753-861797, georgeinn-eton.co.uk)

Info: Windsor TIC (01753-743900); satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Holne, Bench Tor & River Dart, Devon

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Aug 012020

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

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The painted saints contemplated one another from their rood screen panels in the Church of St Mary the Virgin at Holne. Looking at their long, expressive faces and richly coloured robes, we wondered what could have persuaded an artist of such talent to come in Tudor times to this obscure village church under the eastern rim of Dartmoor. Whoever he was, he left a remarkable legacy here.

Holne lies sunk in a hollow above the young River Dart. A green churchyard path led out of the village, and soon we were descending the narrow road to Michelcombe under a hot afternoon sun. Cooper the golden retriever bounced out of a house to bark us on our way up a clinking stony lane that climbed towards the moor.

Sheep lay panting on a heap of soil in a gateway, their chins pressed deep into the cool earth. The views broadened all the way, south and east over steep pastureland to where the sea lay beneath a grey haze in Tor Bay.

A gate led out onto the open moor. We crossed the granite bars of an ancient cattle grid over Wheal Emma Leat, once the power source for the tin mines of this area, now a low ditch half hidden among sedges.

A path wound through the bracken, heading northeast, its dry peat surface stamped with the prints of sheep’s hooves and pony shoes. Soon it made rendezvous with a moor road that ran between banks of devil’s-bit scabious and wild thyme.

A dozen moor ponies were hanging out in the car park at Venford Reservoir, moodily swishing their long tails as they waited for tourist sandwiches. We made for the flat granite boulders of Bench Tor, a grandstand from which to admire the giant view and to spy out the homeward path.

A precipitous scramble down beside a stone wall into the depths of the River Dart’s gorge, a delicious cool plunge in the peat-dark waters of Sharrah Pool, and we were heading back to Holne on the riverside track through oak woods where the declining sun dappled tree trunks, pathway and the shallows of the river in the quiet valley.

Start: Village car park, Holne, Newton Abbott TQ13 7SL (OS ref SX 706695)

Getting there: Holne is signposted off B3357 Two Bridges road, west of Ashburton (A38)

Walk (7½ miles, moderate/strenuous, OS Explorer OL28): From west end of church, left through hedge gap; right (fingerpost/FP) across field. Cross road (705694); on to Michelcombe. Right at junction (697690), follow ‘Bridleway’ up stony track. In ½ mile, ahead through gate (687690) onto Access Land; same direction to cross stone bars over Wheal Emma Leat (685691). In 150m, right on grass track (685692); in 500m, meet and follow wall (687697); in 400m, join stony road (690698). Cross stream (692699); in 150m, sharp right at junction (691700) to road (694701). Left to Venford Reservoir car park (688709). Aim across moor to Bench Tor (692716); then southeast to corner of stone wall (692715). Keep wall on right; in 300m, follow it left (695713), very steeply down beside wall through woods to River Dart (697715). Left along track to Sharrah Pool (696717). Return along track and on. In 1¾ miles hairpin sharp right (711703, FP on right) up Two Moors Way back to Holne.

Conditions: Very steep descent to River Dart – for surefooted people! Unwaymarked paths across the moor.

Picnic: On Bench Tor, or down by the River Dart

Info: Totnes TIC (01803-411183); visitsouthdevon.co.uk; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Castle Acre & Nar Valley Way, Norfolk

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Jul 252020

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

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Just behind the houses and the big flint-built Bailey Gate in Castle Acre’s main street, a great castle fortified in the 12th century by the de Warenne family stands in ruins on its 100 ft mound, still strikingly severe and dramatic.

We walked the ramparts and descended into the ditches, picturing those desperate days of Civil War between 1135 and 1153 when Stephen of Blois and the Empress Matilda contested the English crown and only the strongest stronghold gave security.

The ancient thoroughfare that brought friend and foe to the walls of Castle Acre, a route known nowadays as Peddar’s Way, had been in use for millennia when the de Warennes held sway here. We followed the old road out of the village to where the River Nar dimpled over shallows of flint and sand across a wide ford.

At South Acre, St George’s Church stood by the roadside. Inside we admired the ornate, 20-foot-tall medieval font cover and the intricately carved foliage of the old rood screen. In the north chapel, Sir Edward Barkham (Lord Mayor of London, 1621-2) lay in stiffly splendid effigy on a tomb chest beside his wife Jane, while on the floor nearby the 14th-century brass likenesses of Sir John and Lady Katherine Harsick lay fondly holding hands.

