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 still winter’s day under a mackerel sky of white and blue as we set out from the Withies Inn at Compton. Horses in tarpaulins cropped the paddocks at Coneycroft Stud, where the farm dog ran his nose along the hedge parallel with our boots, and hoarsely proclaimed just what he’d do if he could only get at us.

Along the road the Watts Cemetery Chapel stood tall on its mound. Mary Watts, artist wife of the Victorian painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts, designed it as a brilliant Art Nouveau expression of grief and mourning through the depths of darkness and the redemptive power of light. Local villagers fashioned many of the tiles under Mary’s tuition – she was a passionate believer in everyone’s potential for artistic creativity. The exterior is packed with calm-eyed angels in flaring orange terracotta, the interior full of sombrely coloured, transcendentally beautiful cherubim and seraphim.

Mary and George Watts moved to Compton in 1891 (she was 42, he was 74) and founded a remarkable gallery dedicated to George’s symbolist work. We were tempted to spent the whole afternoon there, but the ancient holloway of the North Downs Way beckoned us away east to the banks of the River Wey on the southern borders of Guildford.

On a sandy river cliff high over the Wey we found the roofless old chapel of St Catherine, round which a notorious fair used to be held. Neither of the Wattses painted that, but JMW Turner did – a vigorous scene of fighting, drinking and sideshow action, the artist depicting the throng in swirling attitudes and splashing colours.

The River Wey was one of the first in England to be canalised, part of a wonderfully ambitious 17th-century scheme to link London to the English Channel in mutual prosperity. We walked south past neat brick lock-keepers’ cottages on the edge of its quiet waters, as still and calm as a linear lake, curving with man-made artistry through meadows where last year’s purple loosestrife stood brown and crackly dry.

Our homeward path lay westward through the arable parkland of Loseley Park. Rooks and black-headed gulls patrolled the furrows in fields of winter wheat, and squirrels scuttered among hazels from which they had stripped every last nut.

Start: Withies Inn, Compton, Guildford, Surrey GU3 1JA (OS ref SU 963468)

Getting there: Bus 46 from Guildford.
Road – From A3 just south of Guildford, Compton is signed. Pass through Compton; in ½ mile, left up Withies Lane to Withies Inn.

Walk (8½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 145): From Withies Inn, right along Withies Lane. Cross road; on along wood edge path (fingerpost/FP). Left at top of paddocks (yellow arrow/YA) to Coneycroft Farm (959475). At shed, left through gate (YA); follow fenced path to road (957475). Left to Watts Cemetery Chapel (956474).

Return up road. In 300m, pass FP on right; in 20m, fork right (957477, ‘North Downs way’/NDW) past Watts Gallery. Follow NDW for 2¼ miles to road (991483). Left (NDW) to A3100. Dogleg right/left into Ferry Lane. Detour right to St Catherine’s Chapel on hilltop (994482); return to Ferry Lane; right to River Wey (994483); right on Wey South Path for 1 mile to cross A248 at Broadford Bridge (997467). Keep on right bank of river; in 450m, fork right at railway bridge (995464) onto railway path to A248 overbridge (993465).

Left here on Cycle Route 22 (‘Peasmarsh’). In 150m join road; immediately left down Oakdene Road. In 100m, right across recreation field to cross A3100 (990465). Follow path into Peasmarsh Wood (signed); in 150m, fork right to cross railway (989465). Ahead along field edge; through far hedge (985467); left along drive to Stakescorner Road (982468). Right; in 200m, left along Loseley Park drive (FP). In 300m, left (979469, FP) past Grove Cottage. Path across 2 fields (YAs) to driveway (975466); left for 100m; right on path among trees. Over stile, then along 2 field edges; left (971465, FP) to dogleg right/left across B3000 (971463).

Cross playing field and road. Follow footpath beside Copse Side. In 400m, right at road (967459); round right bend; in 100m, left along minor road for ½ mile to B3000 (964466); dogleg right/left up Withies Lane to Withies Inn.

