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 glorious afternoon on the west Lancashire coast under wall-to-wall blue sky. We walked the green fields of Cockerham with the Bowland moors rising in the east, Blackpool Tower tiny and familiar down in the southwest, and the Lake District fells around Helvellyn and Scafell Pike standing as if cut from pale blue card on the northern horizon.

Down at the sea wall a great flat apron of saltmarsh lay spread at the edge of Cockerham Sands, cut with wriggling channels. Brackish pools winked in the sun like a thousand bright eyes. The tide was on the make, advancing along the shore road and up the creeks in a frothy mini-tsunami, driving flights of loudly piping dunlin, oystercatchers and redshank shoreward in agitation. Further out on a vanishing sandbank, geese babbled together, a musical chiming across the water, reminiscent of sheep bells in Alpine pastures.

The seawall path ran past Bank End and Bank Houses, remote farmsteads among flat green pastures out at the edge of the land. As the coast turned north we came to Cockersand Abbey, or what remains of it – a curious semi-rectagonal chapter house among angles of walls, its soft red sandstone rubbed into dimples and hollows by 800 years of wind and weather.

Cockersand Abbey was founded on this lonely shore as a leper hospital. When the site was excavated in the 1920s, archaeologists found fragments of lead and coloured glass from the windows that were smashed at the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The abbey ruin became a source of ready-worked building stone. Only the chapter house survived, because the local landowners wanted it for their family mausoleum.

From Cockersand Abbey we followed the windy coast path north to Crook Farm, with Heysham Power Station looming massively ahead like a 1950s suburban house designed by an ogre. Soon it was behind us, and we followed the grassy imprint of Marsh Lane over sheep pastures to Glasson Dock, a rare survival of a small working port. A dip into the cornucopia of goodies in the Port of Lancaster Smokehouse here, and a last stretch on a railway path into Conder Green above the golden marshes of the Lune Estuary.

Start: Manor Inn, Cockerham, near Lancaster, LA2 0EF (OS ref SD 465522)

Getting there: Bus 89, 89H (Lancaster-Knott End)
Road – Cockerham is on A588 between Conder Green and Pilling (M6, Jct 33)

Walk (7 miles, flat and easy, OS Explorer 296. Online map, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): South from Manor Inn down A588; in 50m, right beside Old Mill House. Follow lane; through garden at top; through kissing gate at end of garden (464524, yellow arrow/YA). Follow fence on right downhill; follow YAs along field edges, round cottage (462529). Leave cottage garden over stile; ahead over field and footbridge (YA); follow ditch/fence on right for ½ mile to Hillam Lane (455531). Left past Hillam Farm; in ½ mile, right (449528) along sea wall. Follow Lancaster Coastal Path/LCP north for 3¾ miles via Bank End (441528), Cockersand Abbey chapter house (427537), Crook Farm (431550) and Marsh Lane to road at Glasson (443556). Left, then right to Glasson Dock. Cross swing bridge (445561); cross road by Victoria Inn; right along LCP. In ¾ of a mile, cross bridge (456560); right to Conder Green. Bus 89/89H or taxi (01995-607777; £6.50) to Cockerham.

Lunch: Picnic – provisions from Port of Lancaster Smokehouse, Glasson – 01524-751493, lancastersmokehouse.co.uk

Accommodation: The Mill at Conder Green, Lancs, LA2 0BD (01524-752852; themillatcondergreen.co.uk) – really comfortable, superbly positioned.

Information: Lancaster TIC (01524-582394), visitlancashire.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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I don’t know whether William Shakespeare ever travelled much of the long-distance footpath from Stratford-upon-Avon to London that bears his name. But several of the gorgeous houses in the Warwickshire village of Honington look as though they’ve been there since the Bard was a lad. It was a day to do them justice as we set out along ‘Shakespeare’s Way’ – a tender blue sky, a cool breeze, and a hazy spring sun to bring out the mellow silver and gold of the local building stone.

