Christopher Somerville

Kingston lies shut away in a tangle of high-banked lanes, a South Hams village that retains a vigorous social life in and out of the holiday season.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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Crockers and Terrys lie companionably in the churchyard of St James the Less, our starting point for a walk along the coast of this isolated region of south Devon. In the ferny banks an astonishing treasury of flowers had responded to the mildness of this winter – herb robert, celandines, primroses, red campion and snowdrops all blooming together.

Between the leafless, wind-streamed trees of Furzedown Wood we caught glimpses of the tide-ribbed, dull gold sandflats and milky turquoise water of the Erme estuary, a snaking channel that reached its mouth between wooded headlands of black rock. Out on the coast a low wind brought a breath of winter in from the sea. The water lay slate-coloured under a grey sky streaked with pearly patches. Contorted cliff faces fell hundreds of feet to secret beaches and coves floored with tight-packed parallel lines of rock scars. A little back from the edge ran the path, swooping a couple of hundred feet into the green grassy dips, then soaring back up and over a succession of headlands.

It was heady walking, with the sea-monster shape of tidal Burgh Island as an aiming point ahead. The island’s Art Deco hotel gleamed in the muted winter light, an exotic morsel much picked over by guests both actual and apocryphal – Noel Coward, Winston Churchill, The Beatles and M. Hercule Poirot among them. We descended to the shore in Bigbury-on-Sea opposite Burgh Island’s other hostelry, the tiny old Pilchard Inn. Jane opted to cross the sandy causeway for a bowl of soup and a bit of a sit-down there, while I set off back to Kingston through the switchback fields and stream valleys of the hinterland.

By the time I’d fetched the car and negotiated the narrow lanes back to Bigbury-on-Sea, the tide had risen to cover the causeway. I watched as Jane came ashore on Burgh Island’s tall blue sea tractor, riding in state like Queen Suriyothai on her war elephant.

The Dolphin in Kingston is one of those pubs that draws you in on a cold winter’s night – a combination of lamp-lit windows, the promise of a pint and a plate of food, a cosy setting and the flicker of a real good fire. It was great to get the weight off our muddy feet and settle down there with the wind and rain shut out, the map spread on the table and a great day’s walking to chew over at leisure.

Start & finish: Dolphin Inn, Kingston, Bigbury, Devon TQ7 4QE (OS ref SX 636478)
Getting there: M5, A38 to Ivybridge turn; minor road to Ermington; A3121, A379 to Modbury; minor road to Kingston.

Walk (9 miles, strenuous, OS Explorer OL20): From Dolphin Inn, left past church. At crossroads, right (‘Wonwell Beach’). In ¼ mile, just past dogleg, left (632481; ‘Wonwell Beach’); follow fingerposts and yellow arrows/YAs over fields for ¾ mile, down through Furzedown Wood to road by Erme estuary (620478). Left for 150m; left up steps (‘Coast Path, Bigbury-on-Sea’). Follow coast path for 5 miles to Bigbury-on-Sea (if tide allows, cross sands causeway – 651442 – to Pilchard Inn – 648440).

Climb Parker Road; at top, through gate (653446; arrow, fingerpost/FP). On across fields; at end of 3rd field (658448), left downhill with fence on right (FP, ‘Ringmore’). Follow YAs, crossing lane at 656453, to Ringmore. At road, ahead to T-junction by church (653460). Right, then left up side of church. In 150m, left through kissing gate (653461; ‘Kingston’ FP). Diagonally right across field and through gate; follow YAs through gates and fields, turning left (650463) to descend to stream in valley. Bear right (648463) along stream, crossing it at ruined Noddonmill (649465); on (YA) along left bank of stream, into wood (very muddy!). In ¼ mile, steeply uphill out of trees; anti-clockwise round field to far right corner (645471; FP). Right along farm track. Round left bend, and turn right (644473; FP) across field to lane (643474). Left (YA) for 50m; right (FP) and follow YAs along field edges and through woodland to road (637476). Right to T-junction in Kingston (636477); right, then left to Dolphin Inn.

