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 Royal Geographical Society has just launched its ‘Discovering Britain’ project (discoveringbritain.org), exploring dozens of landscapes through walks great and small. On a gorgeous summer’s afternoon we set out from the Wiltshire village of Tilshead to follow one of the RGS walks through the heart of Salisbury Plain.

Stepping off the road into the vast Ministry of Defence preserve of Salisbury Plain feels like slipping through the screen of time into the pages of a book by Edward Thomas or W.H. Hudson. The past hundred years might never have existed. Here are no motor roads, no housing developments, no industry. These dense, flower-rich, unimproved chalk grasslands, Europe’s most extensive tract, have never known modern ploughing or farm chemicals. They have remained in this pristine, prelapsarian state thanks to the activities of the MoD, which uses the plain for military training to the exclusion of all other activity.

A mile or so down the white-dusted chalk track we passed the enormous Old Ditch long barrow, one of the longest in UK, over 400ft from end to end. These ancient monuments, too, have escaped the plough and the developer’s JCB – though one or two have occasionally collided with a tank.

The richness of the chalk grassland flora had us exclaiming out loud – a palette of colour and variety really astonishing to walkers accustomed to the thin pickings of England’s 21st century landscapes. Vivid royal blue of viper’s bugloss, round lacy powder-puffs of field scabious, buttery sprigs of yellow rattle, sanfoin’s convex pink petals like stripy Shakespearean breeches. Butterflies kettered and zigzagged over the grasses – clouded yellows, small skippers, marbled whites, chalkhill blues. Over all lay the soporific hum of bees and hoverflies busy among the flowers.

There were one or two soldiers, of course – cheerful, courteous men who stopped their bouncing carriers to enquire whether we were having a nice day before roaring off into the ‘German village’. This mock-up of a Bavarian township was built for Cold War practice against imaginary Russian invaders on the plains of Germany, and is still in use for training soldiers in fighting techniques in built-up areas.

We left the eerie, hollow-eyed dummy houses behind and took the homeward track across the flowery grasslands among pink mallows and great purple knapweed blooms. There are hidden hazards for the unwary in this timeless paradise, though. One of us stepped onto an innocuous-looking mud patch, went in up to the hips, and had to be hauled squelchingly out. It wasn’t me, that’s all I have to say on the matter.

Start: Rose & Crown PH, Tilshead, Wilts SP3 4RZ (OS ref SU 033480)

Getting there: Bus service 2, Devizes-Salisbury. Road – Tilshead is on A360 between West Lavington and Shrewton.

Walk (7 miles, easy, OS Explorer 130): From Rose & Crown, left along A360. In 150m, right beside Ash Tree House gateway. Follow this lane (‘Restricted Byway’) for 500m to A360 (030479). Left; in 100m, on right bend, ahead up minor road (‘Chitterne’). At top of hill, left (024476, ‘No access for civilian vehicles’). Pass water tower on right; in 50m, fork right along main track. Into dip; ahead uphill to go through trees. In 100m, right (026469) with beech belt, then Long Barrow on right. In ⅔ mile, left (017465) on gravel road. Into dip; at top of rise beyond, right (019456, ‘Byway’) through trees. At 3-way fork just beyond, take right-hand track, passing mock village on your left.

In ½ mile cross gravel road (012455); in 150m, left up dirt road. In ½ mile at 6-finger post (013448) take 2nd track on left (‘Permissive Byway’), passing to right of mock village. In ½ mile, at crossroads with Byway signs pointing behind and ahead (021452), left between hedges. In 200m at ‘village gates’, right (020455, ‘Byway’). In 300m, ten metres before T-junction, left (023455, green ‘Byway’ sign/GB) up rutted, grassy track.

In ½ mile pass trig pillar on right, then cross gravel road (028462, GB). On along grassy track, with Westdown Camp ahead. In ¼ mile join gravel road (031467, GB) and continue past White Barrow (033469). In another ¼ mile, just short of A360, left (035471, ‘Imber Range Path’) on grassy track. In 700m, right (‘Restricted Byway’) to A360; left to Rose & Crown.