Parkland stretched away beside the road that led north out of Honington. Sparrows, chaffinches, rooks and wrens all loudly proclaimed the spring from greening hedges and treetops. A jackdaw was pulling strands of nesting hay from the bales in a red-roofed barn, and a great spotted woodpecker drummed a hollow proclamation of ownership from its patch of woodland beyond Wagtail Spinney.

In a boggy dell we parted company from Shakespeare’s Way. We got across the fast-running stream, and stopped in the damp hollow beyond to clear a tangle of sticks that had dammed a spring. Watching the water bursting away from its confines in a wet sparkle took both Jane and me straight back to our muddy-booted childhoods.

Walking up the field boundaries to Idlicote on its ridge, we paused to admire the superb old trees that formed the margin of the path – giant crack willows burst apart and fallen, ancient coppice stools of field maples, and an ash tree split open to expose a heart of writhing tendrils more like those of an animal than a tree.

Up at Idlicote a scarecrow sat on a bench – a smooth customer in a grey homburg hat, with a pink silk kerchief in his breast pocket. Rooks had built a ragged township in the nearby trees, and they challenged our passing with reedy quacks and phlegmy belches. Sticky paths led us up from Idlicote to a high ridge where the long views melted into mist. Before dropping down the slope into Honington there was time for a sit and stare across the plain, where the slender spire of Tredington Church rose skywards from the heart of Shakespeare’s countryside.

Start: All Saints Church, Honington, Warwicks, CV36 4NH (OS ref SP 261427)

Getting there: Honington is signed off A3400, 1 mile north of Shipston-on-Stour. Left off village street (signed) to church parking spaces.

Walk (6¼ miles, easy but muddy, OS Explorer 221): Walk to village street; turn left. Opposite turning to Barcheston, left (‘Old Post Office’). In 40m, ahead through metal mesh gate. Through woodland strip (kissing gate, yellow arrow/YA); half right across field to kissing gate (YA) and road (268427). Left along road. In 1 mile, cross bridge in Wagtail Copse; immediately right through gate (267443, ‘Shakespeare’s Way’/SW). Follow path on left of stream, then between stream and wood.

In 800m, right over footbridge (273448, blue arrow/BA); follow right bank of tributary stream up through trees (BAs), then along field edges to barns near Whitehouse Farm (277446). Cross track; ahead (BA) up field edges to Idlicote. At top of rise, ahead through gate (281443); ahead to road. Pass tower and kitchen garden; round left bend; immediately right between white gateposts (283442, BA). On to cross road (284440).

On up field with hedge on right. In 600m at top of ridge, right at waymark post (288435, ‘Centenary Way’/CW). At Idlicote Hill Farm, left, then right (288433, CW). Follow hedge on right to corner (post with YA, CW); bear right along hedge. In 70m pass yellow-topped post (CW); on with hedge on left. In ⅔ mile pass pond on right (278426); in 100m, bear right round corner of Hill Clumps Wood; in 30m, left (CW, YA) across strip of ground, then right (CW) and follow CW down to road. Right, then left into Honington.

Lunch: Picnic

Accommodation: White Bear, Shipston-on-Stour CV36 4AJ (01608 664199, whitebearin.com)

Information: Stratford-on-Avon TIC (01789 264293)

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 Teesdale town of Barnard Castle on a busy weekday, bustling, friendly, and packed with local shops. Some of these were not entirely traditional in produce, however; goat curry pasties were wowing the shoppers at the Moody Baker. William Peat, Master Butcher (or one of his representatives) came haring out into the street after a departing customer with: ‘Sausages, Missus! You forgot your sausages!’

We passed the gaunt, broken walls of the castle that overhangs the Tees. Down by the river we stopped beside the rushing white bar of the weir just in time to catch sight of a dipper alighting there. It bobbed its white shirt front energetically up and down before skimming off upriver in flight as straight as an arrow. We followed it along the Teesdale Way, an undulating path now rocky, now muddy, that shadowed the river through beautiful woods of young limes and beeches.