Lunch: Withies Inn (01483-421158, thewithiesinn.com)

Accommodation: Eashing Farmhouse, Eashing, Godalming GU7 2QF (01483-421436; compton-surrey.co.uk/eashing-farmhouse)

Watts Gallery and Cemetery Chapel: 01483-810235, wattsgallery.org.uk

Info: Guildford TIC (01483-444333)
visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

The January Man – A Year of Walking Britain by Christopher Somerville (Doubleday, £14.99). For 30% off, call 01206 255 777, quoting TIMES302017. 

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

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None of the Chiltern counties north-west of London is richer in beechwoods, chalky hollows and flinty ridges than Buckinghamshire. On a cold dank day in town you can feel those misty valleys beckoning you away from what you ought to be doing. We didn’t even try to fight it. We got our walking boots on, and set out before the clock struck midday from the Black Horse Inn, just outside Chesham where the Metropolitan tube runs out of line.

This is horse country, a land of paddocks and hay mangers. At Bower Farm the wind-vane figure was a polo player in mid-chukka. Nags caparisoned in thick winter blankets came to the field gates to see what we were up to. Up on the ridge above White Hawridge Bottom we trod heavy clay fields seeded with millions of flints. The rough nuggety soil had been the ruin of many Victorian ploughshares, whose snapped-off fragments lay rusting in the furrows.

The fine 18th-century farmhouse of Hawridge Court stands on the site of an early medieval manor, itself built inside an oval earthen bank that might date back a thousand years or more. The hedges in the valley bottom are thick and venerable, the beech woods ancient.

There’s a sense of long continuity in these Chiltern hills and hollows. The local clay has gone to make good bricks for hundreds of years, and the craft still flourishes at the brickworks of HG Matthews on its saddle of ground above the woods. There were stacks of red bricks in the yard, and a good sour smell of baking brick from the wood-fired kiln beyond the sheds.

We passed the cottages at Bellingdon Farm where DH Lawrence lived briefly in 1914 while writing ‘The Rainbow.’ Compton Mackenzie paid him a visit there, and was amused to find the great writer on his knees scrubbing the kitchen floor.

The homeward path lay along a beautiful hillside and up between the blackly twisted beech roots of Captain’s Wood, where goldfinches flirted from tree to tree and a ghostly silver sun slipped briefly out between one drifting cloud and the next.

Start: Black Horse Inn, Chesham Vale, Bucks, HP5 3NS (OS ref SP 963045)

Getting there: Chesham is signed from A41 between Hemel Hempstead and Tring. At Chesham, follow ‘Hawridge’ for 1 mile to Black Horse.

Walk (6½ miles, easy underfoot, OS Explorer 181): From Black Horse, right along road. In 150m, right (fingerpost/FP, stile) up path. At gate at top of rise, right (961045, stile, arrow). Bear right along hedge, following yellow arrows/YAs; then through 2 large fields for ¾ mile. Opposite Hawridge Court, go through kissing gate/KG (950058); immediately left downhill (YAs, KGs) to valley bottom (948056). Right (KGs, YAs); in 400m cross Hawridge Lane (945059); on through 2 fields (YAs) and into woodland (941064).

In 300m, left at waymark post (939066, YA); cross valley bottom; up through woods to pass brickyard. At building across path, left (937062, YA) along field edge with hedge on right. In 250m, right past house (939061); in 100m, left (‘bridleway’ fingerpost). In ¼ mile, right down Hawridge Lane (942057) past Bellingdon Farm to road (940055).

Left; in 100m, right (fingerpost) down Two Gates Lane. In ¼ mile, left (940051, KG, YA) across 2 fields. Go through 5-barred gate under large oak (942051, YA) and on with hedge on left (gates, YAs). In ¼ mile, at end of 3rd field, through KG (946048); right along lane. At left bend, ahead (KG, YA) on fenced path. At field, left (YA) along hedge above valley.

