Christopher Somerville

Wayland’s Smithy & White Horse, Oxfordshire

Feb 142015

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

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A clear morning after a night of steady rain, with the sun diffusing a pearly light over the Vale of White Horse. Crossing the sodden paddocks on the outskirts of Woolstone, we caught a glimpse of the chalk-cut Horse herself, cavorting with dismembered limbs across her hilltop above the vale at full and gleeful tilt as she has done for 3,000 years or more.

By Compton Beauchamp church a pot-bellied Shetland pony tried to squeeze through the paddock gate behind us to join his long-legged cousins in the next field. From Odstone Farm – another tremendously handsome house of brick and chalk clunch – an old road took us south up the steep face of the downs to join the Ridgeway. The ancient track ran broad and pale along the crest between hedges of lipstick-pink spindle berries where scarlet bryony fruit hung tangled in long necklaces.

The great Neolithic tomb of Wayland’s Smithy lay beside the Ridgeway in a ring of tall beeches, its southern portal guarded by four immense, roughly-shaped boulders. The gold and silver trees, the weighty stones and the sigh of the wind made this a solemn place. Here the blacksmith Wayland would shoe the horses of travellers if they left a silver coin along with their steeds. Wayland, a figure from Norse mythology, was a murderer, rapist and drinker of blood from his enemies’ skulls, and something of his dark spirit seems to cling to the old tomb in the trees.

The Ridgeway forged on east, hollowed and slick with trodden chalk as it rose to the crest of Whitehorse Hill and the ramparts of the Iron Age camp built up here to command a 50-mile view north over the Vale. We stopped to stare at the enormous prospect, with the chalky squiggles that compose the White Horse entrenched in the turf at our feet. Once every hundred years, old tales say, the Horse leaps up and gallops across the sky to Wayland’s Smithy to be shod by the bloodthirsty blacksmith. Now that would be something to see.

Start: White Horse PH, Woolstone, Oxon SN7 7QL (OS ref SU 293878)

Getting there: Bus X47 (Swindon-Wantage)
Road – M4 to Jct 15; A419 towards Swindon; in 1 mile, right on minor road via Bishopstone to Ashbury; B4507 towards Wantage; in 2½ miles, left to Woolstone.

Walk (6 miles, moderate, OS Explorer 170. NB: online maps, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): Leaving White Horse PH, left for 150m; at right bend, ahead (‘Knighton’) across 2 fields. Dogleg left/right across Hardwell Lane (289875); on across fields (yellow arrows/YA) to cross road at Knighton (283873). On (‘Darcy Dalton Way’) to road at Compton Beauchamp (281871). Follow ‘To the Church’ past barns and church; across 2 paddocks (YA, red discs), then field edges (276876) towards Odstone Farm. Just short of farm, left (270863) up track; across B4507 (273860); up for ⅔ mile to the Ridgeway (280851). Left, following Ridgeway east past Wayland’s Smithy (281854) for 1½ miles to Whitehorse Hill. At summit, left through gate (301862, ‘Bridleway’) past NT sign to trig pillar. Fork right beyond on grass path to White Horse (301866). Left above Horse on path, down to cross Dragonhill Road at map board (298865, gate). Half left down to gate; over left-hand of 2 stiles; downhill with fence on right. At bottom, left to gate into road (294871); right across B4507, down to Woolstone.

Lunch/Accommodation: White Horse, Woolstone (01367-820726, whitehorsewoolstone.co.uk)

Info: Abingdon TIC (01235-522711)
visitengland.com; www.satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; LogMyTrip.co.uk

East Dean and the South Downs Way, West Sussex

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Feb 072015

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

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A blustery, breezy sky over West Sussex, with marching rain clouds and brilliant blue intervals. The village of East Dean in a crook of the South Downs is all you want on such a day – as pretty as a picture, flint-built, with its simple cruciform Norman church, the snug little Star & Garter Inn, and a tree-hung pond from whose modest waters whelms the River Lavant.

