Christopher Somerville

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

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The old house of Rosehall drooped on its mossy terrace like a faded socialite the morning after the night before. Standing on the driveway looking out over the tussocky parkland and along the beautiful wild strath of the River Oykel, we pictured the grand heyday of Rosehall in the 1920s as the Highland love-nest of the Duke of Westminster and his glamorous paramour, Coco Chanel. The French couturière and designer, by the way, was no drooping lily. She walked, rode and fished as hard as anyone.

We strolled the carriage driveway under great beech, their trunks as pale and smooth as chalk. The brawling and rushing River Cassley, a tributary of the Oykel, winds through the park, and we walked upstream against its rain-swollen flow.

A crook of the river, barred across with enormous rocks and ledges, swung in a tight roaring curve below a little mossy graveyard spattered with snowdrops, its stone wall beautifully mended and maintained. Here landlord Neil Walter Graesser lies buried with his beloved fly rod. Nearby lies William Munro, the Rosehall gardener who died in 1821 at the not inconsiderable age of one hundred and four.

Above the graveyard a handy bench overlooked the thundering chaos of the River Cassley’s falls, the river foaming and jumping, vibrating the rocks under our boots, the water rearing back on itself in glass-grey surges around submerged snags in the riverbed.

We tore ourselves away at last, following a sedgy path that threaded the pines and birches of Rosehall Forest, rising steadily uphill in snaking curves between banks of ferns and mosses. These forest paths don’t look after themselves; it takes the sharp eyes and constant attention of many willing locals to keep them clear and passable.

Walkers are the beneficiaries. From the waymarked trail we looked out across the valley, over the roofs of Rosehall and away to a high ridge of hills over which peeped the snow-streaked peaks of the Sutherland mountains.

We descended towards the Achness Hotel, promising ourselves one of their piping hot bowls of cullen skink and a mighty session of music. It’s doubtful whether Coco and her Duke ever looked forward to their champagne and foie gras at Rosehall with keener relish.

Start: Rosehall Forest car park, near Lairg, IV27 4BD approx. (OS ref NC 479019)

Getting there: Car park is on A837 Rosehall-Ullapool road, ¼ of a mile before Achness Hotel, Rosehall

Walk (5 miles, easy, OS Explorer 440): From car park cross A837, through lodge gates opposite, down gorsy path to bridge and carriage drive (478015). Right; in 250m fork left past Rosehall House and follow drive. In 500m, at small stone bridge, fork sharp left (473020) and bear right along River Cassley to A837 bridge (472023). Cross road; down steps, cross footbridge and continue along river bank. In 600m, at graveyard (468028), pass entrance gate and follow wall, then path up to falls viewpoint of the River Cassley. Cross footbridge; on along river bank. In 200m, bear right at wooden gate (469029) with fence on right to road (470028). Right; in 50m, left through gate; path uphill (blue stripe posts). In 550m reach lookout bench and forest road (474030). Left; follow Deerpark & Wildwood Trail (yellow stripe posts). In ¾ of a mile, bear left up Achness Burn Trail (479030, brown stripes) for 250m to viewpoint (483031) and return to Deerpark & Wildwood Trail. Left to return to car park.

Lunch/Accommodation: Achness Hotel, Rosehall, Lairg IV27 4BD (01549-441239, achnesshotel.co.uk) – friendly, informal hotel with music sessions.

Info: scotland.forestry.gov.uk/visit/rosehall

visitscotland.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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Daffodils were out along the zigzag road through North Grimston. From the cellar of the Middleton Arms, a hollow clanging announced the racking of a fresh consignment of good Yorkshire ale – a nice promise to myself for the end of the walk. Just now I was for the wolds, those deep valleys seamed into the chalky landscape of East Yorkshire that you never suspect are there at all until you suddenly come on them.

The farm track of the Centenary Way carried me away from North Grimston, up a green cleft whose curves and sinuations held unemphatic colours on this early spring morning – milky greens and greys against the dark stripes of leafless woodland. The slopes around Wood House Farm and High Bellmanear called for the bold palette of David Hockney, who cut his landscape teeth among the geometric shapes and quarter-tones of the Yorkshire Wolds.

Curlew cries came up from the sedgy meadows below, along with cock crows and the pop! pop! of shotguns from the woods. The white chalk and flint track led north through fields of spring wheat to Settrington Beacon where the Romans once maintained a signal station, one in a line of warning flares between their harbour at Filey Brigg and the garrison town of Eboracum/York.

A hare leaped up and pelted away as I trudged the ridge road towards Settrington. Folded fields and old orchards, a plopping frog pond, and then the steep lane that separates Settrington House from its lake. A final wriggle of road, and I was walking south beside the extravagantly snaking Settrington Beck in sodden fields where a flock of greylag geese waddled away from the stranger, piping hoarsely in their anxiety.

Watching the wold ridges sliding by, listening to the trumpeting of the geese and the quiet gurgle of the beck, I almost forgot to peep into St Nicholas’s Church when I got back to North Grimston. I’d have kicked myself if I hadn’t, because the church contains a rare treasure, a massive Norman tub font carved with tableaux in a remarkable naïve style.

In the most striking scene a wide-eyed Christ with a broad grin presides over the Last Supper. There are fish and hot-cross buns on the table. The disciples bless themselves and smile out at the world. Some nameless carver made this work of art and faith, perhaps in the 12th century AD, or maybe earlier still.

