Christopher Somerville

Charleston and Firle Beacon, East Sussex

Jul 252015

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

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In 1913 Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant came to live at Charleston farmhouse in the shadow of the Sussex downs. This bohemian London couple (well, scarcely a couple, my dear – it’s said that he prefers men!) decorated the farmhouse walls and furniture with primitive designs. Charleston soon became a magnet for such Bloomsbury Group illuminati as Virginia Woolf, David Garnett, Maynard Keynes and E.M. Forster.

Walking over to Charleston, I was expecting a chocolate-box house in a picture-book setting. Instead there were grunting tractors, workaday sheds, and ordure-spattered dung spreaders busy in the fields around what is still a working farm. It was strange to be guided around the little rooms with their vividly daubed walls and tables, Grant’s nudes and acrobats, Bell’s drooping flowers and dotted circle motifs, and then to step out into such a practical farming landscape.

What shapes the scene is the long green arm of the downs behind, enclosing the southern skyline in a simple and perfect undulation. Two young buzzards were riding low across the slopes, to pull up and hang with cat-like cries a couple of feet above the turf as they scanned for small life cowering there.

Up on the spine of the downs a cold wind came rushing in from the north, hammering at my face and tugging my beard like an impatient child. It was quite a prospect, north for many miles over the wooded hollows of the Sussex Weald, south to the spindly arms of Newhaven Harbour embracing the sea.

I pushed on into the wind to the dimpled hummock of the long barrow on Firle Beacon, and then found a steep chalk track that descended a slope seamed with pale wrinkles of erosion lines like the forehead of an old elephant. A fine flint wall accompanied me back to Firle, one of those well-kept estate villages where all seems right with the world.

Peter Owen Jones, Vicar of Firle, writes lyrically of his downland walks. Outside St Peter’s Church I found a tree festooned in prayer ribbons; inside, a Tree of Life window by John Piper. Its vivid pinks and yellows lit the cloud-shadowed vestry more brightly than any painted room in the Bloomsbury farmhouse across the fields.

Start: Firle village car park, East Sussex, BN8 6NS approx. (OS ref TQ 469074)

Getting there: Bus service 125 (compass-travel.co.uk), Lewes-Alfriston
Road – Firle is signposted off A27 between Lewes and Eastbourne.

Walk (5 miles, moderate, OS Explorer 123. NB: online map, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): From car park walk through to Ram Inn. Left along street; left at post office (470071) down lane, through gate. Follow track across parkland. In 200m, right up tarmac roadway; in 50m, left at post, aiming for flint house halfway along edge of wood ahead. Cross road at cottage (478073); through iron gate opposite; follow bridleway through shank of wood (480071), on over fields to pass Charleston Farm (491069). In 200m, right (493068) along concrete track. At barns (494067), bear right, following track towards downs. In 550m, cross track (492062); on in tunnel of trees; through gate (490060, BA). Bear left up rising track to top of downs. Right (490054) along South Downs Way to trig pillar on Firle Beacon (485059). In 300m, through gate (482059); in 150m, fork right off SDW, descending path for ¾ mile to T-junction (475068); left beside wall to Firle.

Lunch/Accommodation: Ram Inn, Firle (01273-858222; raminn.co.uk)

Charleston Farmhouse: 01323-811626; charleston.org.uk; open till 1 November; book your tour!

Peter Owen Jones: Pathlands – Tranquil Walks through Britain (Rider Publishing)
satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; visitengland.com

Coulsdon Commons, Surrey

Walks No Responses »

Jul 182015

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

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Riddlesdown rises opposite Kenley railway station, a steep slope of rough grassland dotted with buttercups and speedwell, and scrub woods thick with yew, oak and ash. Wrens whirr, blackcaps flute, squirrels scuttle up the tree trunks. A rutted chalk track winds up the slope and vanishes over the crest. Walkers stride the grassy paths of Riddlesdown as though they own the place – and in effect, that’s just what they do.

If the Corporation of the City of London hadn’t bought the ‘Coulsdon Commons’ – Riddlesdown and its neighbouring ‘wastes’ of Kenley Common, Coulsdon Common and Farthing Downs – for £7,000 in 1883 (nearly £1 million today), there’s little doubt what would have happened. All four high green open spaces would have been gobbled up in London’s inexorable southward expansion. As it was, the City of London dedicated the 350 acres of Coulsdon Commons, ‘fine, open, breezy downs, already largely used for purposes of recreation by the public, and now for all time secured for those purposes.’

Along the crest of Riddlesdown I followed a flinty track among dog walkers, strollers and kids dashing hither and yon. It was a shock to descend from the open countryside to find the A22 snarling and stinking in the valley bottom. A minute’s wrestling with this monster and I had left the houses behind, climbing up through woods again to the yellow buttercups and blue speedwell drifts of Kenley Common. The occasional rattle of a train came up from the valley, but the birds in the woods along the common were far louder.

A pint of Lancaster Bomber in the Wattenden Arms, whose panelled walls were hung with wartime photographs of fresh-faced fighter aces from nearby Kenley aerodrome who used to drink here in between aerial duels with their German counterparts. Then I moved on, dipping down into suburbia at Old Coulsdon, rising again to the tangled woodland paths on Coulsdon Common.