In between spits of rain and windows of sunshine I climbed an old holloway sunk deep into chalk and flint, heading north for the dark ridge of the downs. A bench perfectly placed to look over the village carried a plaque inscribed:

‘Field, Coppice, Cottage & all I see
Vivified, hallowed by Memory.’
– A.E. West, Copseman and Countryman.

Who was A.E. West, with his dignified title of ‘Copseman’ and his nostalgic little couplet? No more than a shadow and a name to passers-by; but more than that to someone in East Dean, for certain.

Enormous clouds advanced over the ridge, heavy with rain, so purposeful and weighty that I found myself marvelling that clouds make no sound as they travel. As the thought came, so did an ogreish growl from the sky, and a blast of wind that beat at the beech trees and made their boughs twist and rattle.

From Pond Barn a flinty track took me up past green-roofed Postles Barn, its flint walls pierced with arrow-slit windows. I turned up the grassy slope of Brockhurst Bottom into Eastdean Woods where gleams of sun made silver pillars of the birch and pine trunks. The sky muttered again, a sulky rumble like a dyspeptic giant turning over in bed, and a squall of rain blotted out the light among the trees.

Up at the crest of the downs I bowled east along the South Downs Way, through ancient cross dykes or boundary banks, with a long prospect ahead of Bignor Hill curving into a blur of milky grey. There was something so vigorous and uplifting in this rainy stride along the old ridgeway that I felt I could have followed it for ever. Soon enough, though, it was time to turn aside and find the forest road through the beech woods that would carry me down to East Dean and the Star & Garter.

Start: Star & Garter Inn, East Dean, West Sussex, PO18 0JG (OS ref SU 904129)

Getting there: Bus service 99, Chichester-Petworth (pre-booking essential – 01903-264776, compass-travel.co.uk).
Road – East Dean is signposted off A285 (Chichester-Petworth).

Walk (7½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 121): Up road from Star & Garter to church (905132); through gate in NE corner of churchyard; left up sunken lane. In 100m leave trees; in 50m, bear right (904133, blue arrow/BA) up grassy holloway. In 200m, at top of section among trees (905135) footpath bears left, but keep ahead. In another 300m, bridleway bears left (904137, BA); fork right here (yellow arrow/YA, fingerpost) through wood for 400m to Pond Barn (904142).

Right over stile in bottom right corner of field; left at lane, then fork immediately right along gravel track. In 700m pass Postles Barn (911145); in 500m, bear left (917149) at fingerpost. ‘Restricted Byway/RB’ forks right, but fork left here (BA), trending slightly away from fence on left as you climb Brockhurst Bottom’s field slope to gate at edge of wood (916154). Ahead through wood (BAs), keeping same direction for ½ mile to reach South Downs Way (921163).

Right along SDW. In 1 mile pass first Cross Dyke shown on map (937159); in another ¼ mile pass second Cross Dyke (940158; resembles a hedge-bank on your left). In another 350m, where SDW re-enters trees (943155), turn right (‘RB, East Dean’) at fingerpost inscribed ‘Tegleaze’. Follow track south-west through woods (RB, purple arrows; then ‘Public Bridleway’ fingerposts). In 1¾ miles, just before ‘Shepherd’s Croft’ on map, main gravel track curves left at clearing (919144); but keep ahead on lesser track for 1½ miles back to East Dean.

Lunch/Accommodation: Star & Garter, East Dean (01243-811318, thestarandgarter.co.uk) – beautifully kept, welcoming village inn.

Info: Chichester TIC (01243-775888)
visitengland.com; www.satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; LogMyTrip.co.uk

Frampton Marsh, The Wash, Lincolnshire

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Jan 242015

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

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Frampton Marsh RSPB Reserve lies on The Wash, the great square estuary where the coasts of Lincolnshire and Norfolk meet. It’s a magical spot in winter for anyone who loves wild birds or walking. I tramped a circuit of the sea banks and reedbeds, seeing no-one, savouring the solitude and the enormous skies, while a rainy morning turned into a spectacularly sunlit afternoon.