Lunch: Rose & Crown, Tilshead (01980-621062, roseandcrowntilshead.com)

Accommodation: Rollestone Manor, Shrewton SP3 4HF (01980-620216, rollestonemanor.com)

Info: Salisbury TIC (01793-530328 or 466454)

www.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 village shop with a café in the back, spick, span and cheerful; a redundant phone box stuffed with leaflets on walks from the local pubs; barbecues, community hall hops, walking clubs – the twin Hertfordshire villages of Thundridge and Wadesmill are in rude good fettle, and proud of it. We stayed at the Feathers in Wadesmill, and set out full of bacon and bonhomie into a cold summer’s morning.

Grey clouds scudding horizontally from the west had persuaded the local farmers to halt the harvest temporarily. We walked the flinty margins of half-gathered fields of barley and oilseed rape. It was the time of year when wayside plants are drying up – docks the colour of rusty iron, mallows hanging limp. A fine patch of dandelion-headed bristly ox-tongue showed pale green leaves peppered with white pimples like a teenager’s morning-after complexion. Great willowherb stood tall and pink in soldierly ranks in the hedges, and bindweed opened white trumpets along the verges.

We came to Bengeo Temple Farm, the name an invitation to speculate. Back in early medieval times the farm belonged to the Knights Templar, and there have been persistent rumours of a great treasure buried there by the order on their dissolution. Today we had the flashing silver of oat seeds and the dull gold of heavy wheat as treasure of another kind to enjoy as we walked on towards Sacombe Park. The big yellow brick house stands among trees in broad parkland where truncated oaks sprout their limbs from tub-shaped trunks.

From Sacombe Green a Roman road under the name of Lowgate Lane runs east, and we followed it through the blackening bean-fields. There’s something irresistible about marching a Roman road, imagining the dusty sandals of the soldiers rising and falling in step. We turned off Lowgate Lane reluctantly, but the southward path to Wadesmill proved an absolute beauty in its own right. It clings to the rim of The Bourne, an extraordinarily deep seasonal stream, dry as a bone at this time of year as a ravine at least forty feet deep in places, with flood-sculpted promontories and the pale skeletons of fallen trees jammed across it like primitive bridges.

The sun came out from behind the clouds, the barley heads drooped and waited for the harvester, and the woods stood along the ridge as thick and black as pitch. It all added up to a perfect picture of a corn-filled land at harvest time.

Start: Feathers Hotel, Wadesmill, Herts SG12 0TN (OS ref TL 360176)

Getting there: Bus 331 (Hertford-Royston).
Road: Wadesmill is on A10, 2 miles north of Ware

Walk (6 miles, easy, OS Explorer 194): Left along A10; right at Anchor PH down B158. In 200m, right (‘Public bridleway 35, Sacombe 2’) up field edge. At top (356177, yellow arrow/YA), left; in 200m, right (YA) up line of telephone posts. Ahead along field edges. Keep left of Chelsing Farm; cross drive (350178, YA); cross field and keep ahead along field edges. Down steps in Bourne Wood; at bottom, right (342178, YAs), then left up gravel track. In 100m, right through hedge (YA); ahead with hedge on left. At end of brick barn at Bengeo Temple Farm, left through kissing gate (340179). In 30m, right (YA) up gravel track (NB not farm drive!), which becomes green lane along field edges.

In ½ mile pass reservoir and turn right along driveway (333184, white arrow). In 500m at cattle grid and lodge house, fork left (336189, ‘Sacombe House’, blue arrow/BA). In 100m, fork right along driveway. In 350m, just past Sacombe House, left at crossing of tracks (339191, BA). In 200m, fork left by The Red House (BA). In 500m, right at road in Sacombe Green (342196); fork immediately right (‘High Cross’). In 100m, left (‘Footpath, Lowgate Lane’); continue with hedge, then tree nursery on right for 300m to road (345198). Right; at next corner, keep ahead along Lowgate Lane. In ½ mile, opposite Lowgate Lodge, right (353202, BA) on bridleway beside The Bourne stream. In just over a mile cross a road (358187); continue (‘Wadesmill ¾’) on path to Wadesmill.