The local landowner’s enclosure of portions of Coulsdon Common in the 1870s provoked two brothers into taking him to court. Lobbying and legal advice from the newly formed Commons Preservation Society helped the pair to win their case, and pressurised the Corporation of London into making its philanthropic move. The CPS (now called OSS, the Open Spaces Society), is 150 years old this year, and still working to preserve our open green spaces. What would we do without campaigners like these?

I crossed the steep-sided combes of Happy Valley where children were running and yelling through the hay meadows – a sight that would have gladdened the hearts of those public-spirited Victorian aldermen. Then a last long descent through the buttercups and fairy flax of Farthing Downs with the outlandish monoliths of 21st-century London rising on the northern skyline like a nightmare warning of what might have been done with our green spaces – what could still be done – without the vigilance of the OSS and others like them.

Start: Kenley station, Kenley Lane, Surrey, CR8 5JA (OS ref TQ 324601)

Getting there: Rail to Kenley.
Bus 434 (Coulsdon-Whyteleafe)
Road – Kenley station signposted off A22 between Purley and Whyteleafe (M25, Jct 6)

Walk (7 miles, moderate, some steep steps. OS Explorer 161. NB: Detailed directions, online maps, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): Down station approach; right to cross A22; up steps and hill path opposite. In ¼ mile, at clearing with 4 gates (327603), go through uppermost gate. Bear right on grass path to join main gravel track, Riddlesdown Road. In ½ mile London Loop path (‘LL’) joins, before track crosses railway and descends to A22 (336593). Left along road; in 50m, right across A22 (LL), across railway, and up New Barn Lane, then up steps through wood (LL, ‘Hayes Lane’). By Kenley Common notice at top (333590) ahead with wood edge on right.

In 150m, into wood (332589). Ahead over path crossing, past Kenley Common notice, on through wood. In 250m, main path bends right (330588); but keep ahead on lesser path to reach open field. Diagonally left across field to fenceless gate and fingerpost in far corner (329585). Ahead (‘Hayes Lane’) past bench; follow path through wood. In 100m, right along lane (LL, ‘Hayes Lane’) for 300m to road (325583). Right (LL); in 150m, left (LL, ‘Old Lodge Lane’) and follow LL signs through corner of Betts Mead and on to road (323582).

To visit Wattenden Arms PH, turn left for 100m. To continue walk, cross road; bear left (LL) along left edge of field. Across next paddock to stile (LL); ahead along lane (‘Waterhouse Lane’ fingerpost). At T-junction, right (323578, LL). Descend to cross Caterham Drive (323576); on up Rydons Lane for 500m to cross road (321571). Ahead (LL, ‘Coulsdon Road’) to cross B2030 (319569). Ahead down Fox Lane. At Fox Inn, bear right round sports field and past Happy Valley notice (317568, LL, ‘Farthing Downs’).

Follow lane along right side of field. In 400m pass bench at corner (313566); on through woodland. Bear right along side of next grassland valley; through neck of woodland; descend slope of next open valley (‘Happy Valley’) diagonally right to bottom (308568). Keep same direction up far slope to top right corner (306569; LL, ‘Farthing Downs’). Ahead on track through Devilsden Wood (LL) to emerge by notice on Farthing Down (302572). Bear right; follow path parallel with road north for 1 mile towards Coulsdon. Where it joins B276, turn left along Reddown Road (300590). In 150m, right across railway to Coulsdon South station.

Return to Kenley by rail via Purley station; or District Cars taxi from Coulsdon South station (0208-668-9000; £7 approx).

Lunch: Wattenden Arms, Kenley (0208-660-4926; thewattendenarmskenley.co.uk) – cheerful place with wartime memorabilia

London Loop: Download leaflet guides at https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/loop-walk; or follow directions in ‘The London Loop’ by David Sharp with Colin Saunders (Aurum Press).

Open Spaces Society: oss.org.uk, 01491-573535

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

Barley and Pendle Hill, Lancashire

Walks No Responses »

Jul 112015

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

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We found a witch – albeit a stuffed one – sitting at a table outside the Barley Mow, and witches riding broomsticks on the footpath signs out of Barley village. One can scarcely avoid the pointy-hatted personages in this part of the world. Pendle Hill, the great whaleback that looms over Barley from the west, is the witchiest hill in England – mostly, but not entirely, on account of the notorious trials of 1612 when ten local men and women were hanged at Lancaster for practising the Dark Arts.

Pendle Hill is a massive presence in the landscape. It seems always to have had an ominous reputation, probably because of the way it attracts dramatic weather. Today it rode under a great breaking wave of cloud. As we climbed the steep, stone-pitched path to the summit, skeins of mist came drifting across, turning Pendle House farm below into a washy watercolour. A kestrel came swooping out of the cloud and cut down across the path with backswept wings, vanishing into the mist.

Runners, dog walkers and hill climbers materialised, passed us and were swallowed up in cloud. At the top we followed a grassy track to find George Fox’s Well, a modest, urban-looking trapdoor in the hillside. Raising it revealed a silver tankard chained to the lid, ready to be lowered into the well. I drank a scooped handful from the spring below – ice cold, glass-clear and sweet. George Fox, young and full of spiritual zeal, refreshed himself here in 1652. He had just experienced the epiphanic revelation on Pendle’s summit that drove him forth to preach mightily and to found the Quaker movement.

