Christopher Somerville

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

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The shapely hummocks of the Mourne Mountains stood muted and insubstantial under a cloud-blotched sky and a pale sun. Wrens sang in the flowering gorse bushes along the lane from Meelmore Lodge. The western face of the Mournes rose before us, the jagged profile of Slieve Meelmore and the rounder bulk of Slievenaglogh framing the hollow where the Trassey Track snaked in its long climb to the Hare’s Gap. Generations of quarrymen forged the track and its tributary paths to the granite quarries that floored and walled the industrial north of England in the 19th century.

The zigzag path rose steeply to where the flat saddle of the Hare’s Gap was seamed by the long dark line of the Mourne Wall. This remarkable construction of roughly squared granite blocks, built by hungry men in the early 20th century to earn themselves a crust, circles the high top of the Mourne Mountains for 22 miles, swooping up and down all the major peaks. Once across the wall we got a breathtaking prospect of the heart of the range, from the castellated crags of Slieve Bearnagh and the knobbed peak of Ben Crom overhanging its namesake reservoir to the long graceful nape of Slieve Donard, tallest of all.

Smugglers, ne’er-do-wells and travellers in a hurry used to cut across the high Mournes from the sea by way of a rough path known as the Brandy Pad. We followed it towards Slieve Donard along the slopes of Slieve Commedagh, through a high bleak landscape where meadow pipits fluttered and cheeped, and a solitary raven croaked a warning ark-ark-ark-ark to his mate invisible among the rocks.

Clouds built and melted, rain spat and subsided, and Slieve Donard pulled a shawl of thick mist over her head. Under the mountain we recrossed the Mourne Wall and went stumbling and splashing down towards Newcastle in the company of the Glen River, a noisy little chute of rapids and cascades. A walk in a Mourne heaven – nothing soft or accommodating about it, everything stark, hard and beautifully wild.

Start: Meelmore Lodge, Trassey Road, near Bryansford, Co Down, BT33 0QB (OSNI ref SB 305307).

Getting there: Mourne Rambler bus service in the summer (mourne-mountains.com).
Meelmore Lodge is signed off B180 Newcastle-Hilltown road. Car park: £4/day (coins)

Walk (7 miles, moderate/strenuous, OSNI 1:25,000 Activity Map ‘The Mournes’. NB: online map, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): From car park, left up stony lane (‘Mountain Walk’ sign on wall). Through right-hand of 2 gates; follow lane to cross field wall (308302). Left (‘Mourne Way’) for 500m; right up stony Trassey Track. In 1 mile track crosses river and bears right; but keep ahead here, steeply up to cross Mourne Wall at Hare’s Gap (323287). Left at cairn along Brandy Pad path for 1½ miles to cairn on saddle between Slieve Commedagh and Slieve Beg (342278). Bear left at cairn, under The Castles crags. At end of crags (348277), fork left, up to cross Mourne Wall (350279). Descend beside Glen River. In 1½ miles, pass Ice House (364295). In 200m at dirt road/concrete bridge, descend left bank of river. In 400m, right across bridge (379299); descend right bank. In 350m, left across Donard Bridge (372302). Descend left bank; through Donard Park into Newcastle.

Conditions: Some steep parts; slippery underfoot in woods. Walking stick advisable. Dogs on leads.

Refreshments: Meelmore Lodge café (028-4372-5949); Villa Vinci, Newcastle (028-4372-3080).

Accommodation: Slieve Donard Hotel, Newcastle BT33 0AH (028-4372-1066; hastingshotels.com); Meelmore Lodge hostel/camping, 52a Trassey Road, Bryansford BT33 0QB (028-4372-6657; meelmorelodge.co.uk)

Information: Newcastle TIC (028-4372-2222); walkni.com; discovernorthernireland.com; walksireland.com;

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

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It was a murky old afternoon, with just one window of opportunity between two solid slabs of eastward-drifting rain. We pulled on our raingear and set out north from Steeple Claydon. A black hen, escaped from her pen, ran madly away across the furrows – good solid furrows several feet wide, remnants of medieval strip farming still imprinted on the land. This is low-rolling, cattle grazing country of modest ridges topped by trees, quintessentially Middle England, an unemphatic landscape whose subtleties unfold only slowly.

The stubble lay scattered with wheat grains, millions of them. The Victorian women and children who gleaned these fields after the harvest, scouring each row with beady eyes for the precious seeds, would have gathered almost every grain. As we walked along hedges bowed with little green crab apples and blackberries, I wondered when gleaners were last seen in the Buckinghamshire fields.

Kingsbridge Farm lay ahead, an angle of red tiled roof and a dark square of barn framed between a crab apple and a hawthorn either side of a five-barred gate – a view John Constable would have loved. We followed the green-grey Padbury Brook as it wound along field margins where the leaves of burdock hung in leathery sheaves like roosting bats. Suddenly a grinding roar filled the air. Looking up, we saw a Lancaster bomber trundling majestically across the cloudy sky like a plane in a dream.

A green lane and a wonderful formal avenue, broad and tree-lined, brought us past immaculate gardens to Hillesden church, a building whose dignified beauty inspired the young George Gilbert Scott to become an architect. The pale oak of the ancient church door was bored deep with bullet holes. This quiet hamlet was the scene of a desperate confrontation in March 1644, when 2,000 Roundhead soldiers laid siege to the Royalist stronghold of Hillesden House. It ended with the owner, Sir Alexander Denton, clapped into the Tower of London (where he soon died), his lands confiscated, his family ruined and his house levelled.

Out across the fields we followed a well-found farm track towards the red roofs and slender spire of Steeple Claydon, with rainclouds thickening overhead to hurry our homeward steps.

Start: Fountain Inn, West Street, Steeple Claydon, Bucks MK18 2NT (OS ref SP 698271)

Getting there: Bus – Service 18 (buckscc.gov.uk/transport), Bicester-Buckingham.
Road – Steeple Claydon is signposted from Padbury, off A413 (Winslow-Buckingham).

Walk (6 miles, easy, OS Explorer 192): From Fountain Inn, left along West Street. On right bend by Co-op, ahead along Meadoway; on beside recreation ground (fingerpost), past school and on for ⅓ mile (stiles, yellow arrows/YA) to cross road (702275, ‘Bernwood Jubilee Way’/BJW). Follow BJW across fields. In ¾ mile cross stream (705287); bear right to enter green lane; left across Padbury Brook at King’s Bridge (704288). Right over stile (BJW); follow left bank of Padbury Brook.

In 250m, right across brook (703290, BJW); continue along its bank. In ¼ mile go under power cables; in 100m, left (703295) away from brook. Don’t go right across ditch; keep ahead with hedge on right for 400m to junction of paths near lone tree standing apart from hedge (699296). Angle back left across field, then along green lane. In 700m, leave trees (701290); in another 200m, right across stile (702289, YA). Follow hedge on right; in 100m, right over stile along broad grassy avenue west for 1 mile. At end, pass Hillesden House gardens, then church (686288).

Just beyond church, left (‘Cross Bucks Way’); follow road, then farm track to Church-hill Farm. At first barn bear left (686283, waymark arrow); follow track for ⅓ mile to T-junction; right here (690282). In ⅓ mile, at T-junction with 3 gateways (693279), right along hedge, following YAs to cross Padbury Brook at Claydon Plank by 2 footbridges (694274). Ahead for 100m past pumping house; left through hedge; 2 kissing gates, then path to road (697272). Right to Fountain PH.

Refreshments: Fountain PH, Steeple Claydon (01296-730286) – friendly local; no food, but you can eat own picnic there. Also Phoenix Inn, Queen Catherine Road, Steeple Claydon (01296-738919).

Accommodation: Villiers Hotel, 3 Castle Street, Buckingham MK18 1BS (01280-822444; oxfordshire-hotels.co.uk) – smart, welcoming town centre hotel.

Information: Buckingham TIC (01280-823020)
www.LogMyTrip.co.uk; www.satmap.com;

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

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Capel Curig on a cloudless morning, the sky upturned like a blue porcelain bowl above Snowdonia, the air as fresh as spring water, full of light and clarity. In the west Snowdon thrust up its crown of peaks round a shadowy hollow. Moel Siabod rose like a rocket to the south. What a morning for exploring the rugged uplands that lie north of Capel Curig, the walkers’ and climbers’ mecca in the mountains.

We crossed the stile by the chapel and were away up the fields with tumbled rocks and hillocks rising all round. A well-trodden path led through a mossy oakwood and out into a patch of sun-warmed bog myrtle. We picked a handful of the olive-shaped leaves and sniffed their sweetly spicy fragrance as we climbed on round a great bog in a rocky hollow, northwards towards the pass under the peak of Crimpiau.

‘Go on a bit down the other side, there’s a great view,’ the man in Capel Curig’s Moel Siabod café had urged us. We did so, and were rewarded with a wonderful prospect north-east over the blue waters of Llyn Crafnant framed in a cleft of hills. Back up to the pass, and a meandering climb up to the pale quartz rocks of Crimpiau’s summit. Snowdon stood up dramatically in the west, with Tryfan’s stegosaurus back arched to the sky alongside.

Mountains and uplands were all lit as though by a stage designer granting the dearest wish of every walker out in the hills today. ‘Tryfan,’ said a cheery man as we sat drinking it all in like thirsty travellers in a bar. ‘Up there yesterday, and couldn’t see a thing. Wayfinding was… interesting.’ He smiled. ‘Back to Bedfordshire tomorrow – worst place in the world if you love hills!’

A very rugged and rough path led south off the ridge and down past Llyn y Coryn gleaming in its dark peaty bed like a splash of mercury. A pair of mating dragonflies flew away, banking like biplanes. We descended through heather and gorse, with Snowdon and its cohorts beyond the double lakes of Mymbyr a feast for eyes and soul the whole way down.

Start: Car park behind Pinnacle Stores, Capel Curig, LL24 0EN (OS ref SH 721582)

Getting there: Bus – Snowdon Sherpa S2 (Llanberis to Bettws-y-Coed), S6 (Bangor to Bettws-y-Coed)
Road – Pinnacle Stores is at crossroads of A5 (Bettws-y-Coed to Bangor) and A4086 (Llanberis).

Walk (4½ and a half miles, strenuous, OS Explorer OL17. NB: online maps, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): Cross A5; stile beside chapel (‘Crafnant’ fingerpost). In 200m, between trees, ahead on stony path. Gate/stile into wood (725582); out of trees to gate/stile (729581); on to cross wooden footbridge (732581). Left (‘walking man’ waymark); on (stiles) for 1¼ miles, up to pass beside large boulder (738596). On downhill for 200m to Llyn Crafnant viewpoint (738598). Back to pass and boulder; right up path to Crimpiau summit (733596). Path descends south along ridge, aiming for figure-of-eight lakes (Llynnau Mymbyr). Llyn y Coryn soon in sight; keep left of lake (731591) to fence on saddle beyond (731590). Keeping fence on right, down to cross stile (730587). Steeply down to cross stile by stone wall in hollow (729586). Turn right between fence and stone wall; follow fence to cross 2 more stiles (727583). Steeply down to path (727582); right to Capel Curig.

Conditions: steep and rough in places

Lunch: picnic

Accommodation: Tyn-y-Coed Hotel, Capel Curig, LL24 0EE (01690-720331; tyn-y-coed.co.uk) – comfortable, helpful, walker-friendly

Info/maps/walk directions: www.eryri-npa.gov.uk; visitsnowdonia.info/walking-85.aspx

Snowdonia Walking Festival, 25/6 Oct: snowdoniawalkingfestival.co.uk

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

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

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Back in 1985, a head-over-heels fan of Cider with Rosie, I spent a day exploring Slad with Laurie Lee as my guide. I’ve never forgotten the deep and amused affection that the author showed for the little South Gloucestershire village where he grew up. So it was a thrill to be back there in Lee’s centenary year, walking the recently opened Laurie Lee Wildlife Way which meanders – marked here and there with posts displaying Lee’s locally-inspired poems – through a succession of nature reserves cared for by the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. Click here for a map of Cider With Rosie sites

Below the path in ancient Longridge Wood ran the dark dingle of Deadcombe Bottom where lay the haunted house of the Bull’s Cross hangman – or so young Laurie and his friends believed. Up at the crest the poem ‘Landscape’ summoned images of a lover and a countryside melting into one another. But the stolid sheep among the harebells of Slad Slope munched on regardless.

On through Snows Hill wood, and down across a jungly hillside to a brook fragrant with spearmint. ‘My heart’s keel slides to rest among the meadows,’ said ‘Home From Abroad’ on the far bank. Up again to a long view over the roofs of Slad, and a poem about The Three Winds in Catswood. Here a tawny owl got up and flapped briskly away before me.

Through autumn gentians and ladies tresses on the steep flank of Swift’s Hill; and then the approach to Slad itself, past the field where Rosie Burdock and young Laurie exchanged cidrous kisses under that famous hay wagon. Past the tangle of trees in the valley bottom where Laurie’s friend Sixpence Robinson lived – ‘the place past the sheepwash,’ Lee remembered in Cider With Rosie, ‘the hide-out unspoiled by authority, where drowned pigeons flew and cripples ran free; where it was summer, in some ways, always.’

Past the pond where poor crazed Miss Flynn drowned herself, and up the lane to the L-shaped house where Lee and his seven siblings lived, laughed, fought with and finally left their scatter-brained, infinitely loving mother Annie. As her dreamy youngest son put it in his poem ‘Apples’, she too was fated to ‘welcome the ripe, the sweet, the sour, / the hollow and the whole.’
Start & finish: Bull’s Cross car park, near Slad, Glos GL6 7QS (approx.) – OS ref SO 877087)

Getting there: Bull’s Cross is on B4070, 1 mile north of Slad (signed from A419 in Stroud – M5, Jct 13)

Walk (6½ miles, moderate, OS Explorer 179. NB leaflet guide from Woolpack Inn, Slad, or download at gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk):

Heading north from Slad, don’t take first path on right! At ‘Equinox’ poem at northern end of car park, ‘Wildlife Way’ arrow/WW points up B4070. In 100m, right (yellow arrow/YA) down lane. In 400m, through gate (882089); in another 350m, fork right off track (885088, YA on tree) on descending path. Pass end of lake, up across track (886087) and on up steep path rising to left. At top, cross bridleway (887087), through stone wall gap (YA) and on, down through grassland reserve. Stile (YA); cross field to bottom left corner and gate into Snows Farm Nature Reserve (889085).

Ahead down track through wood. At bottom, path bends right (892085, ‘Laurie Lee’/LL post, red arrow). Follow LL and WW southwest across grass slopes and through woods for 500m. Near Snows Farm cross brook (887081); on far bank, through gate; right (LL) along fence and through kissing gate. Don’t cross brook, but bear left over stile (YA, Wysis Way). Fork right in next field to cross stream by plank; fork right up slope and over stile; diagonally up across grassy field and into Catswood (886077). Right on path along lower edge of Catswood, and on into Redding Wood.

In a little over ½ mile, turn right along tarmac lane (880073). In 400m at bottom on right bend, left up steps (880070); follow path through Laurie Lee Wood Nature reserve (‘Trantershill Plantation’ on OS Explorer map). Through gate at top of wood (877068, with road below to right). Turn left past another gate, uphill on stony track. In 200m, pass ‘Field of Autumn’ poetry post on your right; at top of slope, with field gate on left, hairpin back right (879067), heading west over brow of Swift’s Hill Nature Reserve and down to road (875066). Left over cattle grid. Pass Knapp Farm; at left bend, right along drive (872067, ‘Upper Vatch Mill’). In 100m, right over stile (YA), and follow YAs across 3 fields for 600m to hollow lane (878071). Left to road at Furners Farm. Left past farm; on along stony lane.

In 10m, over stile (877072); on along green pathway through 2 fields and woodland corner. Cross stile on left into 3rd field (877076); follow hedge on left down to gate (877077). Pass village pond; left up lane. At top (874078), either left to B4070 (Lee’s childhood home – NB it’s a private house! – is down the bank on the left at junction, 874075) and on to Woolpack Inn, with church and school opposite; or turn right at top of lane to cross B4070 at war memorial (873079). Up lane opposite; at left bend, right (872079, fingerpost) along lower edge of Frith Wood Nature Reserve. In 200m fork left uphill; in 250m at top (874084), bear right to Bull’s Cross car park.

Conditions: Some short steep climbs; sticky/slippery after rain.

Lunch: Woolpack Inn, Slad (01452-813429)

Reading: Laurie Lee’s Selected Poems (Unicorn Press); Cider With Rosie (Vintage Classics)

2014 Centenary events: laurielee.org

Info: Stroud TIC (01453-760960)

visitthecotswolds.org.uk; www.satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

A cool and cloudy morning over the Forest of Bowland, the moorland heart of Lancashire.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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As we walked the sheep pastures under the dun brown shoulder of Beatrix Fell, a curlew got up from its nest among the sedges and flew low past us. Its long downcurved bill quivered open to emit the familiar bubbling trill that haunts these northern hills. The sedgy field path brought us past a string of old stone farmhouses, then up the open flank of Dunsop Fell and out into open moorland.

In past times the Forest of Bowland lay under harsh laws of prohibition. The landlord’s tenants were made to pass their dogs through a silver hoop – any animal too big and powerful to scramble through would be destroyed as a potential poaching asset. Grouse shooting interests were paramount, and ramblers were strenuously discouraged. But times and tempers changed. When the Countryside and Rights of Way Act was passed in 2000, this enormous wheel of bleak and beautiful country was opened to all walkers for the first time in history.

Bowland is properly wild country, with plenty of surprises for walkers. Up at Dunsop Head we found the springs of Dunsop Brook overflowing with stored rainwater. We floundered along through soft, sloppy, sucking peat and moss. Jane went in knee-deep, emerging with a tremendous sucking sound as though the bog were smacking its lips over her like a tasty lollipop.

At last we reached firmer ground, where three birdwatchers were waiting. ‘See the male hen harrier?’ cheerily enquired their leader. ‘Flew right across where you were.’ But we’d been too preoccupied with our battle with the bog to spare a glance for anything else. ‘Yep, only three of them in Britain,’ the twitcher exulted. ‘We saw him, all right!’

Down in the hidden cleft of Whitendale, other ornithological celebrities are resident – a pair of breeding eagle owls, surprise incomers with six-foot wingspans, capable of taking out a young deer. We didn’t spot these beautiful strangers on the way back to Dunsop Bridge. But there were grey wagtails and herons, white-chested dippers and black-capped stonechats, and a crowd of jolly house martins hawking over the river, their white rumps and scarlet streaks a vivid splash of colour against the grey skies of evening.

Start: Dunsop Bridge car park, Lancs BB7 3BE approx. (OS ref SD 661501)

Getting there: Bus Service 10 (dalesbus.org), Clitheroe-Slaidburn
Road: M6, Jct 31a; B6243 (‘Clitheroe’) through Longridge; 1 mile past Knowle Green, left on minor road through Whitewell to Dunsop Bridge.

Walk (10½ miles, strenuous, OS Explorer OL41. NB: Detailed directions – highly recommended – online map, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): Right along road; just before bridge, right (‘bridleway’) along drive. Pass terraced houses (658507); in 100m, right (yellow arrow/YA) through kissing gate, up steps, over stile; ahead along fence. At ruined wall, half-left to Beatrix Farm (664514). 100m past farmhouse, left through gate. Blue arrow/BA points ahead, but follow 2 YAs (pointing left) along right bank of stream (YAs). In ½ mile, at bottom of Oxenhurst Clough, cross stream (671518). Follow YAs, with fence on right, to farm drive (674521); on past The Hey to Burn House (682528). Through driveway gate and on down to lane (685522).

Left for ¾ mile. Left up drive (694530, ‘Burnside Cottage’). Skirt Burnside Cottage through gates (690537); on up fellside beside stone wall (BAs). At top of wall (687540), through gate; bear right. 200m past conifer clump, path hairpins back left and climbs for 1 mile to Dunsop Head (676542).

NB! Deep, wet bogs across the path here! Bear left to stone wall on high ground to left of bogs; follow it to the right, to a fence curving away to left; follow this fence west, then north, keeping close to it, and treading with care, till you meet the wall again near a gate (675544).

From the gate, left along moor path (yellow-topped posts, arrows, cairns) for 1 mile, descending to Whitendale. By first stone wall of farmyard, left (662550, unmarked) on path with wall on right. In nearly 1 mile, horseshoe left across Costy Clough footbridge (659536). In 150m, right over stile, down to track; left for 500m; right across footbridge (654533), left along road for 2¼ miles to Dunsop Bridge.

Conditions: Deep, wet bogs at Dunsop Head. Hill-walking gear, boots, stick.

Refreshments: Picnic; Puddleducks tearoom, Dunsop Bridge (01200-448241)

Accommodation: Inn at Whitewell, BB7 3AT (01200-448222, innatwhitewell.com) – wonderful old inn; comfortable, welcoming, full of character; 2½ miles from Dunsop Bridge

Information: Clitheroe TIC (01200-425566)

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