Lunch/Accommodation: Feathers Hotel, Wadesmill (01920-462606, www.oldenglishinns.co.uk/feathers-wadesmill) – very cheerful, friendly and welcoming village inn.

Info: Hertford TIC (01992-584322)

www.hertfordshirelep.com/enjoy/; 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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Forvie National Nature Reserve lies on the Scottish coast north of Aberdeen. This spectacular reserve contains nearly two thousand acres of sandy beaches, open moorland, estuarine mudflats and a great wilderness of ancient green sandhills that stretch away south from the Visitor Centre at Collieston.

On a brisk, windy day with a cloudy sky hurrying rain showers out to sea, the dunes looked dun and drab as we followed the coast path among their shaggy camel humps. But that first dull impression gave way to astonishment at the richness of their flora – spatters of white heath bedstraw, stout northern marsh orchids with richly purple flower heads, pink streamers of ragged robin, wild pansies with lower lips of cream and yellow. Lichens, mosses and heather combined to lay a subtly-coloured foundation for these floral glories of the sandhills.

At North Broad Haven a sour fishy whiff heralded a teeming colony of kittiwakes. We lay on the cliff edge above a guano-whitened sea stack where a row of cormorants sat on a line of untidy nests. The nestlings craned their heads up to rub the throats of their parents, stimulating them to regurgitate the fish they’d brought back in their crops.

Down on the beach at Rockend we strode south on firm sand to the boundary of the ternery. Here sandwich, common and little terns have their summer breeding ground; and once we had crossed the dunes and were perched looking down on the Ythan Estuary, we could see them lined up head to wind in hundreds on the mud flats. Beside our homeward path along the river a great congregation of eider ducks lay moulting, the males with green neck flashes and black toupés with centre-partings like 1920s cabaret cads.

Eiders flock to Forvie in their thousands in spring to nest on the moors behind the dunes. These handsome, bulky birds gobble the estuary’s mussels whole, grinding them small in their gizzards. Forvie NNR offers the eider a place of safety, as it does the terns, the wild flowers and the dunes that have been growing and shifting along this coast since Stone Age man came hunting here.

Start: Forvie NNR Visitor Centre, Collieston AB41 8RU (OS ref NK 034289)

Getting there: Bus 63 (Aberdeen-Peterhead) to Collieston Cross (1½ miles).
Road: Forvie NNR is signed off B9003 Collieston road (from A975 between Newburgh and Cruden Bay).

Walk (8½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 421. Online maps, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): From Visitor Centre follow ‘To The Reserve.’ Through gate; turn left along gravel track towards line of cottages (Red Route or Heath Trail, with occasional waymark posts). Along right side of Sand Loch to coast (036281); right along dune path above sea. In 1½ miles, descend to beach at Rockend (023265). Continue along beach for ¾ of a mile to rope barrier at ternery (014253). Turn right into dunes past tern sign on pole; follow Dune Trail to Ythan Estuary (009254). Right up estuary path for 1 mile. Opposite info shelter, turn right (005269). Follow Dune Trail posts for 1 mile to Forvie Kirk ruin (021266); then follow ‘Hackley Bay’ to coast (023265). Left up coast for 1¼ miles. At Red Route post (033276), left inland on Heath Trail. At marker post at far side of small loch, don’t turn right; keep ahead. At ‘Shortcut’ post bear left; at next post, fork left (032284) to return to Visitor Centre.

Lunch: Picnic

Accommodation: Thistle Aberdeen Airport, AB21 0AF (01224-725252; thistle.com)

Forvie NNR: Visitor Centre, 01358-751330, nnr-scotland.org.uk

visitscotland.com; satmap.com; visitaberdeen.com

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

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Under a blue sky patched with summer clouds we set out from the hilltop village of Cadeleigh, across grazing meadows and hayfields where the grass lay cut but not yet gathered. A heady scent arose as our boots crushed clover and sweet vernal grass. It was perfect weather for summer walking – warm but not too hot, breezy but not too chill.