We forged south through the mist along the crest of Pendle, on a cairned track that soon turned and plunged down out of the murk. Big views opened eastward as we followed a rutted bridleway at the foot of the hill, down to where the Ogden Water’s shallow flow wound out of steep-sided Ogden Clough to fill the twin reservoirs that lie above Barley.

Coming back into the village we passed the site of Malkin Tower, lair of the Pendle witches – according to their persecutors. What Alizon Device, Chattox, Old Demdike and Mouldheels were really up to, who knows? Probably no more than a few home cures and a bit of unwise chanting. Whatever it was, their shadows still lie long across this beautiful valley and the hill that overhangs it.

Start: Car park, Barley Picnic Site, Nr Nelson, Lancs, BB12 9JX (OS ref SD 823403)

Getting there: Bus 7 (Clitheroe-Nelson)
Road – M65, Jct 13; A682 (‘Kendal’); in ¾ mile, left (‘Roughlee’). From Roughlee, follow ‘Barley’.

Walk (6¼ miles, moderate/hard, OS Explorer OL41. NB: Detailed description, online map, more walks: christophersomerville.co.uk). Turn right through village. Left by Meadow Bank Farm (‘Pendle Way’/PW) along stream. Follow ‘Pendle Hill’ signs through fields for 1 mile to Pendle House farm (809412). Follow steep, stepped path diagonally right to top of Pendle Hill. Right over stile (806418) and follow path for 200m to George Fox’s Well (hatch cover by path, 805420). Return over stile; right for 100m; left/south on sandy/stony path to Big End trig pillar (805414). On south along track past big cairns; at the last big cairn, fork slightly right on a path marked with smaller cairns. 600m beyond trig pillar, PW forks right (804409); but keep ahead, following grassy track in groove that bends left to rim of escarpment (805408).

Descend to Pendle House farm. Bear right along bridleway, leaving farm below on left. Keep wall on left and follow bridleway south for ¾ mile, passing above Under Pendle (808404). Near top of narrow gully, bridleway turns left (807401); but keep ahead through kissing gate, on and down to Ogden Water (801397). Left through gate (PW). Follow PW past Upper Ogden Reservoir. Join road (807397) past Lower Ogden Reservoir, and on to Barley.

Conditions: Sharp, steep climb from Pendle House to summit. Pendle Hill often windy, rainy, misty – hill-walking gear advised.

Lunch/accommodation: Barley Mow, Barley, Pendle BB12 9JX (01282-690868, barleymowpendle.co.uk) – welcoming, walker-friendly pub with rooms.

Info: The Cabin Café and Information Centre, Barley Picnic Site (01282-696937); Clitheroe TIC (01200-425566); visitlancashire.com

Pendle Walking Festival:
15-23 August, www.visitpendle.com/countryside/walking-festival

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

Littondale and Wharfedale, Yorkshire Dales

Walks No Responses »

Jun 272015

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

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Littondale lies tucked away, a secluded cleft running away to the north-west from its parent valley of Wharfedale. If people venture to Littondale, it’s usually to get a sight of Arncliffe, the gorgeous little stone-built village where the first few series of ‘Emmerdale’ were filmed. Arncliffe’s houses line its expansive green, presided over by the creeper-hung Falcon Inn where beer is still served from barrel to jug to glass, the proper way.

The steep hillside I climbed out of Arncliffe was a mass of wild flowers – milkwort, bird’s-foot trefoil, lady’s bedstraw, hawkbit, rockrose, a litany of lovely jewel-like plants growing on the slopes. Every step left a pungency of crushed wild thyme as I went on up into a far bleaker moor landscape of black peat and sombre dark green heather. I passed pale stony heaps of lead mine spoil, and deep shake holes where subterranean caverns had subsided directly underneath.

A gate in the summit wall led to the downward track into Wensleydale, the valley spread out at my feet in patchy sunshine with the clustered stone houses of Starbotton and Kettlewell under the long back of Cam Pastures, and miniature dots of sheep feeding in a maze of meadows boxed in by drystone walls, each field with its own handsome stone-built barn.

Down at Starbotton I followed the Dales Way beside the River Wharfe through flat pastures glinting gold with buttercups in the pale sun. The Wharfe ran slow and darkly viscous round its many meanders. This seemingly tame river can grow fierce in spate. Starbotton was wrecked in one terrible flood in 1686. ‘The rain descended with great violence for one hour and a half; at the same time the hill opening, and casting up water to a prodigious height, demolished several houses, and filled others with gravel to the chamber windows. The affrighted inhabitants fled for their lives.’

At Kettlewell I turned steeply back up the daleside, scrambling up through limestone crags to the top of the moor. Then it was down over sedgy grass, precipitously down the rocky sides of Park Scar Wood, and over the little humpy bridge into Arncliffe in the last of the sunshine.

Start: Village green, Arncliffe, N. Yorks, BD23 5QE (OS ref SD 931718)

Getting there: A59 (Skipton – Harrogate) to Bolton Bridge; B6160 through Grassington; past Kilnsey, left on minor road to Arncliffe.

