Christopher Somerville

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

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A bunch of lads and girls were shouting cheerfully at one another as they punted a ball about the playing field at Rosliston Forestry Centre. Under a brisk sky they gave an upbeat flavour to the start of our walk through the young plantations along the National Forest Way.

What the National Forest has done for a great swath of the post-industrial Midlands is an unsung miracle. Across 200 square miles of countryside dug, delved and scooped into holes by coal mines and quarries, a green flood of trees is being released – 20 million of them. Dozens of small new woodlands, many linked to form wildlife corridors, lie scattered across the scarred landscapes of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire, their skein of footpaths beckoning to walkers.

The National Forest Way forms the spine of this network of paths. We followed the well-marked Way along the edge of Rosliston Wood until we left it for the farmland paths around Caldwell. A hundred starlings blackened the hedges at Longlands Farm, stripping the elderberries until our approach had them whirring off in a cloud like clockwork birds.

We crossed an old railway, a curve of thistles and thick grass in the corn stubble, and threaded our way along the footpath through Long Close Wood among oak, ash and wild cherry now thirty feet tall. Long Close Wood was planted twenty years ago as part of the ‘Woods on your Doorstep’ scheme, a far-thinking initiative that saw 250 new woods created to celebrate the Millennium.

In Top Wood the rowans hung thick with orange berries, the guelder rose bushes with crimson fruit. Hard green crab apples lay where they had tumbled onto the path. Every leaf shone in the sun, making a glitter of the patchwork of gold, green and scarlet. Near Park Farm a row of poplars stood tall as guardsmen with straight backbones and puffed out chests.

The trees of Penguin Wood, planted just ten years ago, stood only shoulder-high. But the ground around them was bright with late-blooming wild flowers – ragwort, plantain, meadowsweet and lady’s bedstraw. We left the young wood and followed the National Forest Way back to Rosliston, scarcely able to believe the transformation of what was, only a generation ago, a dark and derelict landscape.

Start: Rosliston Forestry Centre, Burton Rd, Rosliston, Derbs DE12 8JX (OS ref SK 243176)

Getting there: Bus 22 (not Sunday), Burton-Swadlincote.
Road – M42 (Jct 11), A444 towards Swadlincote, then follow ‘Linton’ and ‘Rosliston’.

Walk (6 miles, forest and field paths, OS Explorer 245): From ‘National Forest Way’/NFW notice at back of car park, go left and follow NFW arrow to right. In 100m cross playing field to bottom right corner. Left on gravel track. In 200m, right; follow NFW past lakes and across a long footbridge (247177). Right along forest edge. In ½ mile, reach a clearing with bench and crossing of tracks (250170). Leave NFW here, turning sharp left on grass path, passing ‘Cauldwell’ signpost. Along field edge to driveway; ahead to road in Caldwell (255173).

Right past Pegasus School. In ¼ mile on right bend, left through gateway (257170, fingerpost); half right across field to cross Cauldwell Road (259167, stiles, fingerposts). Half left across field, aiming for Longlands Farm (261164); left through 2 wicket gates; on along left side of shed. At far end, cross stile; half right across paddock to gate at far right corner. Left up field edge with hedge on left; through gateway; on with wood on left. Over stile; cross field, then old railway (267165). Cross next field; through hedge; half right, aiming left of white house on far side to reach road (270165).

Cross into Long Close Wood (signed). In 20m fork left along north edge of wood. In 150m, at info board, right along Public Right of Way. In 450m, cross old railway (272159) and on. At a clearing, fork left under electricity wires, past a stile (yellow arrow/YA) and on with poplar hedge on left. Enter Top Wood (271153, signed); in 70m, right (NFW) past Park Farm and on.

In 600m dogleg left/right across road (262156); on past ‘Penguin Wood’ sign across field with trees on right. In 150m turn right, then immediately left over stile into enclosure. Follow grass path to telegraph pole; fork left to cross lower stile; path to north edge of Penguin Wood (259159). Left; follow wood edge as it curves left. In 100m, right across plank bridge; right to footbridge (257159). Ahead (NFW) across large field, aiming to left of Blakenhall Farm. Between 2 oak trees; cross path (255162); past 2 trees beyond; ahead to cross Linton Road (253165).