The fields plunged high and low. This mid-Devon farming country is steep with tree-crowned hills, the fields conforming their shapes to the roll of the land. The far perspectives were all tumbled between green grazing, yellow cut hayfields and the dense milky pink of ploughland. In a coop at Little Century smallholding, fifteen ducklings seethed around two old hens, their foster-mothers. At Well Town, Tommy the black-and-white terrier came out to bark us off his patch – and quite right, too.

Up at Kingdom’s Corner we found a wonderful old green lane of the kind that has threaded these valleys and hills since men began to move beasts across the land. Overhung with oak, ash, hazel and blackthorn, floored with stones and fallen bird cherries, it swooped and swung above the bends of the River Dart in its thickly wooded valley. A barn beside the lane was footed with stone, with upper works of cob – mud, stones and straw sun-baked into hardness. Rain, wind, mice and martins had burrowed it into a tissue of holes across which spider gossamer glittered in tightly drawn threads.

We reached the valley road near Burn Bridge, and turned along a field lane towards Cadeleigh. The green track skirted East Court, where wooden farm carts shared the hedge with an ancient crimson Commer lorry like great-gran’fer used to drive.

The path led between hedges of horehound, wood sage and flesh-pink centaury. We found ourselves passing through flickering clouds of meadow brown butterflies. They had all hatched at once, drawn out of their chrysalises by the sun’s warmth. The new butterflies blundered about the grasses and danced along the lane before us, whirling giddily round and round one another as though for sheer joy of the summer’s day.

Start: Cadeleigh Parish Hall car park, Cadeleigh, Devon EX16 8HW (OS ref SS 915081)

Getting there: M5 Jct 27, A361 to Tiverton, A396 to Bickleigh Bridge, A3072 (‘Crediton’); in ¼ mile, right (‘Cadeleigh’) to village. Pass Cadeleigh Arms PH on right; immediately right (‘Little Silver’). In 200m, Parish Hall on right; park opposite.

Walk (7 miles, strenuous, OS Explorer 114): Turn up Glebelands drive (‘footpath’). Through farmyard and on, following yellow arrows/YA along field edges. In 3rd field, go steeply downhill with trees on left, then bear right along bottom of field to driveway (911087, YA). Left; in 40m, left over stile (YA). Up track, then cross to right-hand hedge (YA). Continue, to go through hedge gap (YA). Down to cross stile under trees; over 2nd stile and cross stream (911088, YA).

Steeply up right-hand hedge to cross stile into Round Wood; left and follow YAs/red blobs through wood, to cross stream by stile (908091). Half left, steeply up field; through hedge (YA); up field with hedge on left. Half left across next field (YA) to cross farm road (906094). On through gate (YA); half left across field to skirt to right of house and garden at Well Town. Through gate (YA) onto drive; right for 350m to road at Kingdom’s Corner (905099).

Right along road, immediately right (‘Bridleway’). Follow green lane east for ¾ mile to tarmac lane; ahead for 100m to road (917096). Right; in 50m, fork left up stony lane. In 500m, descend through gate by barn (blue arrow/BA); right in front of cottage to road (921092). Left; in 50 m, right (‘Bridleway’) along lane. In ⅔ mile pass Dart Cottages (928085); at ford beyond, fork right (BA) along right bank of River Dart. Ignore YAs and continue along stony lane for ⅓ mile to road (931079).

Right; in 200m, opposite steps of The Coach House, fork left (‘footpath’) along lane. In ¼ mile, beyond barns, take right or upper fork (927077, YA; diversion notice on gatepost) past East Court. In another 150m take lower fork (‘footpath’) past barn and follow green lane. At gate into field before reaching Cadeleigh Court (922075, YA) aim half right across field to gate (hidden at first, soon in view, YA). On along track that skirts anticlockwise round farm. At T-junction by Manor House garden wall, right (919074, YA) on lane for ½ mile to road (911073). Right uphill for ½ mile into Cadeleigh.