There’s always an element of uncertainty about the wild flowers you might find on a springtime walk in this northern part of England, where the colder and more upland situation squeezes the flowering season into a shorter and more intense timeframe than further south. But on this woodland walk today, everything had popped out and was displaying ensemble – wood anemones white and purple, bluebells and stitchwort, primroses side by side with red campion. Wild garlic and celandine, violets next to wild strawberries, forget-me-not, speedwell and water avens – it was altogether an astonishing display, with drifts of red, white and blue flooding the shadows under the trees.

Opposite Cotherstone we found the most perfect picnic spot in Teesdale, a primrose bank from which we looked down through young ash leaves on the river snaking noisily round a bend. Pied wagtails curtsied on the rocks, swallows skimmed the water, and a fisherman stood knee-deep and cast for a trout.

We descended to cross the Tees, then climbed to the return path along the rim of the dale. The sky turned slate grey behind us in the west. A bolt of rain, a whistle of wind, a crash of thunder and a spatter of hail like buckshot on our backs. Then brilliant spring sunshine spreading like butter across the pastures at Cooper House where plump lambs grazed and a brown hare sat tight in the wet grass, ears flattened along his damp furry back, delicately grooming each paw in turn.

Start: Barnard Castle long-stay car park, DL12 8GB (OS ref NZ 051163)

Getting there: Bus X75, X76, 84, 85, 95, 96 (Darlington),
Road – Barnard Castle is signed off A66, between Greta Bridge and Bowes (A1M, Scotch Corner junction).

Walk (8½ miles, moderate, OS Explorer OL31): Right to Market Cross; right up main street. At right bend, left by Methodist Church (‘Castle’). Follow ‘Riverside Walk and Cotherstone’ down to riverside (047166); bear right and follow ‘Teesdale Way’/TW through woods, close beside river. In 1¾ miles, through gate into field (033183). In 100m right through gate (TW), steeply up to gate at top. Left along upper wood edge.

500m beyond West Holme House, cross stream on footbridge by waterfall (025195); bear half right up bank (yellow arrow/YA) and curve round left to cross wall stile (YA). Cross next field, aiming for corner of wood straight ahead of you. Follow it with wall on left. In ½ mile, left (017201, TW) to descend through trees to cross gorsy meadow. At 2-finger TW post (014202), left across Tees; on far side, left to cross tributary (013201).

To visit Cotherstone, turn right here; to continue walk, climb steep bank opposite; up steps and along top of bank, following TW. In 1 mile pass Cooper House (023192); in 100m, left through kissing gate (TW) and bear right along lower wall. In ½ mile, descend to 2-finger TW post opposite pool (027186); right across stone footbridge and on. In 2 miles meet B6277 (045167); left across Tees footbridge (‘Cycle Route 70’); right to Barnard Castle.

Conditions: Some sections rocky and stumbly; a couple of short sharp climbs

Lunch: Picnic; or Fox & Hounds, Cotherstone (01833-650241, cotherstonefox.co.uk)

Accommodation: Three Horseshoes Inn, 5-7 Galgate, Barnard Castle, Durham (01833-631777; three-horse-shoes.co.uk) – smart, tidy and welcoming.

Info: Barnard Castle TIC (03000-262626), thisisdurham.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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Consall Nature Park is a truly fantastic resource for nearby Stoke-on-Trent – a network of colour-coded paths in a proper wild tangle of steep woods and stream canyons.

On a cold spring morning we set out to explore. A duckboard path took us down over stodgy black bog to cross a stream in a dell shaggy with moss. Steps rose and steps fell over the shoulders of wooded promontories as we followed the white and purple trails through the Nature Park. A bench perched high on a west-facing ledge of Far Kingsley Banks gave a view across massed treetops of smoky green and milky purple, a subtle touch of spring’s finger on these awakening woods.