Beyond South Acre the sandy lane of Petticoat Drove climbed out of the shallow Nar Valley through gently undulating corn and beet fields. A rising wind whistled in the tops of ash and sycamore as we passed Three-Cocked-Hat Plantation. Dropping down a long grassy lane towards the River Nar again, we caught glimpses through the hedges of tall blocks of flint masonry, the remnants of West Acre’s Augustinian Priory.

The Nar Valley Way led homeward along duckboard trails, over squelchy ground and on past the juicy reedbeds and marsh ground of Castle Acre Common. This valley was nicknamed the Holy Land for its many religious houses, and on the outskirts of Castle Acre we found the Cluniac Priory established by William de Warenne at about the same time as the castle.

Guarding the tight cluster of monastic buildings stood the tall west front of the abbey church, superbly built and engineered, sculpted with a row of stone heads more pagan than Christian, enigmatically staring down as they have done for almost a thousand years.

Start: Castle Acre, near King’s Lynn, PE32 2AE (OS ref TF 816152)

Getting there: Flexibus from Swaffham (Booking – 0300-123-1145)
Road – Castle Acre is signed off A1065 between Swaffham and Fakenham

Walk (7½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 236): Follow signs to castle (819152); walk ramparts. From SE corner of precinct (820150), right along Nar Valley Way/NVW). At Bailey Street, left (819150, ‘Peddars Way’/PW). In 100m, right (PW) up Blind Lane. In 100m, fork left (white acorn); at T-junction (816148), left past ford (816146). Just beyond Church Farm, right along road (812143). Pass South Acre church (810143); in 350m, left (807144, ‘Restricted Byway’) up Petticoat Drove. In ¾ mile, right at grain silos (801133, ‘Circular Walks’/CW); in ¾ mile, right (788137, CW), north for ¾ mile to cross road (785148). In ¼ mile, cross NVW (785151); bear left (‘public footpath’) across common. At ford, right along road (789151); in 50m, left (NVW) for 2 miles back to Castle Acre.

Lunch: Picnic by River Nar ford on outskirts of Castle Acre.

Accommodation: Pigshed Motel, George & Dragon Inn, Swaffham Road, Newton by Castle Acre, PE32 2BX (01760-306037, thepigshedmotel.co.uk)

Info: Castle Acre castle and priory – english-heritage.org.uk – booking required

Kings Lynn TIC (01553-763044), satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Armchair Walker #9 – Magical Landscape

Armchair Walker No Responses »

Jul 122020

A short but magical walk in the green lanes and meadows around Glastonbury Tor. It’s only a hop and a skip from the village, a landscape of short steep rises and falls, above which the Tor stands out like a beacon. I’ve known this piece of country all my life, and have added and subtracted the tower on the Tor in my mind’s eye countless times, trying to decide if the hill itself would be so remarkable and eye-catching if it wasn’t completed by that finger of stone pointing up to the sky.

A network of lanes surrounds the Tor. Some are proper green lanes with grassy floors and thick hedges through which you get an occasional striking glimpse of the hill, its smoothly rising back silhouetted against the sky, bristling with the tiny figures of pilgrims ascending to the crowning landmark. Other lanes are stony or laid with cracked old tarmac. All are narrow, single-track roadways, overhung with ash and beech, a few of the ash looking sick and limp from ash dieback disease. A perfect comma butterfly sunned itself with scalloped wings outspread, not a tatter in its fabric.

We walked a rising lane through a holloway cutting. Beech trees clung to the exposed strata of rock with roots as grey and knobbled as old men’s fingers. Out along a ridge with grassy verges, where giant hogweed raised multiple heads packed with chunky purple and silver seeds. Northwards we had a wonderful sunlit view of the whole Mendip range from the little quiff of Crook Peak in the west to the hills beyond Shepton in the east, with the towers of Wells Cathedral shining at the foot of the ridge. Nearer at hand lay shapely Launcherley Hill, always a magnet to my eyes, the archetype of a West Country hill, a rounded patchwork of pastures, hedges and trees.

Back round the northern meadows, paying our respects as we passed the twin giants Meg and Mog, huge old trees now split, dried and skeletal, but still exuding a kind of ruined majesty.

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