‘Our resident glossy ibis is on the pools,’ advised the friendly Visitor Centre volunteers, ‘and look out for the rough-legged buzzard!’ I saw neither. But the pink-footed geese, winter visitors from the Arctic, were there in huge numbers, and squadrons of wigeon went racing by, whistling like corner-boys.

From concealment in a bird hide I spied on chestnut-headed pochard preening on mud islands. The ‘pop-pop’ of a wildfowler’s gun came from the marshes beyond the seabank, and suddenly the sky was full of dark little brent geese, a couple of thousand at least, flying low overhead in loose straggling vees, barking in tremulous voices like elderly hounds.

Up on the seawall a new world was revealed, mile after mile of green saltmarsh grazed by cattle, stretching away east to a streak of silver on the edge of sight where the sea lay low. The munching cows brought to mind Jean Ingelow’s epic poem The High Tide On The Coast Of Lincolnshire, about an aegre or mini-tsunami that overwhelmed these marshes in 1571, broke down the sea banks and drowned scores of people.

‘It swept with thunderous noises loud,
Shap’d like a curling snow-white cloud,
Or like a demon in a shroud.’

On the northern skyline rose Boston Stump, the 272-ft tower of St Botolph’s Church, seamark and beacon in this dead flat countryside, round which the dark waters had swirled during that historic disaster.

An ice-blue winter sky opened over Norfolk in the west, with a pink glow as a foretaste of sunset. Lines of geese hurried across the sky towards their evening roosts. The last sighting of the day was one of the best – a barn owl as pale as a ghost, beating along the furrows of a ploughed field on stiff wings, as careless of my nearby presence as though I had never been there at all.

Start: Frampton Marsh RSPB Visitor Centre, near Boston, Lincs PE20 1AY (OS ref TF 357390).

Getting there: Bus – CallCollect Service from Boston, Mon-Sat (0845-234-3344)
Road – Frampton Marsh is signed from A16 between Boston and Kirton. Non-RSPB members – £2 car park donation requested.

Walk (4½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 249. Leaflet map guide available at Visitor Centre. NB: online map, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): Reedbed Trail (1.2 miles, surfaced), Wash Trail (2.2 miles), Grassland Trail (2.8 miles). Walk as described: From Visitor Centre, follow road towards sea. By seat, left through gate (359388, ‘Hides’) on path past 360 Hide, Reedbed Hide and East Hide. Near East Hide climb steps to sea bank (367391, ‘The Wash’). Turn right along sea wall. In 1¼ miles, right through gate with white arrow/WA (360379); steps down; follow Cross Bank inland. At end (350384), WA and yellow arrows (YA) point left, but turn right (fingerpost). From gate (351387) follow ‘GMT’ YAs, WAs to road (356391); right to Visitor Centre.

Lunch: Hot drinks, snacks at Visitor Centre

Accommodation: White Hart Hotel, High Street, Boston (01205-311900, whitehartboston.com) – solid, old-style, friendly.

Frampton Marsh RSPB: Visitor Centre open 10-4 daily – 01205-724678, rspb.org.uk/framptonmarsh.
Birdwatching cruises on The Wash, April-Oct – 01775-764777; southhollandcentre.co.uk

Info: Boston TIC (01205-365954)
visitengland.com; www.satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; LogMyTrip.co.uk

Rattlebrook Peat Railway, Lydford, Dartmoor, Devon

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Jan 172015

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

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‘The peat fires!’ rhapsodised Sabine Barry Gould in his 1910 Book of Dartmoor. ‘What fires can surpass them? They do not flame, but they glow, and diffuse an aroma that fills the lungs with balm.’

It wasn’t the dream of a lungful of balm that lured so many 19th-century prospectors out into the wilds of Dartmoor, but the chance of turning a fat profit by distilling naphtha oil from the ‘black gold’ of the peat that blanketed the moors. Naphtha oil could be converted into candles and mothballs, as well as the spectrally flickering naphtha flares that lit the evening markets of country towns.