Start: Middleton Arms, North Grimston, Nr Malton, E. Yorks YO17 8AX (OS ref SE 844677)

Getting there: Bus 190 (Foxholes-Malton)
Road – From A64 (York-Malton) follow Kirkham Abbey, Langton, North Grimston.

Walk (7½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 300): Left along road; on first right bend, left across cattle grid and follow farm track (soon marked ‘Centenary Way’) for 2¾ miles to road at Settrington Beacon (867706). Left; in ¾ of a mile, left (856709, ‘Wold House’). Just before house, right over stile (yellow arrow/YA). Ahead down field; through gate (855705, YA); down to go through gate (YA). Left by pond; follow fence by trees (YA) to stile (YA), then Wardale drive (850702). Ahead to road (846703); left downhill past lake. At T-junction, left (838700, ‘North Grimston’); in a ¼ of a mile, left (‘Kirkhill’). Right at Kirk Hill farm (841697, YA) and follow YAs south across Settrington Beck and on for 1¼ miles to North Grimston.

Lunch: Middleton Arms, North Grimston (01944-768255)

Accommodation: Talbot Hotel, Yorkersgate, Malton YO17 7AJ (01653-639096, talbotmalton.co.uk) – very comfortable, stylish hotel.

Info: visitryedale.co.uk; yorkshire.com

Yorkshire Wolds Walking Festival: 9-17 September (the yorkshirewolds.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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In the west window of All Saints’ Church at King’s Cliffe, an upside-down angel plays the lute with spatulate fingers. Whoever re-assembled these fragments of medieval glass got some sly fun out of the job. Opposite the lutanist, another angel strums a dulcimer – an angel with the head of a pompous-looking eagle.

The streets and narrow alleys of King’s Cliffe are lined with handsome houses of creamy limestone, very characteristic of this north-eastern corner of Northamptonshire. Under today’s blue sky they glowed with a light as soft and silvery as moonshine.

Up on the slope above the village we followed the Jurassic Way, a broad track that snakes through the ancient woodland of Westhay and Fineshade Woods, a remnant of what was once the great sprawl of Rockingham Forest. These days forestry and leisure go together here. Families strolled and walked the dog, runners thudded by, and coveys of kids on bikes competed to ‘do a Wiggins’ up the slopes and down the dips.

We ducked aside among the trees to peer over the edge of a precipitous jungly ravine, the deep cutting where the goods trains of the London & North Western Railway once rattled immense loads of limestone through the woods and away to the outside world. A cup of tea at a table outside the Top Lodge Forest Café, and we turned south along the Jurassic Way into a green valley. A striking set of Palladian stables lay in a fold of ground, all that remains of the grand Georgian house that was built on the site of Fineshade Abbey. Up across a ridge of sheep grazing, and down again towards the wide valley of the Willow Brook where Blatherwycke Lake turned its polished steel face to the blue sky.

Blatherwycke’s 19th-century estate houses lead down to a beautiful zigzag bridge over a neck of the lake. As at Fineshade, a great country house stood here until a post-war decline in fortunes saw it demolished. We passed the Norman church under horse chestnuts and beeches, and followed a broad path planted with young trees – chestnut-leaved oak, black mulberry, tulip tree – through rolling parkland and cornfields. The sun shone, shadows lengthened, and the Willow Brook chuckled and sparkled as it guided us on towards King’s Cliffe.

Start: Cross Keys Inn, King’s Cliffe, Northants, PE8 6XA (OS ref TL 007971)

Getting there: Bus – CallConnect service (0845-263-8153)
Road – King’s Cliffe is signed from A47 between Duddington and Wansford

Walk (7½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 224): From Cross Keys, right along West Street. At edge of village, right (001972) up Wood Lane. In 500m, left at barrier (SP 998976). Follow waymarked Jurassic Way/JW through Westhay and Fineshade Woods for 1½ miles to Top Lodge café (979983).

Bear left along road; just past railway bridge, left and follow JW southwest. Just past Fineshade Abbey stables, JW goes right across concrete footbridge (972975); but keep ahead here. Cross stile; bear left up field, then aim for gateway on ridge at left end of hedge (972972). Follow fence on right to far end of field; right across stile (973970). Half left across field, aiming for Blatherwycke Lake; field path for 800m to road junction (971962); right (‘Blatherwycke’). In 600m cross bridge; in another 200m, left (973955, ‘Historic Church’) up drive to Blatherwycke Church (974958).

Continue along drive (black arrows/BLA, then yellow arrows/YA). In ¾ mile, just before ‘Private: No Right of Way’ notice, left through hedge (984964, BLA). Continue with hedge on right to pass through Alders Farm (989966). On through fields (YAs, BLAs, stiles); in ⅔ mile, left across footbridge (998968, BLA); on across fields and past allotments to King’s Cliffe. Ahead along Church Walk (002971) for 600m to church; left to Cross Keys Inn.

Lunch: Cross Keys Inn, King’s Cliffe (crosskeyskingscliffe.uk; 01780-470276), or Top Lodge Café, Fineshade Wood.

Accommodation: Old White Hart, Lyddington, Oakham, Rutland LE15 9LR (01572-821703, oldwhitehart.co.uk) – friendly and cheerful village inn.

Info: Stamford TIC (01780-755611)

Kempley Daffodil Weekend walks, Glos: 18, 19 March (daffs.org.uk)

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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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.