Along drive, past Cinderlands Cattery (251166), then field edges and forestry outskirts (NFW). Just short of Calves Croft Farm, NFW turns right (249169); keep ahead here to ‘No Public Access’ notice. Left (footpath waymark) round field edge to stile (246170, YA). Right through Rosliston Wood on grass path, past wooden playground, to car park.

Lunch: The Hub Café, Rosliston Forestry Centre

Accommodation: Riverside Hotel, Branston, Staffs DE14 3EP (01283-511234, facebook.com/oldenglishinns)

Rosliston Forestry Centre: 01283-563483, www.roslistonforestrycentre.co.uk

Info: nationalforest.org
visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

I would like to  draw your attention to the Isle of Wight Classic Buses, Beer and Walks Weekend taking place 14/15 October.   This is an annual event and travelling on classic buses – 101 in total – and is absolutely free.    People are encouraged to purchase a £6 programme which details all walks and pubs with maps and timetables, plus £40 worth of offers from participating pubs. 
 
Here’s a list of walks http://iwbeerandbuses.co.uk/walks.php.     

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

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The Earl’s Palace frowns out over the Bay of Birsay, strong, stark and harsh, a fortress reflecting everything that’s known about the man who created it.
Robert Stewart, Earl of Orkney and illegitimate son of King James V of Scotland, was a high-handed and brutal ruler of the Orkney isles. The great stronghold he built with forced labour in the 1570s stands in ruin at the outermost tip of Orkney Mainland, still massively impressive with its jagged gables and tall dark chimneys stacks.
Looking down from the green trackway behind the Earl’s Palace at the jumble of buildings and the crashing sea beyond, I pictured these wretched sprigs of the Stewart family tree. Nasty Earl Robert died in his bed, but his even nastier son Patrick – ‘Black Patie’ by nickname – and rather pathetic grandson Robert both came to bad ends at the hands of the king’s executioner. Those were wild times, and there were few places wilder than the Orkney archipelago, remote in its northern seas.
The trackway led up onto dark sandstone cliffs, where the wind whipped the short turf and whirled the fulmars past in stiff-winged flight. I put my head down and trudged north, with the Earl’s Palace looming inland.
Luckily Orkney has known better men than Black Patie and Earl Robert. Past the ruin of their citadel runs a newly opened pilgrimage route, St Magnus Way, a 55-mile trek that celebrates Orkney’s much-loved local saint and miracle worker. It was in Birsay’s ancient kirk that Magnus Erlendsson’s bones resided after his martyrdom 900 years ago. They were soon translated to their final resting place in Kirkwall’s St Magnus Cathedral, terminus of the new pilgrim path.
At the outer end of the road from Birsay lies the zigzag causeway to the tidal island of the Brough of Birsay. The sea was just receding from the isthmus as I crossed it, the ebbing water forming tiny sucking maelstroms beside the causeway.
The landward slope of the Brough of Birsay presents a fabulous jumble of stone walls, half-formed windows and house foundations. Pictish settlers were succeeded by Norse ones between 600 and 1200 AD, each wave of islanders building on top of its predecessors’ dwellings. Pictish round houses, Norse long ones and a tiny compact Romanesque church can all be made out.
I climbed the back of the island to the little castellated lighthouse, and looked out from the puffin-burrowed summit. Tall cliffs fell sheer into the sea on all sides, and on the northern horizon other islands floated in evening light, as grey and distant as breaching whales.
Start: Earl’s Palace car park, Birsay, Orkney Mainland KW17 2LX (HY248277)
Getting there: Bus 7 (Kirkwall-Birsay).
Road – From Kirkwall, A965 through Finstown; in 1 mile, right on A986 through Dounby; from Twatt, A967, A966 to Birsay.

Walk (4½ miles; easy; OS Explorer 463): From car park, left up road. Cross Burn of Boardhouse; follow road past Birsay Bay Tearoom, then grass track to cemetery and road (248268). Right; in 300m, at left bend, right (245268). Follow St Magnus Way (waymark) north down track to rejoin road (248275). Left, following road to causeway (242284). Cross to Brough of Birsay; walk round island; return across causeway.
Conditions: Causeway is open for 2 hours either side of low tide. Check times – magicseaweed.com
Lunch: Birsay Bay Tearooms (01856-721399; birsaybaytearooms.co.uk) – check for opening times
Accommodation: Ferry Inn, 10 John Street, Stromness KW16 3AD (01856-850280; ferryinn.com; 20 mins drive) – friendly, lively, clean
St Magnus Way: stmagnusway.com
Info: visitorkney.com
visitscotland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

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

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The great chalk horse of Hackpen Hill shone out in blinding white under a scudding blue sky. Once we’d left the runners and cyclists on the Ridgeway, and ducked off along the edge of Wick Down, we saw nobody else.