Following the trackbed of the horse-drawn tramway built in 1879 for the Rattlebrook Peat Works, we marvelled at the ingenuity and sheer muscle power that the moorland railway had demanded – the cuttings in the granite rock, the curves and embankments, the granite sleepers hand-bevelled for the rails. A couple of miles out from the Dartmoor Inn, we stopped and took in a mighty view, forty miles across the dun-coloured moor and green farmlands to a broad strip of cobalt Atlantic where the land met the eggshell-blue sky.

Moor ponies grazed the sunny slopes, their long manes and tails streaming wildly in the cold wind. At the end of the old railway line a hundred men once laboured to dig, dry and load the peat. Here we found a couple of tumbledown peat-drying kilns and two venerable rusty boilers.

Nearby on the banks of the Rattle Brook stood the ruin of the aptly named Bleak House, home of the peat company’s caretaker. All around, the moor slopes had been combed into drainage channels for peat cutting. The ditches, like the ancient packhorse tracks we followed back to the Dartmoor Inn, were already half obliterated by the inexorably growing peat.

Tinning, quarrying, farming, peat cutting – man has tried them all in the wilds of Dartmoor and the land has swallowed all his endeavours. The meadow pipits, the moor ponies and the harshly calling ravens are the true masters of these moors.

Start: Car park off A386 near Dartmoor Inn, Lydford, Okehampton, Devon EX20 4AY (OS ref SX 525854)

Getting there: Bus service 11, 118 (Tavistock-Okehampton)
Road: A30 past Okehampton, A386 towards Tavistock. In 4½ miles, 20m before Dartmoor Inn, left up narrow tarmac lane. Car park is beyond gate.

Walk (8 miles, moderate, OS Explorer OL28. NB: online maps, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): Follow stony track by left-hand wall to River Lyd stepping stones/footbridge (532857). Don’t cross; turn left beside river for a ⅓ of a mile. Where wall turns left (532863) keep ahead; in 50m, cross old tramway; on up path opposite. In 100m, right (533865) along higher tramway track, passing Great Nodden. In 1¾ miles, reach reversing point/turning circle on Coombe Down (546887). Hairpin back up to right; follow tramway track for 1½ miles to ruined kiln houses (560871). Just before ruin, right on boggy track for 500m. 100m before Bleak House ruin, cross Rattle Brook (560866); follow clear track, bearing away from brook. Pass Lower Dunna Goat tor; in another 250m, turn right/west (557861) on wide, well-walked bridleway path for 1¾ miles to River Lyd footbridge (532857), aiming to descend between Arms Tor and Widgery Cross. Ahead to Dartmoor Inn.

NB: Good boots, hill walking gear. Map, compass, GPS. Not advisable in heavy mist.

Lunch/Accommodation: Dartmoor Inn, Moorside, Lydford (01822-820221, dartmoorinn.com)

Info: Museum of Dartmoor Life, Okehampton (01837-52295, museumofdartmoorlife.co.uk) or Princetown Visitor Centre (01822-890414)
www.satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; LogMyTrip.co.uk

Kirkby Stephen and the Eden Valley, Cumbria

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Jan 102015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Poetry Path: Booklet guide available from Upper Eden Visitor Centre

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

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

Southwell and Robin Hood Way, Nottinghamshire

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Jan 032015

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

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‘Mackerel, love – you won’t get fresher!’ winked the fishmonger at Southwell’s Saturday market. Ten flavours of sausages to the left of him, a hundred colours of cotton reel to the right, and countless jokes in his arsenal. I saw that very face later in the morning, agelessly cheerful and knowing, where some unremembered mason had carved it seven hundred years ago on a bracing rib of the Chapter House in Southwell Minster.

Southwell is a snug, self-sufficient little Nottinghamshire town, full of gorgeous red-brick houses, with the spectacularly large and beautiful minster church as its pride and joy. There’s a warm honey glow to the stone, and a treasure of carvings still sharp in detail. Contorted faces peeped and grinned from the 14th century choir screen – a peasant riding a laughing king, a churl giving his bum a good scratch. In the Chapter House were leaves of oak and field maple, exquisitely fashioned, and a riot of tiny, boldly staring Green Men, some defaced by the sword cuts of Puritan zealots. Anyone who could greet such figures with outrage rather than laughter and wonder must surely be in need of a humour transfusion.