Walk (7½ miles, strenuous, OS Explorer OL30. Online maps, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): Take laneway opposite water trough; cross river; at bend (932721) up steps, through gate, up fellside to cart track bridleway (932723). Turn right along it for 1 mile to go through gate at crest (941730). Down for ½ mile to circular sheep pen ruin near gate in wall (951736, 3-finger post). Left down to bridge over Wharfe (951745), Don’t cross; turn right along Dales Way for 1¾ miles to Kettlewell. At bridge (967722), hairpin back right up stony track, through gate. In 50m, left (‘Arncliffe’), steeply up fields. Rocky ‘staircase’ through outcrops (964723); on up grassy path. In 600m, right over ladder stile (958723); on up to 2 ladder stiles in quick succession at crest (952722). Down for 1 mile to gate into Park Scar Wood (938721). Steeply down to road (934721). Right, then left into Arncliffe.

Conditions: Very steep, slippery descent in Park Scar Wood.

Lunch: Plenty of places in Kettlewell.

Accommodation: Queen’s Arms, Litton, BD23 5QJ (01756-770096) – smart rooms, cheerful air. Also Falcon Hotel, Arncliffe, BD23 5QE (01756-770205, thefalconinn.com).

Info: Yorkshire Dales National Park Centre, Grassington (01756-751690); yorkshire.com

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

Wicken Fen and Reach Lode, Cambridgeshire

Walks 2 Responses »

Jun 202015

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

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A cuckoo was calling, faint and far, across Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve. Unlike the rest of these Cambridgeshire flatlands, Wicken Fen has never been drained for agriculture. Under the National Trust’s expert care for the past hundred years, it remains a juicy, sodden, teeming green jungle, supporting wildlife that has died out or greatly diminished everywhere else.

In front of one hide greenfinches cavorted, vivid in their spring jackets of intense green; from another we watched a beautiful chocolate and red marsh harrier swooping and quartering the reedbeds on long, feather-fingered wings. Then we set out to follow a cycleway across Adventurers’ Fen. What a contrast! On the east of the path, intensive agriculture in drilled green rows to the flat horizon; to the west, the lush pastures of the reserve where Highland cattle and springy little muntjac deer grazed, sedgy pools stood full of geese and egrets, and swallows and hobbies zipped about the sky.

We crossed the long silver finger of Burwell Lode, a manmade drainage channel, and followed Reach Lode west to Upware on a high green embankment with grandstand views across both wild fen and intensively farmed fields. The National Trust’s hundred-year plan, stirringly named ‘Wicken Fen Vision’, would see the nature reserve stretch all the way from Wicken to Cambridge – a restoration of the landscape so beloved of Richard Fielder, King of Upware and copper-bottomed eccentric, who ruled this fenland realm with his fists and foul (but classically trained) tongue in the 1860s.

Fielder, a Cambridge undergraduate and black sheep of a well-heeled family, would smoke, drink, rhyme and fight with anyone who came to his ‘court’ at Upware’s riverside pub, the charmingly titled ‘Five Miles From Anywhere – No Hurry!’ He pitched bargees into the river, blackened friends’ eyes and dispensed punch from his private seven-gallon gotch, a giant jug.

When the railways brought the outside world to Fenland, Fielder and his wild courtiers melted away into oblivion. But at Wicken Fen – these days extending across Adventurers’ Fen and beyond – a corner of the ancient fenland environment in which the King of Upware once reigned as Lord of Misrule has survived, and is prospering.

Start: Wicken Fen NNR, Wicken, Cambs CB7 5XP (OS ref TL 565706)

Getting there: National Cycle Route 11 from Ely.
Road – Wicken Fen is signed from Wicken village, on A1123 between A142 (Newmarket) and A10 (Cambridge). Park in NT car park (£2.50/day, NT members free)

Walk (8 miles – 7 excluding NT Wicken Fen; easy; OS Explorer 226.
Walk circuit of Wicken Fen NNR Boardwalk Trail (optional). From Visitor Centre, right along left bank of Wicken Lode. In 500m bear left, then right across footbridge (560701, ‘Adventurers’ Fen’); left along right bank of Monk’s Lode. In ½ mile, right (539700, Cycleway post 11). Pass Priory Farm (565693) and cross Burwell Lode (564690); left along south bank of lode. Track bends south to cross Cycleway 51 (564684); on to cross Reach Lode (557678). Right along its left bank for 1¾ miles to turn right across lode at Upware sluice (537699). Back along north bank of lode. In 600m cross mouth of Wicken Lode (542696); left (yellow arrow, ‘Wicken Fen’) up its south bank for over a mile. Left across Monk’s Lode footbridge (560701); return to car park.

Lunch: Wicken Fen NNR café; Maid’s Head, Wicken (01353-720727, maidsheadwicken.com); Five Miles From Anywhere PH, Upware (01353-721654; fivemilesinn.com)

Wicken Fen NNR (NT): 01353-720274, nationaltrust.org.uk/wickenfen. £6.80 adult, NT member free.
satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; visitengland.com

Runnymede, Surrey

Walks No Responses »

Jun 132015

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

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The most famous meadow in the world lies modestly beside the River Thames, just downstream from Windsor. When a sulky King John met his angry and defiant barons at Runnymede on 15 June 1215, the king was broke and facing a full-scale rebellion. The barons demanded his agreement to a ‘Great Charter’, guaranteeing no taxation without representation, freedom of worship, justice for all and a limit on the king’s absolute right to command. John squirmed and writhed; he sealed the document, then reneged. Magna Carta was a sickly seed when first planted in the soil of Runnymede. But from it grew the worldwide principles of democratic government.