These downlands of northern Wiltshire are exceptionally beautiful. We walked at the lip of the escarpment, looking south over a roadless bowl of a valley, its curves shaped by weathering, its white chalk ploughlands contrasting with the green pastures in a harmonious subtlety of colour that called out for the paintbrush of Paul Nash or Eric Ravilious. Skylarks overhead drew generously on their bottomless wells of song, and a brown hare paused in its skyline lolloping to sit very upright and inspect us for signs of danger.

On the slope of Rockley Down we turned north into a great bowl of downland where the horse gallops of a training stable formed a straggling oval along the slopes of Ogbourne Maizey Down. A greedy, panicky screeching broke out among the gallops. Crows were bullying a pack of black-backed gulls, and the gulls were taking it out on the worms that had risen to the surface of the ground after last night’s rain.

We left the birds to their squabbling and feasting, and headed up the slope of the down. A brief struggle with a patch of nettles and brambles, and we were out again on the roof of the downs, walking the ruts and jumping the puddles of another of Wiltshire’s ancient roadways towards the low hummocks of Barbury Castle hillfort.

Whatever provoked the attack that marauding Saxons made on Barbury Castle in 550 AD, it was disastrous for the defending Britons. Several were slaughtered, and their fortifications were destroyed. As we strolled a circuit of the double ramparts, it was hard to picture the bloodshed and screams. Common blue butterflies busied themselves among the harebells and scabious, and dogs scampered the earthworks that have crowned Barbury Hill for the best part of 3,000 years.

We left the fort by its western gate and descended the rutted track of the Ridgeway, an upland road that was already ancient when Barbury hillfort was built. Flocks of cyclists and coveys of walkers were out along the old trackway, and we followed its white ribbon back to Hackpen Hill under the bluest of skies.
Start: Hackpen Hill car park, near Swindon, SN4 9NR approx. (OS ref SU 129747)

Getting there: On minor road between Broad Hinton (M4 Jct 16, A4361) and Marlborough (M4 Jct 15, A346)

Walk (7¼ miles, easy, OS Explorer 157): Left (Marlborough direction) along road. In 300m, right through gate on left of driveway (132745); right along field edge with fence on right. In 100m bear left along escarpment edge. In 1 mile, on Rockley Down, left up tarmac driveway (147734) to cross road (150738).

Along broad concrete track. In 300m, ahead (yellow arrow/YA) past ‘Private Road’ notice to T-junction at ‘Barbury International’ notice (153745). Left; in 200m, bear right (152747) and follow clockwise along perimeter of horse gallop. In 300m, bear a little left off stony track (155747; pond shown on map, not really distinguishable on ground), leaving trees on your right (YAs on fence to left). Keep ahead beside grassy ride, passing ‘Stonehenge’ installation, for ½ mile.

150m before a crossing fence, turn left uphill. Cross stile (161742); on uphill for 150m. At top fence post, above square enclosure on right, turn left (162743). In 150m, through deer gate (162744), chained but not locked; on between hedges. In 50m bear half right between hedges; in 100m right again between hedges. In 200m, path bends left (164747) through scrub trees and undergrowth. In 200m, through gate on right (164748); up fence to stile onto broad trackway (165748). Left; in a little over a mile, at ‘Neil King Ridgeway Racing’ sign at Upper Herdswick Farm (157760), left through gate (‘Barbury Country Park’). Follow Ridgeway through Barbury Castle Hill Fort (147763) and on south-west for 1½ miles to Hackpen Hill car park.

Lunch: Barbury Inn, Broad Hinton, SN4 9PF (01793-731510, thebarburyinn.co.uk), or The Crown, Broad Hinton (see below)

Accommodation: The Crown, Broad Hinton SN4 9PA (01793-731302, the crownatbroadhinton.co.uk)

Info: Swindon TIC (01793-466454); satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

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

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A hot day, and the north-eastern corner of the Cotswolds lay in glorious sunshine. On the grass verge in Chadlington a girl in a red T-shirt patiently sat a stout white pony as it lifted its dripping muzzle from the brook and smacked its hairy lips over the savour of cool water.