In ½ mile enter Captain’s Wood (949040). Keep ahead. In 200m, left (950038, stile, YA) through paddocks (gates, YAs) into drive; ahead to cross road (952039). Through KG (fingerpost); left along track. In 300m track bends right (952042), then snakes left/right over stile (954043, YA) into Ramscourt Wood. Follow YAs through wood and down slope to bear right in valley bottom (958045) along track. In 250m, left by house (960043, YA, stile) up fenced path. Right over stile at top (961045); retrace steps to Black Horse.

Conditions: Some slippery stiles.

Lunch: Black Horse Inn (01494-784656; theblackhorsechesham.co.uk)

Info: High Wycombe TIC (01494-421892)
visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

The January Man – A Year of Walking Britain by Christopher Somerville (Doubleday, £14.99). For 30% off, call 01206 255 777, quoting TIMES302017.

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

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The little train from London rattled through the low-lying countryside of easternmost Essex. Burnham-on-Crouch lies almost at the end of the line, a small self-contained town for sailors and oyster-eaters, tucked into the mud and saltmarsh on the north bank of the sea-going River Crouch. The great days of fishing-smack fleets and smuggling ketches may be gone, but Burnham on a day like this, under a blue sky with a brisk east wind blustering in from the North Sea, is a salty town you want to linger in.

We put our backs to the breeze and headed upriver away from Burnham marina where the yacht halyards were screaming softly in the wind. Black-headed gulls in white winter hoods were tossed about the sky, too intent on staying aloft to make their usual fishwife screeching. The wind ruffled the estuary into white horses and slapped the waves against the wrinkled mud banks. Across the Crouch came more faint banshee wailing from the yacht rigging in a distant marina, and the iron clank of a crane unloading timber from a dark blue freighter tied up at Baltic Wharf – evocative name.

It was wonderfully exhilarating, walking the narrow seawall path above hissing reedbeds and long hanks of bladder wrack flying from posts and railings like a mermaid’s washing. Seaweed lay far up the road at the tiny enclave of Creeksea, testament to the power of East Coast tides at the full.

We passed duckboard jetties and plank causeways over the marsh, unfathomable posts in the water, and lines of black stakes squaring off the muddy beaches into long-abandoned oyster beds. To the north the ground rose into a clearly defined ridge of clay farmland topped with small woods and houses; southward across the river it looked flatter and moodier, a compelling landscape spreading into the long creek-divided wastes of Bridgemarsh Island, where brent geese were feeding.

The navigable channel past the marsh island was marked with stakes, each thin rod topped with a warning triangle. A stranger in these shallow, murky waters would find it all too easy to go aground on an unsuspected mudbank.

Egrets rose out of the creeks, snow-white against the dun marshes. The wind puts its hand in our backs and shoved us along, mile after zigzag mile, until Fambridge’s little quay hove in sight, with a row of sea kayaks like a rack of giant kippers hung up to dry in the wind and sun.

Start: Burnham-on-Crouch station, Essex, CM0 8BQ (OS ref TQ 948965)

Getting there: Rail to Burnham-on-Crouch.
Road: M25 Jct 29; A127 to Wickford, A132 to South Woodham Ferrers; B1012, B1010 to Burnham-on-Crouch station car park.

Walk (9½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 176.): Down station approach, right; first right along Foundry Lane. In 600m, fork left (944963) on footpath across rough ground to marina. Cross car park, down steps (942961); cross north end of marina; left down far side; right/west (940956) along sea wall. In ⅔ of a mile at Creeksea (932957) follow road; in 300m on right bend, left (fingerpost) on field path to another gate (928961); follow sea wall path west for 6 miles. 400m short of Fambridge Quay, turn inland (857965, waymark) on path northward past Blue House Farm for ½ a mile to road (855973). Ahead to North Fambridge station (856978). Return by rail to Burnham-on-Crouch.