NB – Online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk. Click on Facebook “Like” link to share this walk with Facebook friends.
Lunch: Pilchard Inn, Burgh Island (01548-810514; soup and baguettes only; if marooned by high tide, return ashore on Sea Tractor – £2– check times/tides in advance); Journey’s End Inn, Ringmore (01548-810205).
Accommodation: Dolphin Inn, Kingston (01548-810314); low beams, fires, good cheer – a community hub.
More info: Totnes TIC (01803-863168); www.visitdevon.co.uk
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk

The world has changed its bearings a bit since JMW Turner’s day, but the artist’s wonderful smeary 1828 painting of Chichester Canal records a scene almost unchanged in nearly two centuries.First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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Turner depicts the setting sun about to touch the western horizon, a fabulous orb providing a dreamy, lemon-yellow backlight for Chichester Cathedral’s landmark spire. A spectral schooner, black and skeletal, lies anchored on the newly-completed canal, a broad silver highway linking sea to city.

It was Turner light today, wintry and indistinct, as we set out from Chichester, seawards along the canal into the flatlands of the Selsey peninsula. We strolled slowly, at first against the tide of Selsey’s commuters jogging and cycling along the towpath towards the city, then in backwaters of post-rush-hour calm. A grey heron stood stock still among the reeds, allowing us to inch forward to within touching distance before it shook its umbrella wings open with a clap and hauled heavily off upstream.

A century has passed since the last barge brought goods to Chichester up the canal. The waterway lies quiet now, a haunt of solitary fishermen intent on their long roach poles. A sharp right-angle bend at Hunston bridge where Turner perched to make his painting, and the canal made purposefully west through low-lying pastures and ploughlands towards the convoluted shores of Chichester Harbour. This muddy, meandering inland sea has many snaking creeks and widely separated peninsulas; silting and land reclamation had choked off the channel that led to Chichester long before the canal was cut as a remedy.

Down in Chichester Marina, boats with aspirational names lay snugged down for winter: Glowing Jade, One Life, Day Dreamer, Flight of Fancy. Between the white walls of the yachts a pair of young Swallows (or Amazons) scudded round in a rubber dinghy. We turned inland, walking the muddy shore path through Salterns Copse. The name stands as a memorial to the salt-making industry that flourished here in the 18th century. The shallow salterns – manmade pools with clay bottoms – held seawater, reduced to brine by the sun, then boiled and dredged for the precious salt crystals. The high cost of coal, taxes and transport put an end to the salterns just before the opening of the Chichester Canal, which might have saved them.

Halyards chinked in the morning breeze, and black-backed gulls screeched like fishwives over their tideline pickings. A quick sandwich in the dappled river light of the dark-panelled bar in the Crown & Anchor at Dell Quay, and we followed the winding Fishbourne Channel towards the distant line of the downs, with Chichester spire pricking the low grey sky away in the east.

Start: Chichester station, Chichester PO19 8DL (OS ref SU 859043)
Finish: Fishbourne station (835050)
Getting there: Train (www.thetrainline.com; www.railcard.co.uk) to Chichester. Road: A27 from Southampton or Brighton
Walk (7 miles, easy grade, OS Explorer 120): From Chichester station head out of town along A286. In 100m, left (‘Chichester Canal’); cross canal (859041) and follow towpath for 1¼ miles to Poyntz Bridge at Hunston (865023). Follow path to road; right; in 50 m, right again along left bank of canal. In ⅔ mile keep ahead at Crosbie Bridge (854019); in another mile at Cutfield Bridge (842013), right across canal; left along road on right bank to Chichester Marina. Right here along Salterns Way footpath (835010, fingerpost), keeping marina on left to reach open water (829014). Right (fingerpost); immediately left on permissive path through Salterns Copse and on along harbour edge to Dell Quay Road. Left to Crown & Anchor PH (836028). Right along Fishbourne Channel, keeping close to shore. After nearly 1 mile cross sluice to 3-way fingerpost (841041). Left along harbour. In 300 m, take left of 2 kissing gates; cross stream; boardwalk, then left (fingerpost) along stream. In 100 m, right past pond (838045) up Mill Lane to A259 in Fishbourne. Left for 300 m; cross road, and right up Salthill Road (835047) to Fishbourne station.

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Lunch: Crown & Anchor, Dell Quay (log fires, wood-panelled bar, superb estuary views): 01243-781712; www.crownandanchorchichester.com)
More info: Chichester TIC (01243-775888);
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk

Shirenewton sits pretty on its low ridge, a well-cared-for village of flower gardens and neat stone houses.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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Why such a small South Wales borders settlement on the road to nowhere in particular should be hemmed in by four pubs is a matter for conjecture, but here in the land of songful devotion a thirsty walker can only hymn the Lord for His munificence.