On past distorted oaks throwing swollen arms in all directions, down a long flight of knee-cracking steps, and out into the bottom of the Churnet Valley. We crossed the River Churnet tumbling over its sandstone ledges, then the track of the Churnet Valley Railway, and the silver strip of the Caldon Canal whose barges once shifted locally mined ironstone to Froghall.

We followed the canal as far as the gothic arch of Cherryeye Bridge, then climbed steeply up through forestry into upland fields walled with stone and open to the wind. Great puffing gouts of blue-brown coal smoke from the valley bottom showed where the steam engines of the Churnet Valley Railway were getting their spring blow-through.

A plunge down through Booth’s Wood, a zigzag of steps up to Booth’s Hall Farm in a sea of old tyres and hay bales. Down again to the railway and canal, and a towpath stroll to the Black Lion at Consall Forge. A quick stop for a drink in the company of a local humorist and his glossy labrador – the latter a complete fool for pork scratchings – and we were back in Consall Nature Park on the homeward trail.

Start: Consall Nature Park Visitor Centre car park, near Leek, Staffs ST9 0AF (OS ref SJ 994484)

Getting there: ‘Consall Hall Gardens’ signed off A52 (Stoke-on-Trent – Ashbourne) between Kingsley and Cellarhead.

Walk (5½ miles, moderate-strenuous, OS Explorers 258, 259; download trail map at staffordshire.gov.uk): From car park, pass ‘Follow the coloured posts’ notice. Path downhill; at Heron Pool, fork right downhill (Red Walk, White Walk). Opposite ‘Lower Lady Park Wood’ sign on right, go left down steps. Duckboard path across stream; up steps to post with yellow arrows/YA (996481). Left down to stream (don’t cross!); up again (many steps!) and follow White Walk. In 300m pass bench; in another 150m, fork right on Purple Walk (999483, ‘Far Kingsley Banks’ notice, purple post). In 250m (001483) descend long flight of steps. At bottom, cross stream; in 30m, by ‘Consall Nature Park’ notice (003484), Purple Walk forks right; but you fork left down steps to cross River Churnet, Churnet Valley Railway and Caldon Canal.

Turn right (004484) along canal towpath for ¾ mile to pass under Bridge 53/Cherryeye Bridge (014482). Right over stile (‘Moorlands Walk/MW’); cross bridge; follow MW directly up little slope; steeply on up to valley top and stile into field (017483, MW). Ahead to far wall; left along it. In 200m, wall turns right; keep ahead here into wood (017486, MW). Down to footbridge; up steep steps to field (015488). Follow MW to Booth’s Hall Farm. Aim right of barn (MW), then house; pass Orchard View; follow fence on left to field corner (011490). Left through kissing gate (MW); right along fence/hedge. Where it bends away right, keep ahead past telephone pole (YA) through gap with bank (008489) to Glenwood House.

Follow YAs to left, and on into field (006488). Follow right-hand hedge to stile (004488, MW) into wood. Down to road and canal (001487). Right under Bridge 50B; towpath past Consall station to Black Lion PH (000492). Go under railway bridge; left across canal bridge 50 and river bridge. Left along riverside track past Consall station; on past ‘Consall Nature Park’ sign to cross road (000486); follow white posts back to Visitor Centre.

Conditions: many short, steep ascents, descents and steps

Lunch: Black Lion, Consall Forge (01782-550294; blacklionpub.co.uk)

Accommodation: The Manor, Cheadle ST10 1NZ (01538-753450, themanorcheadle.co.uk)

Consall Nature Park: 01782-550939 or 302030; staffordshire.gov.uk. Visitor Centre open 2-4, weekends, BH.