To get a sense of Runnymede’s place in history, I wanted to see its setting from Cooper’s Hill, the wooded height that bounds the meadow on the south. I followed Cooper’s Hill Lane up to the brow of the hill, where a splendid WWII Air Forces Memorial looks out over Runnymede.

Behan, Belasco, Chander and Cherala; Bardichev, Smik and Gnanamuthu – they came from Canada, Jamaica, Poland, India and New Zealand, and, in the words of the memorial’s inscription, ‘they died for freedom in raid and sortie over the British Isles and the land and seas of northern and western Europe.’

I climbed to the roof of the memorial and stood looking north across Runnymede. West beyond the trees lay Windsor, seat of the monarch. To the east sprawled London, capital of the realm. It’s plain to see how the big, flat meadow by the river offered a good place for a parley on neutral ground.

I descended through the sun-dappled trees of Cooper’s Hill Wood and crossed the fields towards Runnymede. Above the meadow stands the domed colonnade of the Magna Carta Monument (erected in 1957 by the American Bar Association), and the great blunt monolith of the John F Kennedy Memorial. It’s not so strange that both have transatlantic resonances – the American Constitution is founded on the principles of Magna Carta.

Wandering back east through the buttercups and tall grasses of Runnymede, it was easy to picture the pavilions and pennants of 1215, the stern-faced barons sweating in their mail coats, and wretched King John wriggling like an eel as history caught him inescapably in its net.

Start & finish: Egham station, TW20 9LB (OS ref TQ 011710)

Getting there: Train to Egham. Bus 566, 567 (Knowle Hill-Staines). Road – M25 Jct 13, A30, B3407 to Egham.

Walk (5 miles, easy, OS Explorer 160. NB Online maps, more walks: christophersomerville.co.uk): Right along Station Road; follow ‘A30’ to roundabout. Right past car showroom; in 150m, left (007715) along Cooper’s Hill Lane for ¾ mile to Air Forces Memorial (998718). Retrace steps for 200m; on right bend, left through kissing gate (000719); descend steps through Cooper’s Hill Wood (yellow arrows, purple striped posts). At bottom, left across meadow slope to Magna Carta Monument (998727). Half right downhill to cross stile into Runnymede meadow; left for 50m; left up steps to John F Kennedy Memorial. Back in meadow, bear left to pavilion with Magna Carta tearoom (996731). Return to Egham by footpaths through Runnymede meadow.

Lunch: Magna Carta tearoom in pavilion on A308, beside Runnymede NT car park – open 9-5).

Accommodation: Runnymede-on-Thames Hotel, Windsor Road, Egham TW20 0AG (01784-220960; runnymedehotel.com) – large, comfortable, cheerful hotel beside Runnymede.

Big Camp Weekend: Camp out in Runnymede. 4 pm, 18 July to 10 am, 19 July. Ranger-led activities, camp fire, BBQs. Adult £30, child £15. Booking essential: 01784-432891

Magna Carta Celebrations, Runnymede – 15 June 2015

More info: 01784-432891; nationaltrust.org.uk/runnymede; facebook.com/NTrunnymede
satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; LogMyTrip.co.uk

Falcon Clints and Cow Green, Co Durham

Walks No Responses »

May 302015

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

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We’ve seen the dipper,’ enthused the woman we met under Falcon Clints, ‘and a black grouse in the rocks just along there.’ ‘And a grey shrike,’ put in her husband. ‘And you’ve seen the peregrine, have you? And the ring ouzel … Ooh, thanks, we’ll keep our eyes peeled.’

How can one begin to list, let alone express, the richness of bird life in the breeding season around the meadows and moors of Upper Teesdale? And that’s to say nothing of the wonderful Ice Age relict flora sprinkled across the limestone grassland and the bogs and heaths of this lonely cleft in the hills where the young River Tees comes tumbling down its volcanic steps to sinuate through the dale.

Jane and I set off from Langdon Beck, taking the track through the pastures by Widdy Bank Farm and on upstream along the Tees. Redshank, lapwings and oystercatchers flew round us, piping and bubbling their anxious calls as we skirted their nests and young hidden in the sedges. Mountain pansies with purple and yellow petals, northern marsh orchids of royal purple, lipstick-pink lousewort and buttery gold kingcups spotted the grass and damp bog patches.

On through the narrowing throat of the dale, with the dolerite cliffs of Falcon Clints standing dark and hard-edged overhead. A slate-backed peregrine went darting out across the river from the crags, twisting like an acrobat before hanging in the sky on an invisible step. The sun picked out the black and white plumage of an oystercatcher, the orange-pink of a redshank’s trailing legs. The only sounds were bird cries, wind rustle and the mumble of the shallow Tees in its bouldery bed. It was like lingering in some private corner of heaven.

The rush and roar of Caldron Snout came to us round the corner of the crags. The peat-charged waterfall came bouncing down its rock staircase in a series of foaming cataracts as brown as bottle glass. We scrambled up the rocks, and found ourselves in another reality – wide uplands, heathy moors and the great wind-ruffled lake of Cow Green Reservoir.

The homeward way lay across the pathless hillside of Cow Rake Rigg, then back through the wide valley of Harwood Beck. Tiny, exquisite pink bird’s-eye primroses grew on the banks of the tributary sikes*, and the creaking complaints of lapwings and the alarm calls of redshanks piped us out of their territory and on down the valley.