I came out of the Minster with a head full of marvels to find a chilly mist settling down across the Nottingham countryside. The Robin Hood Way trail led me out of Southwell along the track of an old railway that once brought coal and silk to the town – coal from the Nottinghamshire pits to burn, and silk to be spun in the big brick mill out at Maythorne beside the winding River Greet.

From Maythorne and its handsome old workers’ cottages I crossed into Norwood Park, once the private deer park of the Archbishop of York, now the haunt of golfers. On among stumpy apple trees, their boughs entwined with mistletoe, and south through the big open pastures and biofuel acres of the Brackenhurst Estate. Then a homeward plod across the misty plough, slipping and sliding among beet plants, with the shouts of Southwell’s Saturday footballers coming up from the pitches by the Potwell Dyke. I didn’t catch a glimpse of the twin towers of the Minster until they loomed magnificently out of the mist, right above my head.

Start: Southwell Minster, Southwell, Notts NG25 0HD (OS ref SK 702539)

Getting there: Bus route 100 (Nottingham-Southwell)
Road – Southwell is on A612 between Nottingham and Newark-on-Trent

Walk (6½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 271): From Minster, right down Church Street. At S-bend, bear left (703538); take right-hand of 2 paths (‘Potwell Dyke, Robin Hood Way/RHW’). In 300m, cross road (706539) and on. In 250m, cross Newark Road and on (708540, RHW). In 50m, dogleg right/left down Merrison Way. Follow RHW to A612 (710541). Left and left again along railway trail (RHW, Southwell Heritage Trail/SHT).

In 500m, at road, dogleg right/left past Caudwell’s Mill (707544), and on, following RHW on right bank of River Greet for 1¼ miles to Maythorne Mill (697557). Cross river (RHW, SHT); down road, across old railway (695554), on to Kirklington Road at Maythorne Cottages (692551). Dogleg right/left into Norwood Park. Along drive past golf course (yellow-topped posts). In 600m, at crossing of tracks (689546, fingerpost), bear half left through orchard, then between greenhouses, for 600m to cross Halam Road (690540). On across field; cross B6386 (690538) and on; cross next road (690537, fingerpost) and on to cross footbridge. Here path forks; take left fork along hedge. Cross Westhorpe Dumble stream (690534); on far bank keep ahead up slope, then along field edges. At a hedge (691529, RHW) dogleg right/left; on to road (691524). Left (RHW) to cross A612 (695525 – take care!).

Right for 150m; left (694523) along Hicking Lane between University buildings. Through wooden gates and on to second pair of gates (699524). Left; in 200m, opposite road on left, turn right through gate (698526, RHW), and on to road (700526). Right; in 70m, left (fingerpost, RHW) across field to waymark post (702529, RHW). Half right to hedge gap (704530). Left here with hedge on right, downhill past football field to path (702534). Right (yellow arrow) and left across Potwell Dyke; follow lane to Minster.

Lunch: Old Theatre Deli Café, Queen Street, Southwell (01636-815340)

Accommodation: Saracen’s Head Hotel, Southwell, NG25 0HE (01636-812701) – characterful, creaky and comfortable.

Local Trails: downloadable at southwellcouncil.com.

Info: Southwell TIC (01636-819038)
visitengland.com; www.satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; LogMyTrip.co.uk

Broad Chalke and The Ox Drove, Wilts

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Dec 202014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Robin Hood’s Bay to Whitby, North Yorkshire

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Dec 132014

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

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Robin Hood’s Bay is one of those coastal villages so intrinsically beautiful and full of character that it draws you back again and again. Mazy laneways tangle on either side of the precipitous main street. Cobbled or flagged, twisting and turning, plunging from one level to another by worn stone stairs, wriggling between tiny gardens, climbing and falling, framing views of sea and cliff under cooked archways – Fisherhead, Sunny Place and Bakehouse Steps, they seduced me into lingering long after I should have been away.