Chadlington is a sprawling village, a place of rills and springs. In one of the brook meadows an old man went blithely singing through the docks and thistles, and we followed him down towards the fishing lake at Greenend. The fields beyond the shallow dip of the River Evenlode’s valley shone dull gold under the sun, mown and harvested, but not yet gathered. The woods on the ridge lay black and impenetrable in the dark dress of late summer.

Trout plopped in the olive-green lake under weeping willows. We followed a broad stony lane, thick with the scent of new-mown hay, west to Pudlicote and the banks of the Evenlode. The river wriggled like an agitated centipede between pale meadows freshly cut, and rustling fields of elephant grass destined for immolation in some green power station.

Swallows were fuelling up for their imminent southward flights. They flicked and zoomed like miniature fighter planes low over the stubbles, picking off insects by the thousand, snatching and swallowing as many as possible before the long, improbable journey to their African wintering grounds. We couldn’t help but admire their panache, while feeling a shiver of anxiety for their vulnerability and a pang of sadness at these last rites of summer.

We chose a crumbly seat of earth under an enormous old oak and sat for a gulp of water, looking out over the green and gold valley of the Evenlode and up overhead at a jigsaw tessellation of oak leaves against the blue and white sky. Then we took the homeward path across Dean Common, where the Wychwood Project is turning old gravel pits and worked-out ground into flowery wetland and butterfly-friendly grassland.

Back in Chadlington, high on the outside of St Nicholas’s Church, I spotted my old chum the Green Man, carved a-gape with jovial menace, his knotted brow crowned with leaves in all the vigour of summer.

Start: Tite Inn, Chadlington, Oxfordshire OX7 3NY (OS ref SP 324225)

Getting there: Bus X9, Witney-Chipping Norton.
Road – Chadlington is signed off A361, 2 miles south of Chipping Norton.

Walk (6¼ miles, easy, OS Explorer 191): From Tite PH car park, left up road. In 15m, right (kissing gate/KG, ‘Brook End’) on path beside brook. In 200m, through gate (324222); bear right up bank (YA) across field. Over stile; left (YA) along hedge. Across Cross’s Lane (322219, fingerpost/FP) and on (YAs) to cross road (324214) at Greenend. Down ‘No Through Road’ opposite.

Just before Lower Court Farm, right (‘Bridleway, Pudlicote’); follow farm track west for 1 mile to Pudlicote House. At road, left (314205); in 200m, left (‘Oxfordshire Way’/OW). Follow OW east for 1 mile to cross Catsham Lane (331208) and on. In 700m, at NE corner of Greenhill Copse (337212), don’t turn right, but keep ahead for 100m into trees. At Wychwood Project info board, OW turns right; but keep ahead (east) on path across Dean Common. In 350m cross Grove Lane (341213); on down slope. At bottom, before entering woodland, left/north (344214) along fence. At field end, dogleg left over stile (343216); continue north beside Coldron Brook for 3 fields to road (343220).

Right (take care – nasty bend!); in 50m, left along Dean Mill drive (there is a right of way for walkers). In 30m, left across footbridge (YA on far end); follow path between paddock and hedge, then across field to stile into road (341222). Right, in 100m, sharp left (FP) past No.1, Dean Bank. Right round end of house, through gate ahead; pass stables and cross stile (340224). Half left across field, sloping down to bottom right corner (339223). Cross stream (2 gates) and follow hedge (now on unmarked Wychwood Way). Over stile at top; on along lane to road (336221).

Right, soon on pavement, through Eastend. Pass St Nicholas’s Church, cross Church Road, and just before right bend, go right (332219, KG, FP), clockwise around recreation field. At top left corner, through gateway (330221); half right across field to road (327222). Right; opposite Church Road, go left over stile (326224, FP). At path end, through gate; left along fence. In 100m, through gate into garden. Aim just left of house to cross stone stile; right beside wall to road and Tite Inn.

Lunch: Tite Inn, Chadlington (01608-676910, thetiteinn.co.uk)

Accommodation: Bull Inn, Charlbury OX7 3RR (01608-810689, bullinn-charlbury.com)

Info: Banbury TIC (01295-753752)
visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

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

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The Holly Bush Inn at Greenhaugh is one of a very rare breed – an old drovers’ inn, long, low and full of character, in a hamlet tucked into a fold of the Northumberland National Park. They welcome you here in a no-nonsense way, no matter where you’re from.