* sikes – local name for tiny streams

Start: Langdon Beck Hotel, Co Durham, DL12 0XP (OS ref NY 853312)

Getting there: B6277 from Middleton-in-Teesdale. Park in lay-by down side road opposite Langdon Beck Hotel (‘Cow Green’).

Walk (10 miles, moderate, OS Explorer OL31): On down Cow Green road. 250m after crossing Harwood Beck, left (847309, ‘Moor House NNR’) on stony track to Widdy Bank Farm (837298) and on under Falcon Clints. Scramble up crags to right of Cauldron Snout waterfall (815286) to road at top. Right to road at The Knott (817309); turn right. Either follow road back to Langdon Beck (2½ miles), or pass cottage on left and bear left (‘footpath’ fingerpost) north-east across Cow Rake Rigg (no track). Over first crest; aim right of fenced shaft; then aim for wall running uphill, a little to left of prominent white house on distant hillside ahead. In ½ mile, come over crest; head for Binks House below. Cross stone stile; skirt Binks House (825320); cross stile (yellow arrow/YA) in bottom left corner of field. Follow stream on left for 100m; left to cross it, then stile (YA); half left to ladder stile (YA); down through gate and through Marshes Gill farmyard to road (825324). Ahead over Harwood Beck.

On left bend at Lingy Hill farm (828320), right along field track for 1 mile to Greenhills (838320). Up drive to road (841319); right over stile. NB fingerpost points straight downhill, but bear half left down to wall stile (842316, YA). On in same direction to bottom left corner of next field (845313). Ladder stile; follow Harwood Beck to bridge (850304); left to Langdon Beck.

Conditions: Tricky underfoot across boulders below Falcon Clints; rock scramble beside Cauldron Snout

Refreshments: Picnic, or Langdon Beck Hotel (01833-622267, langdonbeckhotel.com)

Accommodation: The Old Barn, Middleton-in-Teesdale, DL12 0QG (01833-640258, theoldbarn-teesdale.co.uk) – lovely warm and welcoming B&B

Upper Teesdale NNR: northpennines.org.uk

Info: Middleton-in-Teesdale TIC (01833-641001)
satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; LogMyTrip.co.uk

Elton & Fotheringhay, Northants/Cambs

Walks 2 Responses »

May 232015

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

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A cloudy, blustering, boisterous day on the Cambridgeshire/Northamptonshire border. The wind roared in the trees and spat in my face as I walked out of Elton. Even in weather like this, Elton is a postcard picture of an English village with its cottages of creamy limestone packed with fossils, sturdy and enduring under heavy brows of thatch.

In the fields, dandelion clocks by the million, wrens and chaffinches loud and persistent in the willows along the broad and slow-flowing River Nene. By the river I met a flock of cheerful youngsters on a Duke of Edinburgh Award trudge, wrapped like small parcels against the wind and rain.

Low-rolling countryside like this catches plenty of weather – one moment a bright blaze of sunlight bringing skylarks out in full voice over the barley, the next a slash of rain and a burst of wind to silence the birds and turn the field paths sticky. I went on, whistling, towards Nassington’s graceful church spire. King Cnut dined and played chess at Nassington in a great wooden hall a thousand years ago. The Time Team discovered remnants of the structure in 2003, under and around the ancient stone-built manor house opposite the church.

History lies thick on this corner of the countryside. It was at Fotheringhay, a couple of miles to the south, that Mary Queen of Scots met her end in 1587 in the castle by the River Nene. Mired in Catholic plots, real or imaginary, Mary was too much of a threat to her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, to be permitted to live.

I came into Fotheringhay along the Nene Way, a beautiful pathway across yellow rape fields and between hedges laden thickly with may blossom. The bare castle mound, innocent of all masonry, lay isolated in a field beyond the village’s mellow stone houses and the grand and stately church. I climbed to the top of the mound and found it thick with self-heal and scotch thistles – a poignant flora; for here in the early morning above the sinuating bends of the Nene, the pale and self-controlled Queen of the Scots knelt for the two axe blows that severed her head.

Walking back to Elton across the fields, a flash of red and white stopped me in my tracks. A magnificent red kite hung in the wind on elbow-crooked wings as it searched the barley for prey, utterly indifferent to my existence – a lordly presence above the rain-pearled land.

Start: Elton, Cambs, PE8 6RQ (OS ref TL 086940)

Getting there: Bus service 24 (Oundle-Peterborough)
Road: Elton is signed off A605 (Oundle-Peterborough). Park (neatly!) on village green.

Walk (8½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 227): From village green walk north up Duck Street passing Crown Inn on your right (pavement along road). In 450m, fork right on left bend (086945; Yarwell Mill, Sibson’). Follow this track north for 1 and a half miles; then left (081968) for 700m to meet Nene Way (076969). Left to meet Fotheringay Road in Nassington (068961).

Right to pass Black Horse Inn; left along Nassington village street. Opposite church, and just short of Nassington Manor, left (064961, fingerpost) down path and on over field. In 400m, right along Nene Way/NW (065958). Follow NW (BLAs) for 4 miles via Model Cottages (052937), Falcon Inn (059933) and castle mound (062930) at Fotheringhay, and mill at Eaglethorpe (074916) to go under A605 and on to road at Eaglethorpe sign (076915). Left round right bend; in 100m, left (fingerpost) through kissing gate/KG; right over stile; left between fence and polytunnels. In 300m, left through KG to cross A605 (077918 – please take care!).