Info: Leek TIC (01538-483741)

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 cold, still day of early spring, with the clouds layered in motionless lines over the Worcestershire hills. The low whine of an organ from the red sandstone Church of St Kenelm heralded the end of Matins as we left Clifton-upon-Teme and headed out over pale pink ploughland. Down in the steep wooded cleft of Witchery Hole, dog’s mercury had taken over the world, a brief flush of tiny green flowers at the crack of spring before the primroses and wood anemones had got properly into their stride.

The Teme is a beautiful river. A.E. Housman called its landscape ‘the country for easy living, the quietest under the sun’, and there’s something leisurely and seductive about the slow green flow of the river, the miniature red cliffs of its steep banks and the winding valley it has smoothed out under high ridges of hard limestone. We walked upstream along the river to Brockhill Court with its stumpy old oasts (this was hop-growing country once upon a time) and red brick barns where a tawny owl was softly hooting.

A series of shallow billowing valleys led up to a little wood. We sat to eat our buns and cheese, watching a pair of tree creepers scuttling up an ash trunk, their neckless heads tucked down into their shoulders as they picked insects from winter shelter in the cracks of the bark.

On up past Hillside Farm with its three architectural eras all jammed improbably together; a steep little burst up to the ridge, and then three glorious south-going miles along the Worcestershire Way, hurdling the dips and striding along the crests with a broad plain stretching out eastward, and the Teme to the west running unseen in its lumpy green valley far below. We saw frogspawn in thick clumps in a pond at Woodbury Old Farm, smelt a whiff of wild garlic on the rim of a petrol-blue flooded quarry, and heard the first chiffchaff of the year in the woods on Pudford Hill.

Down in the valley we recrossed the dully glinting Teme and went up a long bridleway towards Clifton-on-Teme, with the pocket mountain range of the Malvern Hills rising in the south, smoky grey and insubstantial in the last sunlight of the March evening.
Start: Lion Inn, Clifton-upon-Teme, Worcs, WR6 6DH (OS ref SO 714616)

Getting there: Bus 308, 310 from Worcester
Road – Clifton-upon-Teme is on B4204 between Martley and Broadheath (M5, Jct 7; A44 west)

Walk (9 miles, strenuous, OS Explorer 204): Take signed footpath between Lion Inn and church. Follow yellow arrows (YA) into field. On far side, over left-hand of 2 stiles (716617). Ahead with hedge on left. At field end, left over stile (718619); follow hedge on right. In 50m, right over stile (YA); on to cross lower stile (YA). Aim across field to right-hand corner of Harrisfield house (719621); bear left around house, and on down to cross stile into woodland (720623). Right along waymarked track, steeply down Witchery Hole for ½ mile to road (728624). Right, then left across New Mill Bridge. Left (729625) along east bank of River Teme for ¾ mile to road at Brockhill Court (728635).

Right at foot of drive (YA) through gate. Up and through next gate; right (YA) into shallow valley. Bear half right to gate (731639, faded YA). Follow valley bottom NE to stile into wood (735642). Follow path clockwise to cross stream (736642); 50m up the far bank, bear right to leave wood over stile (737643). Aim for far top corner of field (738644); over stile, and follow fence on left. Just past Hillside Farm house, left through gate (739645) onto drive; right to road (741646).

Cross road onto waymarked Worcestershire Way/WW; follow it south for 3 miles to B4204 (743608). Right (take care!) for half a mile to cross River Teme by Ham Bridge (737611). First right after bridge (‘Shelsleys’); pass 2 houses, then left (736611) up bridleway. Climb through wood; in 400m, at top of first rise, dogleg left/right through gate (732612, blue arrow, ‘Sabrina Way’). Continue uphill with fence on right for 1 mile to Church House Farm. Left to road (717615); right to Lion Inn.
Conditions: Strenuous walking, plenty of up-and-down. Steep, slippery, and many steps in Witchery Hole wood.

Lunch/Accommodation: Lion Inn, Clifton-upon-Teme (01886-812975) – friendly, clean village inn.

Information: www.temetriangle.net

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