The tide had slipped in to cover the great scars or eroded rock layers that floor the bay in extravagant arcs. I turned my back on the red pantiled roofs of Robin Hood’s Bay at last and set out along the cliffs with a good stiff north-westerly breeze in my face. I hadn’t walked this stretch of the North Yorkshire coast in years, but I well remembered the jagged out-thrust of the headlands with their horizontal bands of mineral-bearing rock, and the black boulders that carpeted the tiny bays.

The map names held magic – Craze Naze and Clock Case Nab, Pursglove Stye Batts and Maw Wyke Hole. Angular names for angular places, where men wriggled into the most awkward of holes to win the fossilised wood which, properly shaped and polished, transformed itself into Whitby jet. A hard job for hard times – but as they told over-romantic visitors lamenting the mining scars, ‘You can’t eat scenery!’

The sun came through the mackerel sky and shone a silver shaft as thick as a searchlight beam on the sea where lobster pot buoys and flags were bobbing. A jaunty gang of jackdaws went chakkering off inland. Fulmars rode the thermals along the cliffs with upturned tails and slender wings stiffened at right angles to their bodies. I marvelled yet again at these seabirds’ precision of flight, every movement economical and as graceful as a dancer’s.

I passed the stubby white lighthouse on Whitestone Point and skirted Saltwick Bay with its fast-eroding sea stacks and gull-dotted rock pavements. The black skeleton of Whitby Abbey stood ahead on its cliff, forever haunted by the ghastly shade of Count Dracula – one of many scenes in his horror novel Dracula that Bram Stoker set in Whitby, to the delight of today’s nation of Goths who hang whey-faced around the town.

A wildly steep cobbled alley precipitated me from the abbey down to Whitby harbour. The town where Captain Cook learned his sea trade was under attack by jovial pretend pirates today, one of Whitby’s frequent festivals of fun. I dodged Bluebeard and Blackbeard and Short John Silver, and went off to find a fish pie with a nice sea view.

Start: Upper car park, Station Road, Robin Hood’s Bay, North Yorkshire YO22 4RE (OS ref NZ 949055)

Getting there: Bus 93, Whitby-Scarborough
Road: Robin Hood’s Bay (B1447) is signed from A171 Whitby-Scarborough road at Hawsker.

Walk (7 miles, easy/moderate, OS Explorer OL27. NB: online map, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): Right along B1447 towards village; on right bend, left along Mount Pleasant North (951055, ‘Cleveland Way’). From here, follow well-waymarked Cleveland Way to Whitby. Return by Bus 93, or taxi from Whitby railway station (£10-£15).

Conditions: Unguarded cliff edges; some steep flights of steps

Lunch: Duke of York, Whitby (01947-600324, dukeofyork.co.uk) – at bottom of 199 steps from St Mary’s Church

Accommodation: Victoria Hotel, Station Street, Robin Hood’s Bay YO22 4RL (01947-880205, victoriarhb.com) – a long-established hotel, characterful, helpful and friendly.

Info: Whitby TIC (01723-383636)
visitengland.com; www.satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; LogMyTrip.co.uk

Cavendish & Clare, Suffolk-Essex border

Walks No Responses »

Dec 062014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Information: Sudbury TIC (01787-881320)
visitengland.com; www.satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

Stagenhoe and St Paul’s Walden, Herts

Walks 2 Responses »

Nov 292014

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

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Two skylarks sprang out of the stubble field as we climbed its gentle slope towards Poynders End. They ascended skywards, blithely singing as though it were baking April and not a cold and cloudy winter’s day. Such little incidents inject a welcome shot of joy into these gloomy months when all nature seems to have curled up and pulled the blankets over its head.

The sticky ochreous clay under our boots was studded with flints. We picked up one with a delicately bevelled edge – whether by man or natural process wasn’t easy to decide, but we stood looking out over the wide fields of north Hertfordshire and pictured the men who hunted here when it was all forest. Milo the mad spaniel, meanwhile, went on running in circles and pointing at pheasants flying overhead.