Lunch: Cadeleigh Arms, Cadeleigh (01884-855238, cadeleigh.com) – excellent community-owned pub

Accommodation: East Dunster Deer Farm, Cadeleigh, EX16 8HR (01884-855386, airbnb.co.uk)

Info: Tiverton TIC (01884-230878); Cadeleigh village website, cadeleigh.com

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 glider was circling perilously near the cliffs on Sutton Bank, but no-one on the Cleveland Way had eyes for it – not with the signposts proclaiming ‘The Finest View in England – 50 metres’. That might be a bit of an eyebrow raiser as a claim, but the prospect over the Vale of York from the sharply-cut crags of Sutton Brow is certainly a stunning one. I looked out south and west over a giant plain, patched with cloud and sun, green and pale gold, rolling away to splendid blue hills on the edge of sight.

‘The Yorkshire Dales, them are,’ said a man at my side. ‘See Great Whernside there?’ He pointed out a diminutive hump on the skyline. ‘Thirty mile off, that is. Entrance to Wensleydale’s that great dark cliff you see there. Damned if it isn’t a hundred mile or more, this view.’ He inhaled as though he were drawing the scene inside to hold it deep down.

The Cleveland Way National Trail shadows Sutton Brow and the long south-north escarpment of the Hambleton Hills, so walkers get the full effect of the sensational view for mile after mile. I chose a side turning, and plunged down a path edged with pale pink dog roses through the ancient woodland of Garbutt Wood. Bluebell pods as fat as peas stood among the star-like flowers of yellow pimpernel. Gaps in the silver birch and oaks gave snatches of the view over the plain.

Young coots and moorhens were squeaking in the reeds of Gormire Lake when I got down to it at the foot of the bluff. At the pretty cottage of Southwoods Lodge I found a north-running bridleway between hedges thick with lacy umbellifers. A bee landed on one of the flat plant heads and slid its hair-thin proboscis into each tiny white flower in turn, drawing out sweetness and carrying pollen away to fertilize the next host in its round of feeding.

At Midge Holm I walked fields of coarse grass round a lake, remnants of a landscaped park now subsiding back into the landscape. On through uncut hayfields, the ripe grass heads hazing the meadows with a wash of pale purple as they released steamy warmth I could feel on my cheeks and arms.

‘I’m 82 tomorrow,’ said a slim and upright gentleman in walking boots whom I met on the homeward track to Sutton Bank, ‘and I’m lucky. Nothing ever ails me.’ He indicated the wonderful view to the distant hills. ‘Take a hold of this and put it away in the memory banks for a dark winter day. You can’t beat it, eh? Summer with its best coat on.’

Start: Sutton Bank car park, YO7 2EH (OS ref SE 517831)

Getting there: Car park is at top of Sutton Bank on A170 (Thirsk-Helmsley)

Walk (6 miles, moderate, OS Explorer OL26): Follow tarmac path up left side of Sutton Bank Bikes shop. At ‘White Horse 1¼” fingerpost, ahead through car park; follow gravel path on right of A170 to cross side road (515830); ahead along Cleveland Way/CW (‘Sneck Yate’). In 400m, left off CW (511833; ‘Footpath, Nature Trail’) steeply down through Garbutt Wood, passing numbered posts. At Post 9 (505833) ignore ‘Southwoods’ sign to right; bear left downhill to Gormire Lake. Right (504833, ‘Bridleway, Southwoods’). At Southwoods Lodge cottage (502838), right along bridleway (blue arrow/BA).

At Midge Holm Gate (502843), cross road; through gate to left of Southwoods Hall gates (‘Tang Hall, Southwoods’ fingerpost); curve anti-clockwise round field edge and on (bridleway fingerposts, BAs) to road at Tang Hall (496851). Right over cattle grid; track to Greendale farm. Through gate to left of farmyard (499854, BA); up field, through gate; left (‘bridleway’) through skirts of wood. In 350m, at 3-finger post, right (499857; ‘Bridleway, Little Moor’) up woodland track, across Little Moor, up forestry track (BAs) for ⅔ mile. At top (507853), right along CW (‘Sutton Bank’) for 2 miles to car park.

Refreshments: Sutton Bank visitor centre café (01845-597962)

Info: North York Moors Visitor Centre, Sutton Bank (01845-597426; northyorkmoors.org.uk)

Yorkshire Wolds Walking & Outdoor Festival 2016 (10-18 September) – theyorkshirewolds.com

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