The children of Shirenewton and neighbouring Mynydd-bach were squealing fit to burst in their schoolyard as we set out into the tight, tumbled countryside of green hillsides and wooded valleys. Looking back from the heights of Itton Common, we found the prospect had broadened to lay the Severn Estuary open to view – the stork-like white gateway piers of the Old Bridge, a leaden gleam from the river, and the long line of the north Somerset hills beyond.

It was one of those steamy days when the rain threatens, but never definitely arrives. We could see a faint gauze of rain rippling up the estuary, obscuring the English shore. The faintest of sprinkles came to us on the wind, along with the barking of a couple of collie dogs and the fruitless commands of their distant owner. They circled us, fulfilling the genetic imperative of sheepdogs as they tried to herd us where we didn’t want to go. ‘Ah, leave ‘em – stupid sheep – up on their hind legs, eh? – what’ll they think of next?’ yapped the collies to each other as their master hauled them away with an apologetic grin.

Between the plough rows of the fields, little round buttons of fungi punched up pale caps crazed across with dark zigzag cracks. Down in the lanes near Coetgae Wood the hedges were thick with fruit – elderberries in dangling clusters turning from green to black, scarlet hips and crimson haws, blackberries green, red and indigo on the one stalk, and necklaces of deep orange bryony berries as plump and tempting as a witch’s redcurrants. The open-handedness of nature, so casually stringing the countryside with wonderful colours, shapes, and means of sustenance for winter-bound creatures, struck home for the ten thousandth time.

There must be a fabulous gardener at Little Pant-y-cosyn on the way back to Shirenewton. The cottage flowerbeds were still bright with late-flowering geraniums. From the turn of the drive we looked back at the parent farmhouse of Pant-y-cosyn, three-storeyed and many-windowed, a house built for farm servants and big families back when Welsh Border farms were self-contained communities. A few steps more and we were staring down across the twin bridges of the Severn, over into rainy England, another country.

Start & finish: Tredegar Arms, Shirenewton, Monmouthshire NP16 6RQ (OS ref ST 479936)

Getting there: Bus – Service 63 (Chepstow-Cwmbran) to Shirenewton Road Junction
Road – M4; M48 Jct 2; A466 (‘Chepstow’); in 1 ¾ miles, left (B4235) to Shirenewton

WALK (6 ½ miles, moderate, OS Explorer OL14):
Leaving Tredegar Arms, right (‘Chepstow’). Pass Tan House PH and bear left downhill. In 150 m on right bend, fork left over stone stile (482938; fingerpost); cross field, aiming between houses. Over stile (yellow arrow/YA); on to cross lane (484941); left down green path (‘Chepstow Road’). Cross B4235 by Carpenter’s Arms PH (485942); on down track opposite. At bottom it curves left, but keep ahead down grass path, through gate, over stream and uphill, keeping right of Roughet’s Wood. Through gate at corner of wood (486947), through next gate and the following one, keeping trees on left. Beyond next gate, right (483952) along hedge; left at field corner to barn (485954). Diagonally left over next field to cross stile (484957, YA). Down right side of wood to cross road (481958). Footpath down 2 fields to cross stile to crossroads (479960) at Rhyd-y-fedw Green.

Go over, up lane past Pyotts Cottage and on for ½ mile past Coetgae Wood. 250 m past wood, left (471964; fingerpost) down Coed-llifos Farm drive. In 100 m, right along plantation edge. In 100 m pass barn on right (469965). Don’t go left or right here, but aim ahead down rubbly slope to tarmac lane with barns on left. Follow lane to right. Keep right of house, through gate; down field slope, through gate (467963); down next field, into wood. Across footbridge (466961), up path, over gate (wired up); up field slope to far right corner; left down grassy lane, through Pant-y-cosyn farmhouse gate (465959). Ahead between house and shed; on up drive for ½ mile to cross B4235 (466952).

Up bridleway opposite (fingerpost) to T-junction (466949); left past Marls Farm to road (464946). Left for 100 m, right across mouth of side road (‘Earlswood’); over stile (fingerpost). Down field, over stile; left over stile into lane (463944). Right past Upper Argoed Farm. At crossroads (462943), hairpin left (bridleway sign). In 100 m, right over stile fingerpost). Down field slope past lone tree; through gate immediately below beside another tree (463940). Cross dirt track; keep ahead up field slope, bisecting field, to top corner (left of a gate); bear left through neck of woodland (463939). Through gate; cross field to gate on skyline (464937); right along gravelled lane (not sharp right along footpath!). In 100 m lane bends right; keep ahead here on grassy green lane for ⅓ mile, down to road (469932). Left to junction opposite golf clubhouse (474934); left to Shirenewton.