Lunch: Ferry Boat Inn, North Fambridge CM3 6LR (01621-740208, ferryboatinn.net)

Accommodation: Oyster Smack Inn, 112 Station Road, Burnham-on-Crouch CM0 8HR (01621-782141; theoystersmackinn.co.uk)

Information: Southend-on-Sea TIC (01702-618747)

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

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

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

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Rye Harbour is a strange old place. The ivy-strangled Martello tower and the grim Second World War bunkers tells you that this is a coast that has lain under constant threat of invasion. And the enormous expanse of flint pebbles, spreading inland for more than a mile, betokens the incursions of thousands of tons of shingle, dumped here by the restless sea.

This is moody country on a cold morning. A whistling east wind drove us along the beach. Lesser black-backed gulls sulked on the sandbanks, and redshank foraged fastidiously with jerky steps in the pools of Rye Harbour nature reserve on the inland side of the sea bank.

A pair of human figures patrolled the tideline, probing the beach with long rods as they sucked out lugworms for fishing bait. I set off to find out what they were doing, and sank without warning up to my knees in glutinous mud that I had mistaken for sand. I struggled out, mud-splattered all over. ‘See you found a mud hole!’ grinned a passing man in a van. ‘Lucky you didn’t go in over your head, eh!’

King Henry VIII built Camber Castle as a coastal stronghold to keep the French at bay. Now, five centuries later, the stark grey fortress stands more than a mile inland among wide fields where a thin skin of grass overlies a wilderness of pebbles. We walked a circuit of the eroded bastion walls, then made for a hide on the shores of Castle Water where green-headed shoveller drakes swept the water with heavy spatulate bills. Elegant terns hung over the water on crooked wings, and the big black outline of a marsh harrier ghosted quietly across the reed beds.

Back on the shore we found the gaunt blocky shed from which a crew of Rye Harbour men launched the lifeboat Mary Stanford on a bitter November morning in 1928. She was lost with all hands; 17 men from one tiny village. The lifeboat house has remained locked and unused ever since – a downbeat memorial to bravery and death on an unforgiving shore.

Start: Rye Harbour car park, Rye, East Sussex TN31 7TU (OS ref TQ 942190)

Getting there: Bus 313 (Northiam-Rye Harbour)
Road – Rye Harbour is signed off A259 between Rye and Winchelsea.

Walk (8¼ miles, easy, OS Explorer 125): From car park follow sea wall past Lime Kiln Cottage info centre (946186) to river mouth (949181). Right along beach or coast road. In 1 mile pass old lifeboat shed (932172); in another 650m, right inland on path past info board (928168) over 2 crossings (925171 and 921173) for ¾ of a mile to road (917175). Right; just past Castle Farm, fork left (920176) to Camber Castle (922185). Clockwise round castle; on east side, path along fence to wooden gate (924185) leading to bird hide. Return to gate; left through metal gate; field edge south. Left across end of Castle Water to junction (925179); right; in 400m, left through gate no. 9 (923177). On past Camber Cottage (921174); through gate, then left for ½ a mile to shore road (928168). Left to lifeboat house; in 300m, left on gravel track (934174). In 300m, through left-hand of two gates (934176); ahead to junction (931178); right on gravel track for 1 mile to road (939191); right to car park.

Lunch: Inkerman Arms (01797-222464) or William the Conqueror PH (01797-223315), Rye Harbour

Accommodation: Ship Inn, Rye TN31 7DB (01797-222233, theshipinnrye.co.uk) – friendly, fun atmosphere.

Lime Kiln Cottage info centre; open 10-4 (wildrye.info); visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Britain’s Best Walks: 200 Classic Walks from The Times by Christopher Somerville (HarperCollins, £30). To receive 30 per cent off plus free p&p visit harpercollins.co.uk and enter code TIMES30, or call 0844 5768122

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

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The Crag Inn at Wildboarclough lies tucked down in a quiet valley of easternmost Cheshire. The wild gritstone hills and moors of the Peak District rise all around. The farm buildings of the district are dark and solid, but the field walls sparkle with chips of mica on sunny afternoons such as this. Old stories say that the last wild boar in these hills was hunted down to death in this steep little valley. That might not be strictly true – but when were local legends ever the better for being plain, provable fact?