Right; in 50m, left through KG; then another. Right up slope; in 50m, left through KG (079919). Follow path north for 1⅓ miles, past quarry heaps, then across Elton Park (occasional BLA) to road in Elton (085939). Left to reach village centre.

Lunch: Black Horse, Nassington (01780-784835, blackhorsenassington.co.uk); Falcon, Fotheringhay (01832-226254, thefalcon-inn.co.uk)

Accommodation: Crown Inn, Elton (01832-280232, thecrowninn.org)

Information: Oundle TIC (01832-274333)
satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; LogMyTrip.co.uk

Ide Hill and Bough Beech, Kent

Walks No Responses »

May 172015

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

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Late spring bursting across the Kentish Weald out of a blue sky, its drifting grey and silver clouds backlit by the first honest sunshine of the year. Ide Hill woods were a mass of bluebells already in seed. Wildly overshot stems of sweet chestnut coppice brushed their saw-edged leaves across the sky and threw dappled shadows along the muddy track of the Greensand Way.
‘To the honoured memory of Octavia Hill,’ read the inscription on a strategically place bench, ‘who, loving nature with a great love, secured this view for the enjoyment of those who came after her.’ The bench looked out on a ten-mile view across woods and pastures, over the pale blue waters of Bough Beech Reservoir and on to the long ridges of the Wealden Hills.
The Greensand Way led us out of the woods, down through hay meadows in a shallow valley below Toy’s Hill where fat bees were bumbling their way into the bell-like flowers of foxgloves. Two blackcaps challenged each other in a contest of liquid melody from opposing hedgerow oaks. Railed paddocks, duckponds, meadows, mellow red pantile roofs, a pigeon cooing in an ash bough – an English summer idyll that would have any Romantic poet reaching for the rhyming dictionary.
Below Toy’s Hill we crossed a meadow flooded with gold buttercups and dotted with clumps of common spotted orchid, their pale pink lips streaked with splashes of dark purple. On the other side of the hedge stretched fields of intensively managed new grass, a uniform green with not one flower head to be seen.
A rough field road led us past half-timbered old Henden Manor. A green ride led east to the conical-capped oast house where Bough Beech Reservoir’s nature reserve has its visitor centre. Nightingales, hen harrier, breeding mandarin duck, the occasional osprey on migration – the reservoir is birdwatching heaven.
The afternoon was slipping away as we turned north for the sharp climb to Stubb’s Wood and Ide Hill. ‘I’ve lived here 52 years,’ said a lady at the garden gate of a cottage, ‘and every day is different, every season is lovely,’ and she gestured out across her daily prospect – woods, water, flowery fields, and distant hills blue and hazy under the sun.

Start: Ide Hill car park, on B2042, 1 mile SW of Goathurst Common, TN14 6JG (OS ref. TQ 488517)
Getting there: M25 jct 5, A21, A25 (‘Sevenoaks, Riverhead’). In ½ mile, right at King’s Head PH; in 350m, right on B2042. Through Goathurst Common; in 1 mile, car park on right (WC, shop)
Walk (6½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 147): Cross Ide Hill road on west of car park, into Ide Hill wood; turn left and follow Greensand Way (GW) for 1¾ miles via Cock Inn at Ide Hill village, Scords Wood and Toy’s Hill woods. At T-jct of tracks just NW of Toy’s Hill village (468514), turn left off GW, down to crossroads in Toy’s Hill (470513). Ahead down road for 400m. On right bend, left (472510, fingerpost/FP) along green lane. In 150m, right through kissing gate/KG; half right across field (yellow arrows/YA). Through KG (476509); across 2 fields (YA); bear right along wood edge to KG (478507) and on along track (YAs) past Henden Manor and south on tarmac to B2042 (481495).
Ahead for 200m; on right bend, left on path (FP). In 50m, don’t turn left; keep ahead to cross stile on left (YA). Follow fence on right; stile (482493, YA); through trees; stile. Right along fence. In 150m (483493) bear left along green ride for 450m to cross road at Winkhurst Farm (488492). On ahead down green lane. In 350m, at gateway with multiple YAs on left (491493), aim half right across field to waymark post by trees (493492). Left (YA) along hedge. In 100m, right through hedge (YA); across field and into wood (494491). In 70m, left up path through wood, then meadow; at top of meadow, right through gate to Bough Beech Nature Reserve visitor centre (494494).
Ahead between oast house centre and outbuilding, to road (495494). Right to view Bough Beech Reservoir; return up road for ½ mile. At T-junction (495501), cross road; through gate, up gravelled drive, then green lane, then field edges, heading north. In 400m, cross railed footbridge; in another 100m turn right (495506, unmarked) across footbridge on path through trees. Out into field; right up hedge for 700m to Boarhill Cottage (493513). Left up lane; at left bend (493514) bear right, then left (FP) into Stubbs Wood, climbing many steps. In 150m, meet a wide, obvious woodland track (492515); right for 250m to crossroads of tracks at waymark post (494517). Left (blue arrow/BA) on Greensand Way. In 450m, hairpin back left (490516, BA). At turning circle by house, right (BA) to B2042 and car park.
Lunch: Community Shop, Ide Hill car park (tea, snacks, picnic ingredients); Cock Inn, Ide Hill (01732-750310)
Bough Beech Nature Reserve: Visitor Centre (01732-750624, kentwildlifetrust.org.uk) open Wed, Sat, Sun, BH Mon, 10-5
Chiltern Society Golden Jubilee 2015: Book of 50 Chiltern walks, available from 29 May from chilternsociety.org.uk
Information: Sevenoaks TIC (01732-450305)
satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; LogMyTrip.co.uk