We followed the rough lane to Boughthill between fields of cut hay and pastures grazed by blackfaced sheep. ‘A fair lambing this year,’ said the farmer, stopping his old Land Rover to find out if we were lost. ‘Not a good summer so far, though. But if farmers weren’t complaining about that, it’d be something else, eh?’

Past the grey stone barns at High Boughthill we turned up the hill road to Thorneyburn. The verges were spattered with colour – pink campion, purple heads of knapweed, sharp yellow of meadow vetchling, and the brilliant scarlet of rowan berries, hanging in bunches and dripping with the last of the afternoon’s rain.

High Thorneyburn farm lay on its lonely hillside in a protective collar of shelter trees, looking out over sedgy fields across the North Tyne valley to the rise of Snabdaugh Moor and the ripples of rocky crags beyond. These upland farms, beautiful though their aspect is, are tough places, demanding practical ingenuity from those who work them. The sheep dip and pens beside the lane were a marvel of clever construction, with little gates, lath fences and runways to direct the animals exactly where the shepherd wanted them to go.

Beyond High Thorneyburn we scrambled round the flooded spillway of Slaty Ford, and climbed a path knee-deep in heather up over the shoulder of Thorneyburn Fell. At the entrance to the forest of Sidwood a pack of siskins went flitting through the birch tops with a flash of yellow and a thin burst of twittering.

The wind rushed with a sea-like murmuring through the pine tops as we followed the forest track down to the valley of the Tarset Burn. The moorland path led home by way of the stark stone ruin of a pele tower, built back in the dark days of raiders and reivers when all these hills and valleys were dangerous, debateable land.

Start: Holly Bush Inn, Greenhaugh, near Bellingham NE48 1PW, (OS ref NY 795873)

Getting there: Greenhaugh is signposted off B6320 between Otterburn (A68) and Bellingham.

Walk (8 miles, some boggy sections, OS Explorer OL42): From Holly Bush Inn, right along road. In 200m, right (fingerpost, ‘High Boughthill’) down drive. In 500m cross Tarset Burn by footbridge (793867). On to turn right through Boughthill farmyard (2 gates) and up track (occasional yellow arrows/YA). Pass Higher Boughthill barns (789867); ahead with wall on right through trees. Through gate (787867); left along back of plantation and on to road (785862).

Turn right. In 350m, fork right through gate (782864) and on along moor road. In 1¼ miles, at turning on left at High Thorneyburn farm (766872), ahead through gate along track to Slaty Ford (767874). Scramble round to the right to avoid the stream. 50m beyond, through gate; in 70m, right (‘Sidwood, 1½’ fingerpost), on clear track to cross Thorney Burn, then NE up well-trodden path through grass and heather over Thorneyburn Common for 700m to a gate beside wall opposite Stank Well (765881, blue arrow/BA).

Ahead into Sidwood. Keep ahead on broad track. In 600m cross a forest road (770885, BA); continue on path, descending among trees for 600m to cross forest road (775889, BA). Ahead on path among trees to road in valley (776890). Right along road. In ⅔ mile pass Redheugh (784885); in another 500m, right (‘Thorneyburn’) to Thorneyburn church (786877).

Just past church, left through gateway, down west wall of churchyard. On through garden; out into a field. Head half-right (YA), steeply down a rough slope, to cross burn by footbridge (786875, YA). Climb far bank; head half left across open moor, aiming for low ruin of pele tower (787872). Ahead to stile in fence – don’t cross, but turn left (YA), keeping fence on right, to bottom of field (790868). Right through gate; left through gateway (YA); ahead to waymark post (YA). From here aim ahead, steeply down bank to cross burn (791867). Steeply up far bank to waymark post at top (YA); down track to Boughthill farm and retrace route to Greenhaugh.

Conditions: Route over Thorneyburn Common faintly marked in places; Slaty Ford wet and slippery.

Lunch: Picnic

Accommodation: Holly Bush Inn, Greenhaugh (01434-240391, hollybushinn.net) open Mon-Fri from 4 pm, weekends from noon.

Info: Bellingham TIC (01670-620450); Kielder Forest TIC (01434-250209)

3 September: 50th Rossendale Round-the-Hills Walk, Rawtenstall, Lancs (realtd.co.uk/50th-rossendale-round-hills-walk)

visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

The January Man – A Year of Walking Britain by Christopher Somerville (Doubleday, £14.99).