A string of old woodlands lies here on the upland. In the margins of Hitch Wood, twisted green-barked hornbeams pointed their witchy limbs along the trackway that took us south towards Stagenhoe. This lovely Palladian house, now a Sue Ryder care home, has had some notable tenants and owners, among them the 14th Earl of Caithness, a genial Victorian soul who would drink whisky with his tenants and whose Spanish wife, ‘massive and theatrical’, believed she was the reincarnation of Mary, Queen of Scots. Caithness’s son rented Stagenhoe to Sir Arthur Sullivan while he was composing the music for ‘The Mikado’ in 1881.

From the track though Stagenhoe’s grounds we caught a glimpse of St Paul’s Walden Bury at the far end of its long avenue, another splendid 18th-century house, childhood home of the late Queen Mother. We stopped to admire the gurning gargoyles and other stone-carved grotesques at All Saints’ Church, and then turned north again along the well-waymarked Chiltern Way, heading across wide fields and down a tree-hung lane at Langley End where a flock of jaunty yellow-cheeked siskins bounced and twittered in the branches overhead.

Out of bounds in a thicket at the crest of the last hill crouched the broken flint walls of Minsden Chapel. It was built in the 14th century as a staging post for pilgrims on their way to St Albans, but the Reformation swept away its raison d’être. Now it stands forgotten among the trees, a ruin haunted by the wraith of a monk who walks accompanied by a ghost of sweet music. Some claim to have seen the shades of men and women here, hiding in a phantom cart full of spectral barrels. An eerie place. We went quickly on down the hill, with something more substantial in our sights – the Rusty Gun pub, and a damn good lunch.
Start: Rusty Gun Inn, London Rd, St Ippolyts, Herts SG4 7PG (OS ref TL 199253).

Getting there: From A1(M) Jct 8, follow Little Wymondley, Todds Green, St Ippollits and Preston. At B656 cross roads, left for ⅓ mile to Rusty Gun PH.

Walk (5½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 193): From Rusty Gun, left along B656 for 150m. Left (‘Preston’, Chiltern Way/CW) on field track for nearly 1 mile. 300m beyond Poynders End Farm, right through hedge (190245, CW); clockwise round field edge, past reservoir to road (186245). Left (CW); at right bend, ahead down Hitchwood Lane. In 350m, at left bend, bear right on tarmac lane (188242, ‘Whitwell’) past houses, and follow path (yellow arrows/YAs) along right edge of Hitch Wood.

In ½ mile leave wood (187234); bear half right across field and along right edge of Pinfold Wood. Left past house, then right for 400m (186232, YA) along field edge, then left edge of Foxholes Wood. At post with 2 YAs, turn left (184229). Follow YAs with metal fence on right to drive beside Stagenhoe House gateway (186228). Left along drive for 70m; fork right down gravel track past lodge house with tall chimneys. Follow track on left edge of Garden Wood and on (ignore footpath fingerposts) to All Saints Church, St Paul’s Walden.

Go through iron gate on left (192223), through churchyard, past north side of church to gate into lane (CW). Left up lane past White House; right (CW) along path by fence, then field edge to B651 (194227). Left (CW) for 200m – NB nasty double bend; take care! Just past Stagenhoe gates, right (195228, CW) on track through trees. Leaving trees, don’t follow track round to right but keep ahead (YA) across field. Go between fence posts (YA); path across field to road (199234). Ahead (blue arrow/BA) on woodland path. Emerging from trees (200236), left on track (BA, ‘STOOP’). In 300m it swings right (199238); ahead here (BA) on grass path to road. Left (CW) past red brick Langley End; on down path (CW); in 50m, fork right (198239) to cross B651 (198241). Right along field edge; in 100m, left across field; up right side of Minsden Chapel Plantation to pass chapel ruins among trees (198246). Ahead across field over brow of hill; keep left of hedge; follow sunken lane to Rusty Gun.

Lunch: Rusty Gun (01462-432653, therustygun.co.uk) – good food and beer, produce shop
Information: Stevenage TIC (0300-123-4049)
visitengland.com; www.satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

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