Brailes Hill, Warwickshire

Walks No Responses »

May 092015

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

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All the birds in Warwickshire were singing their little heads off as we climbed away from Upper Brailes up Gilletts Hill. Ben the black labrador barked an unavailing plea from behind his gate to be taken walkies: ‘Oh come on, have a heart…!’ But his owner shouted him down and waved us through with a smile.

On top of Gilletts Hill a great swathe of green bearded barley glistened in the sunlight. Silver and dove-grey clouds were gathering on the western skyline, but we paid them no heed as we dropped down through Ashen Coppice to a wonderful westward view – cornfields, rape fields, hedges, pastures and red roofed farms stretching away for 15 miles or more. Cloud shadow darkened the nearer ground, but a single pale church spire rose to the north-west, brilliantly lit in a ray of sun.

Chiffchaffs, whitethroats and blackbirds warbled fit to beat the band. We skirted above handsome old Famington Farm and climbed the wooded south-westerly flank of Brailes Hill. On the hill’s upper slope an old cart track ran by pastures full of bouncing black and white lambs. We followed it down to Lower Brailes, looking out between veteran sycamores towards the church tower and its zigzag backdrop of green and yellow fields rising to the long ridge of Mine Hill.

St George’s Church in Lower Brailes is a glorious confection of dark gold limestone, its cathedral-like interior dim and scented with age. The 14th-century masons had massive fun with the grotesques they fashioned under the eaves – a mad nun, a bearded demon, a man with three faces, a wolfman with pricked-up ears – some of them blurred with weathering as though breaking half-born through the stone. Inside, overlooking the nave, I found an old friend, the Green Man, with tendrils sprouting from his mouth and bursting into leaf around his cheeks.

Out in the fields north of St George’s we climbed Lower Brailes’s famed ’99 steps’, shallow stone treads in a bank, some of them formed of recycled grave slabs. On across medieval ridge-and-furrow farmland, a circuit of the ramparted mound of Castle Hill, and we were threading our way back into Upper Brailes between neat allotments of beans, peas, radishes, cabbages, onions, showy globe artichokes and humble spuds.

Start: Gate Inn, Upper Brailes, Warwickshire, OX15 5AX (OS ref SP 305398)

Getting there: Bus service 50A (stagecoachbus.com), Stratford-on-Avon to Banbury.
Road – Upper Brailes is on B4035, 3 miles east of Shipston-on-Stour.

Walk (6 miles, moderate, OS Explorer 191): From bus stop outside Gate Inn, left down road. In 100m, right up Gilletts Lane (‘Gillett Hill’). Through gate; between house and garage; beyond, through gate; bear right (303397, yellow arrow/YA) up grassy bank, then up steps. At top, at T-junction, right; in 50m, fork left on path 58b. In 100m cross grass track, then stile (300398); follow path 58 across field, down through Ashen Coppice. At foot of steps, diagonally left (298399, YA) down slope; at bottom left corner of wood, left (296399, blue arrow/BA) along lower edge of wood. In 150m, right along gravel roadway (path 57a) and follow BAs.

In 300m, at gate (292396, ‘Private’), fork right (BA, yellow-topped post/YTP) along field edge and down, aiming for Farmington Farm. At bottom of slope, left along hedge (285393, YA). Pass through cross-hedge; in 100m, left (295389, YTP, YA) across field to go through gate (288387). Diagonally right uphill through trees (YTP, YA). Near top, bear right at YTP (289386, YA), anticlockwise round the upper hill (YAs). Go through 2 gates; after 2nd one, left through side gate (292382, BA) on bridleway for 1 mile (BAs), passing New House Barn (301383) to road at Grove End (306390). Left; in 20m, right over stile (YA); over next stile, and follow path 60 (YAs) to road (310391). Across into Jeffs Close; left at end; follow road round to right, to B4035 in Lower Brailes (312393).

Right along road. Opposite George Inn (314393), left up Butcher’s Lane. In 100m, left through gate; fork left on path 52. Cross footbridge (314396, YTP, ’52’); keep ahead up The 99 Steps; on across 2 fields. In 3rd field, diagonally left; halfway across, fork right (310397) to cross Castle Hill Lane (309398). Through kissing gate/KG; fork right (’52g’) and follow path across field and over stile (’52g’) to Castle Hill. Return over stile; right along hedge; in 70m, through KG (307399) and follow path (’51’). Dogleg right/left through allotments (YAs) to road; left to The Gate PH.

Lunch: The George, Lower Brailes (01608-685223; georgeinnbrailes.com)

Accommodation: The Gate, Upper Brailes (01608-685212; thegateatbrailes.co.uk) – clean and friendly village B&B.

Information: Warwick TIC (01926-492212);
satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; LogMyTrip.co.uk

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