I followed a field path west along the flanks of the Clough Brook, then up the cleft below Oakenclough. Stopping to listen, I could not hear a single sound but the trickle of the brook. Over the damp shoulder of High Moor and down to the Hanging Gate Inn on its escarpment edge, with a most tremendous view out west over tumbled farmlands to the Cheshire plain stretching into misty distance.

The bare stone bluff of Tegg’s Nose lifted its dark grey hump ahead as I walked north along the waymarked Gritstone Trail that knits together a fine string of these coarse sandstone hills. Hawthorns were thick with scarlet berries, or ‘peggles’ as the great naturalist Richard Jefferies used to call them. I tested them with a squeeze of the fingers: still hard as rock, so that I wondered how the fieldfares and redwings of winter were going to gobble them down.

Ridgegate and Trentabank reservoirs gleamed dully between their pines and silver birch trees. A tremendously cheery party of U3A walkers met me on the way up to the moors, their cheerful chatter and rosy cheeks the perfect advertisement for the benefits of walking in one’s riper years.

I forged ahead across the sedgy uplands on a pitched path that led to a scramble up to the gritstone peak of Shutlingsloe, the ‘Matterhorn of Cheshire’. At the summit of this mini-mountain I was lord of a hundred-mile view from the Pennines to the Trent, the Long Mynd to the Clwydian Hills of Wales. A few minutes to stand and stare, and I was scrambling down for the homeward path to Wildboarclough.

Start: Craig Inn, Wildboarclough, Macclesfield, Cheshire SK11 0BD (OS ref SJ 981685)

Getting there: Wildboarclough is signed from A54 Congleton-Buxton road at Allgreave.

Walk (7½ miles, moderate, OS Explorer OL24):
From Crag Inn car park, right along road. Immediately right through wicket gate (yellow arrow/YA). Bear left, parallel with road, and follow grassy path across 7 fields (gates, YAs, coloured circles). 2 fields beyond High Nabbs farm, path rises to angle of wall (970681). Right across stile (circles, YA); left along lane. In 600m, right at road (964685). In 300m at Greenway Bridge, right (963687, YA) along river. In 300m, cross Highmoor Brook by footbridge (963690). Follow YAs, then permissive path below Oakenclough house. Cross drive (961695); left through gate (YA), up by wall. Through gate at top; ahead on grassy track to corner of wall (959696). Ahead with wall on right; at end, right through gap; left over stile, down fenced track to cross road at Hanging Gate Inn (952696).

Down side of pub; right through kissing gate on path down to road (951698). Left for 150m; right over stile and follow Gritstone Trail/GT markers north for ¾ mile. Approaching Greenbarn, fork left (952710); in 100m, right through gate (GT). Skirt to left of house; through gate onto drive. Left; in 50m, GT on telephone pole points left, but fork right down through wicket gate. Left (YA) to cross footbridge; on up steps to path junction at Ridgegate Reservoir (952713).

Right (‘Shutlingsloe’); follow path along south edge of reservoir, then through woods to road (959711). Turn right on ‘Walkers Only’ path on right of road. In 200m pass Macclesfield Forest info board; in another 150m, bear right (963711, ‘Shutlingsloe’). In 100m fork right uphill. Follow ‘Shutlingsloe’ for 1½ miles through trees, then across moor to Shutlingsloe summit (977696 – short steep climb to top). Follow path to south end of summit; short steep scramble down and bear left; path across moor down to farm road (983691). Right to Crag Inn.

Conditions: Some boggy bits; steep ascent/descent of Shutlingsloe peak.

Lunch: Crag Inn, Wildboarclough (01260-227239, thecraginn.co.uk) or Hanging Gate Inn, Potlords (01260-400756, thehanginggate.co.uk) – both closed Mon/Tues

Accommodation: Stanley Arms, Bottom of the Oven, Macclesfield Forest SK11 0AR (01260-252414, stanleyarms.com) – warm, cheerful place; good food and welcome

Info: Macclesfield TIC (01625-378123); visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk