Christopher Somerville

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

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We set off from Kirkby Stephen in a cheerful crowd – Heather and David Pitt, authors of splendidly illustrated walking books; Ann Sandell and Andy Bryan of Kirkby Stephen’s ‘Walkers Are Welcome’ scheme; and Chris and David Stewart, begetters of thousands of walks through their website walkingworld.com, along with their Parson Russell terrier Brough. It’s a lucky district that can boast such movers and shakers in the walking world.

Kirkby Stephen, a lively market town in eastern Cumbria where six walking trails meet, lies in fabulous hiking country carved by the River Eden and its tributary becks into dozens of fells and dales.

Today’s walk was a taster of the paths that surround the town itself. First off, a leisurely circuit of the Poetry Path with its hand-carved verses created ten years ago by poet Meg Peacocke and lettering artist Pip Hall. It was wonderful to see the rocks, stones and boulders carrying Meg’s pungent lines, ending with December’s haiku carved on three rock slabs beside the River Eden:

‘There sails the heron
Drawing behind him a long
Wake of solitude.’

Then we struck out westwards across the steeply dipping fields among mossy stone walls and staring sheep. The long, rising backs of the fells shouldered up into low cloud. A muted grey-green light lay over the land. We followed lanes narrowly walled in, talking of walking – the Pitts’ retracing of Alfred Wainwright’s long foot pilgrimages, the Stewarts’ amassing of vast numbers of expeditions on foot for less supercharged walkers to enjoy. What a splendour of walks these clouded hills contain, everyone agreed: a treasure-house to be unlocked with simple keys of GPS and internet, map and shoe leather.

We stopped to picnic by the Settle & Carlisle railway line. Brough turned up his nose at ginger parkin and Wensleydale cheese. After trying without success to dig his way to Australia, he settled for lying down and looking noble.

On the way back to Kirkby Stephen we found a red-brown shield bug in a bubble-bath of pale green eggs, a flock of sheep chin-deep in a golden wash of buttercups, a bulbous-bellied oak half a millennium old, and an emperor moth whose wings were camouflaged with the semblance of a scary, staring monster face. Not to mention the gold-and-blue parrots that flew up from the river as we approached Frank’s Bridge. Every day marvels, there for the looking in every field and holloway.

Start: Upper Eden Visitor Centre, Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria, CA17 4QN (OS NY 775087)

Getting there: Rail (thetrainline.com) to Kirkby Stephen (station 2 miles from town)
Bus – Service 563 (Penrith, Appleby)
Road – M6 Jct 38; A685 towards Brough

Walk (6 miles, easy, OS Explorer OL19): Walk south along A685. In 600m, right down alley beside No 2 (773082); left at end (‘Coast to Coast/CTC, Greenriggs’). Skirt Greenriggs farmyard (765078, arrows) and on. In 2nd field beyond farm, aim for far right corner (757075); follow CTC path to right to cross under railway (754074). Half right to field corner; bear right to road (749073). Left for 200m to T-jct; left for ¾ mile to A685 (757062).

Left; in 150m, right down A683. In 100 m, left (758061, ‘Nateby’). In 300m dogleg left and right through Easegill Head farmyard (761062). Through yard gate; bear right to gate in wall; across field and under railway (764062). Down field edge; in 300m, left across stile; down past lime kiln ruin and through gate to left of plantation (768066). At track, right; in 200m, left through gate (770064) to cross footbridge. Left round field edge; through kissing gate (772065, blue arrow/BA) and follow line of crags that trend away from the river. Up between fences to gate (BA); ahead to gate (BA) into green lane to B6259 (774069) in Nateby. Left; in 100m, fork right on walled lane (‘Bridleway’; ‘Pennine Journey’). In 450m path crosses disused railway (776074 – NB Poetry Path circuit can be made from here); in 450m ignore gate on left (778078, BA), and keep ahead for ¼ mile to descend to cross beck (780082). Follow River Eden along field edge; at field end, left (779087) on path to Frank’s Bridge (776087) and Kirkby Stephen.

Lunch: Nateby Inn, Nateby (01768-371588, nateby-inn.co.uk); many cafés/pubs in Kirkby Stephen.

Accommodation: King’s Head, Ravenstonedale, Kirkby Stephen, CA17 4NH (01539-623050, kings-head.com) – really comfortable, excellent stopover.

Poetry Path: Booklet guide available from Upper Eden Visitor Centre

Information: Upper Eden Visitor Centre (01768-371199); penninejourney.org.uk, walkeden.org, walkingworld.com

www.satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; LogMyTrip.co.uk

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

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No wonder Cecil Beaton chose the Wiltshire village of Broad Chalke to make his home. Anyone with half an eye for setting and composition can appreciate the lure of a place like this – thatched houses, old stone and brick, a church amid it all, and the cradling downs rising on every side. A handsome settled spot beside the River Ebble – and what a charming name that is for the bubbling and eddying chalk stream that rushes through the village.

This grey afternoon a gale of wind tore the clouds over Broad Chalke. It hissed in the hedges and trembled the sere grasses along the flint trackway up Church Bottom. The wind-sculpted beech spinneys roared on the downland ridges high above. All colours were leached to subtle greens and greys. The air felt thick and cold on our faces. The aspect of the downs seemed instantly agreeable to the eye, the shapes of rounded shoulders, sloping sides and hollowed flanks recalling human rather than topographical form.

The sun made a cameo appearance, slipping out through a rent in the speeding clouds to strike silver out of the chalky tractor ruts. Up on the nape of the downs we met the Ox Drove, an ancient West Country trackway cut to ribbons by 4×4 drivers in recent times. A notice headed ‘Voluntary Restraint’ invited the off-roaders to desist for the common good, but the two-foot-deep ruts and extravagant puddles bore witness to the effect they’d already had.

We dodged and plodged a mile of the old highway, and then plunged down the steep green lane of Croucheston Drove to where two huge and rusty old barns stood by the track in a sheltered dip out of the wind. Up Bishopstone Hollow’s sunken lane under the pale grey powder-puffs of old man’s beard, and on with the gale in our faces once more by isolated Knighton Hill Farm among its singing shelter trees.

A tractor-marked path led away towards the valley of the Ebble, crossing vast flinty fields of young green wheat shoots. Over the brow of the hill and down a hollow hedge to where Broad Chalke lay snug below the race of wind and sky.

Start: Queen’s Head PH, Broad Chalke, Salisbury, Wilts SP5 5EN (OS ref SU 039256)

Getting there: Bus – Service 29, Shaftesbury-Salisbury
Road – Broad Chalke is signed off A30 at Fovant.

Walk (6½ miles, easy/moderate, OS Explorer 130. NB: online map, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): Follow ‘Bowerchalke’ road across Causeway Bridge, passing church. At right bend, keep ahead (‘Martin, Blandford’). At T-junction (042252) ahead up Church Bottom bridleway for 1½ miles to meet Ox Drove (052229). Left; in ½ mile, cross track to Knighton Hill Farm (059232) and continue (‘Byway’). In ½ mile, left (067232, ‘bridleway’) down Croucheston Drove green lane. In 1 mile, by second of 2 barns, left (067247, yellow arrow/YA) up Bishopstone Hollow to Knighton Hill Farm. Follow YAs past farmhouse (057242); at brick shed, dogleg right/left round shed (055242, YAs) and on along grassy ride between tree hedges. In 200m, right (054241, YAs on left) through hedge; over stile ahead; cross track; ahead across field, following arrow posts. In 700m, fork left (052247); follow arrows to stile (048248); down old hedge/ditch to stile (043250); right down to lane (043251); right into Broad Chalke.
Conditions: Deep, muddy ruts on Ox Drove!

Lunch/Accommodation: Queen’s Head, Broad Chalke (01722-780344; queensheadbroadchalke.co.uk) – cosy, friendly country pub.

Info: Salisbury TIC (01722-342860)
visitengland.com; www.satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; LogMyTrip.co.uk

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

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Cavendish lies perfectly arranged for a painter’s canvas. Why John Constable never got himself along here to capture the thatched and pink-faced cottages on the village green, and the flint tower of St Mary’s Church peeping over their shoulders, is a mystery. Even on this blowy winter’s morning under a scudding grey sky, the composition seemed flawless.

We passed crooked old Tumbleweed Cottage, half pink and half green, and turned down a path among poplars to cross the slow-flowing River Stour. Out in the fields a green bridleway led through gently rolling country, the meandering of the invisible Stour marked by grey and gold willows. Wide ploughed fields slanted up from the river, their crests bristling with hedge oaks. From this high ground we looked back to see Cavendish church tower poking up above the trees. Then it was down again over the sticky fields to a wandering green lane between banks of iron-rich, burnt orange soil across which burrowing badgers had spread their bedding.

On the outskirts of Clare the grounds and ancient flint buildings of the Priory lay very quiet and still. Opposite rose the castle mound with its tall fragment of Norman masonry. In 1865 local ‘detectorist’ Walter Lorking unearthed a gold cross and chain in the castle grounds. It had been lost there 500 years before by King Edward III, and contained a fragment of the true cross in a tiny compartment. Walter was more than happy to sell it to his Sovereign, Queen Victoria, for the rather appropriate sum of three gold sovereigns.

There was beautiful pargetting – ornate plasterwork – on many of the houses in Clare, and a host of scowling and howling Green Men to guard the doorway of the village church, the ‘cathedral of the Stour Valley’. I left my companions to linger among the antique shops of Clare, and hurried back to Cavendish along the high ground north of the river. The cold wind tousled me all the way, pouring out of a sky ridged with grey billows of cloud, a wintry ceiling for the furrowed ploughland below.

Start: George Inn, Cavendish, Suffolk CO10 8BA (OS ref TL805465)

Getting there: Bus service 236 (Haverhill-Sudbury)
Road – Cavendish is on A1092, between Long Melford (A134) and Haverhill (A143)

Walk (8 miles, easy, OS Explorers 196, 210. NB: Detailed directions, online maps, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): From George Inn, left (east) along main street. Opposite Bull Inn, right on path (fingerpost, yellow arrow/YA) to road (810464). Right across Pentlow Bridge; on along B1064. In 300m, on left bend, right (812461, ‘Bridleway’) along field edges. In ½ mile, through trees (805458) and on to Bower Hall. Just before first barn, left (800455) up field edge. 50m before hedge at top, right (803450, post with YA) across field to hedge end of green lane. Follow it (YA) to road (749449). Right downhill.

Just before reaching river, left by waterworks hut (797453, ‘Bridleway’) along green lane and field edges. In 1 mile, bridleway bends right (782449) to river bank (782451). Left here (‘Bridleway’) to road at Hickford Hill (777447). Right; in 200m, right across field (fingerpost) to cross river (775450). Fork left across meadow to cross weir (774451) and on. In 350m, opposite car park and castle mound, pass metal bridge on right, and in 50m turn left (770451) through stone gateway into Clare Priory grounds.

Returning through gateway, turn right and immediately left across footbridge into Clare village. Right to church (770455). Follow A1092 Cavendish road out of town. In 300m, left up Harp Lane (773454, fingerpost); pass sheds and keep ahead through trees, following ‘Stour Valley Path/SVP’, YAs and ‘Heritage Trail’ purple arrows/HT. Opposite Hermitage Farm (775463) bear right up field edge. At top, left through hedge (778464, HT) and on along field edge, aiming to pass roofs and outbuildings of Houghton Hall (785466). In another 600m, at field bottom, right (791468, SVP, HT, fingerpost). In 150m, left and right over 2 ditches (792466, SVP, HT) and on to road at Mumford Cottages (796468). Right; in 450m, right down field edge (SVP, HT, ‘Cavendish’). At bottom (802465), left through hedge (SVP); diagonally left across field; path beside graveyard into Cavendish.

Lunch: Plenty of cafés and pubs in Clare and Cavendish.

Accommodation: George Inn, Cavendish (01787-280248, thecavendishgeorge.co.uk) – smart, stylish, comfortable

Information: Sudbury TIC (01787-881320)
visitengland.com; www.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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Hadrian’s Wall, its observation towers and guard-posts, the roads and townships that served it, form the most remarkable monument in Britain to those energetic, organised and life-loving invaders, the Romans. They wrenched our history so forcefully out of its former courses; and yet it’s the tiny details of their quotidian lives that fascinate us most.

How incredibly angry the tile-maker of Vindolanda must have been when that stupid pig walked all over the nice new clay flooring he’d left out to dry in the sun. A surviving tile from the spoiled batch, on display in Vindolanda’s museum just south of the Wall, carries the prints of the pig’s incurving toes, as sharp today as the hour they were dinted two thousand years ago. And here alongside are the hobnailed shoes and thong sandals of this Roman fort’s inhabitants, their nose-picks and knives and scribe-written birthday invitations; while outside lies the foundations of the town they lived and loved in, its houses, temples, wells and paved streets.

Walking the rushy meadows a mile or so to the south, I looked up at the thin line of the Wall as it rode the rollercoaster crags of the Whin Sill, the volcanic rampart that strides across the neck of Northumberland. A magnificent bull, muscled like a body-builder, lion-coloured and sporting a leonine mane, watched me cross the broad grassy ditch or vallum and turn east along the Wall.

The stepped path swooped me up the crests and down into hollows of the dolerite sill, passing the sites of the milecastles and turrets where conscripts from the Low Countries paced and shivered and looked out into the debatable lands to the north from where the wild Picts might come screaming at any moment. As I stared out from the Wall to the looming black line of Wark Forest, the blue humps of the Cheviot Hills beyond, it was all too easy to imagine those young men sulkily clutching their cloaks around them and wishing they were down in Vindolanda where the latrines ran with clean water and the stew came hot to the table.

The old house and barns of Hotbank Farm lay huddled on the slope of Hotbank Crags, their walls much patched with Roman stones. Here I left Hadrian’s Wall and headed across the vallum and down flowery meadow slopes, with Vindolanda spread below me in the evening sunlight.
Start: Vindolanda car park, near Bardon Mill, Northumberland NE47 7JN (OS ref NY 767664)

Getting there:
Bus – 685/85 to Bardon Mill
Road – signposted from B6318 at Once Brewed (north of A69, between Haydon Bridge and Haltwhistle at Bardon Mill).

Walk (8 miles, moderate – many short, steep slopes – OS Explorer OL53. NB: detailed directions, online maps, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): From Vindolanda car park, left along road; in 100m, left through gate, down track; in 400m, right (766660) on path (stiles, yellow arrows/YAs). NB After passing barn at Kit’s Shield (764659), negotiate tree blocking path! Skirt Layside (760659, YAs); on to road (756658). Left, then right along lane (‘Cranberry Brow’) for 1⅓ miles to road (735655). Right (fingerpost) on drive to Hill Top; on to road (730659). Right to cross B6318 (729663, stile, ‘Shield on the Wall’).

Path along field wall, then diagonally left across Roman Vallum ditch to Hadrian’s Wall (727669). Right along National Trail for 3 miles to Hotbank Farm (771680). Leave National Trail here; right down farm drive to B6318. Right along grass verge for 400m; left (770674, stile, ‘Vindolanda’) across field, aiming to cross stile on left of High Shield house (769672, YA). Left to stile (YA); down fields with fence on left. In 2nd field, fence trends away left, but keep a beeline ahead to stile and road at bottom (772665). Right to Vindolanda car park.

Conditions: Short, steep ups and downs on Hadrian’s Wall. Bulls, cows, calves may be in fields.

Refreshments: Vindolanda Café

Accommodation: Twice Brewed Inn (on B6318 near Bardon Mill), NE47 7AN (01434-344534; twicebrewedinn.co.uk) – very cheerful, walker-friendly stopover

Vindolanda: 01434-344277; vindolanda.com

Information: Northumberland National Park Centre, Once Brewed (on B6318 next to Twice Brewed Inn) – 01434-344396. Open weekends only in winter.
visitengland.com; www.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 grey cool day had hung low cloud over the Somerset coast and capped the Quantock Hills with mist. A stodge of red mud sucked at our boots in the ferny old lane that rose from West Bagborough up the steep south face of Lydeard Hill. A ghostly hoot and a frantic heartbeat of chuffing from far below tracked the progress of a train, rattling along the West Somerset Railway and leaving fat white gouts of smoke to dissolve in the breeze.

Up on the brackeny back of Lydeard Hill we found ourselves just under the mist line. A giant view opened northwards over the coastal plain to the silver coils of the River Parrett snaking into the low-tide mud flats of the Severn Estuary. Steep Holm and Flat Holm islands lay black and two-dimensional, as though cut from slate. The Welsh shore ran away westward, the grey whaleback of the Mendip Hills barred the northward horizon twenty miles off, and at our feet opened a steep, nameless little valley, a Quantock combe full of golden treetops.

A pink horse came ambling past. ‘Oh,’ laughed his rider, ‘he should be white, but he loves rolling in all this red mud!’ We followed a ridge path down to Bishpool Farm, richly scented with applewood smoke and lying in a red and green valley. A little girl came out among barking dogs at Lambridge Farm to watch us go by. We rounded Gib Hill and followed a bridleway up through the woods to the summit of Cothelstone Hill. Some British chieftain lies here under a round barrow, lord of a hundred-mile prospect – Blackdown, Quantock, Mendip, Exmoor, Cotswold and Wales.

We stood to savour it all, then plunged down the mucky bridleway through Paradise woods to Cothelstone where the red sandstone church, model farm and Elizabethan manor house huddled together in a beautiful cluster under the hill. St Agnes Well lay under a corbelled cap by the road, its dimpling water efficacious in curing infertility and vouchsafing virgins a glimpse of their future husbands. We trailed our fingers in the spring, and then made west across handsome parkland where black cattle stared stolidly from under the trees.

A high-banked lane, a last glimpse of broad Taunton Vale from a bridleway, and we were back in West Bagborough in time for tea at the Rising Sun.

Start: Rising Sun Inn, West Bagborough, Taunton, Somerset TA4 3EF (OS ref ST 171334)

Getting there: West Bagborough is signed off A358 Taunton-Williton road between Combe Florey and Crowcombe.

Walk (7½ miles, moderate with some ups and downs, OS Explorer 140): Up lane beside Rising Sun, through gate; on uphill for ⅔ mile. At top of hill, path forks; right here (174344; ‘Restricted Byway’) through gate. Three paths diverge; follow left-hand one. In 100m go over path crossing and on east over Lydeard Hill for ½ mile. Into woods (183343, yellow arrow/YA). In 200m, track curves right; left here (185341); in 100m, right through kissing gate. Keep ahead along ridge with hedge on right; in ½ mile, right through gate (194344, no waymark); follow hedge down to road (197342). Right past Bishpool Farm; in 50m, left through kissing gate (YA) and farmyard. Left through gate; right over stile (fingerpost); aim half-right down field to cross stream (200339). Track to road.

Right past Lambridge Farm; steeply up through gate (199337); pass to right of cottage. Up through gate (blue arrow/BA); up through next gate; follow hedge on left for ⅓ mile to go through gate into wood (195333, BA). In 100m track bends right; follow it up to road (193331). Right along road (take care! Left side is best!) for 300m. Just before road on right, turn left up bridleway through wood (190330, BA, ‘The Rap’ fingerpost). In 150m, at T-junction, left (189330); in 200m, fork left through gate (188328, ‘footpath’ arrow). Up through trees for 250m to fenced tumulus on ridge (188326). Left to stony knoll and viewpoint at summit of Cothelstone Hill (190327)

Bear right downhill on broad grass path. In 100m ignore fork to left. Down to pass animal pens on your right. In 200m, 2 gates on right (193324). Go through kissing gate beside left-hand one; turn right and immediately left to post with 2 waymark arrows. Right here; in 100m, at crossing of tracks (192323), bear left downhill on bridleway through Paradise Wood, keeping ahead over various track crossings (occasional BAs) for ¾ mile to road (185319). Ahead downhill in Cothelstone. In 150m, right (fingerpost) across footbridge (optional detour, signed right, to St Agnes Well). Follow path past back of Cothelstone Farm. Left through gate (182319, YA); through gate at churchyard corner; across parkland field. In ¼ mile, over stile in dip (178321); ahead to gate into woodland strip; cross road (175322, YA). Half right across field to stile (174325, YA) and fenced path to road. Ahead up road; in 200m, pass Pilgrim’s Cottages; in 150m, left (175329, ‘bridleway’) on bridleway for ¼ mile to road (171331). Right into West Bagborough.

Lunch: Rising Sun, West Bagborough (01823-432575, risingsuninn.info) – very cheerful, friendly pub with rooms

Accommodation: Rising Sun (see above), or Cothelstone Manor (01823-433480; cothelstonemanor.co.uk)

Info: Taunton TIC (01823-336344)

www.LogMyTrip.co.uk; www.satmap.com; www.LogMyTrip.co.uk