NB: A walk for those who can find their way confidently with map/compass/GPS. Detailed directions (essential!), online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Tredegar Arms, Shirenewton (01291-641274; www.thetredegararms.co.uk)

Information: Chepstow TIC (01291-623772);
Shirenewton Community Council: http://www.shirenewtoncc.org.uk
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk

First-time guests at the hospitable Mardale Inn in Bampton should take heed – the bar game of Nails is not for the faint-hearted, nor the over-refreshed.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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It involves a massive tree stump, a sharp hatchet blow, a flat-headed nail, and more hand/eye co-ordination than I usually possess. As things turned out, a lucky whack put me in the winner’s enclosure, and I was able to set out for Haweswater reservoir next morning with my fingers still attached to my person.

A quiet, still, cold winter day, with distance and incipient mist laying a milky gauze across the east Cumbrian fells, muting the fiery red of the bracken to a soft fox-brown and melding ridge-line and sky together. The long curve of Haweswater lay flat in its cleft, its water stained yellow with the reflections of larches and shirred by cats-paws of wind too slight to feel on the cheek.

A bridleway through mossy woods brought me down to Naddle Farm where the farmer, his sheepdog and shepherd’s crook all jolted up the fellside together on a spluttering quad. I crossed Naddle Beck and climbed a stony track into bare moorland. A solitary, sinewy old thorn tree stood at the crest, bent nearly double by the blasts of many hundred winters. On over an upland of sphagnum and pale moor grass, and down into narrow Swindale, with a memorable view of Swindale Beck snaking in extravagant curves through neat green inbye fields and a swathe of dun-coloured bogland under craggy red dale sides.

Swindale is a lonely dale, where farming is as hard as the landscape is beautiful. Few make their way here, even to walk – it is a little outside the Lake District’s charmed inner circle. A scatter of stone-built barn and farmhouses, a muck-spreader parked on the road verge, Swaledale ewes in the bracken and the chattering rumble of the beck over its dipper-whitened stones, all enclosed by a mighty half-moon of crags at the dale head.

I could happily have idled away the short winter afternoon under Swindale’s enchantment, but already the light was draining out of the day. A green track took me up under Trussgap Brow, then across a squelchy moor to Tailbert Farm. A teeter along the rim of Tailbert Gill’s precipitous little cleft, and I was walking the old concrete track back towards Haweswater with the rocky jaws of Swindale closing behind me.

Start and finish: Burnbanks car park, Haweswater, Cumbria postcode (OS ref NY508161).
Getting there: M6 to Jct 39; A6 through Shap; left at north end of Shap through Bampton Grange and Bampton towards Haweswater. At Naddle Gate (510162) road bends left to cross Naddle Bridge; keep ahead here (‘No Through Road’) to car park in Burnbanks (507161).

Walk: (8½ miles, moderate, OS Explorer OL5): From Burnbanks car park, follow footpath (Naddle Farm’) through woods to road (510160). Right across Naddle Bridge; follow road (‘Hawsewater Hotel) to dam for reservoir views (503155). Return along road, in 250m right up bridleway (506156; fingerpost) through woods to descend to Naddle Farm (509153). Right along house; follow Swindale’ across beck (510152); up fellside on stony track. In ½ mile at ridge, ahead through metal gate at junction of walls (516151); ahead across moor on path, aiming for peak dead ahead. Descend to road in Swindale (521142); right up dale. In ¾ mile pass a dam; in another 100m, left across Swindale Beck (515132). Forward for 100m (very wet!) to turn left up green track. Attop ahead over crossing of tracks (528140); bear right, ???? with wall below, across wet moor for ⅔ mile to corner of wall (534123).

Ahead over moor for ¼ mile to road (537144). Left to Tailbert Farm (534145). Right along back of farmhouse; through gate (yellow arrow); ahead along westrim of Tailbert Gill to meet concrete road(534152). Left for 2¼ miles to road(510159); right across Naddle Bridge; left

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Lunch/accommodation: Mardale Inn, St Patrick’s Well, Bampton, Cumbria CA10 2RQ (01931-713244; www.mardaleinn.co.uk). Friendly inn at the heart of its community.
Information: PenrithTIC (01768-867466); www.golakes.co.uk
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk

When it comes to Sherwood Forest, there’s only one name on everyone’s mind. Who cares if England’s philanthropic hero really existed or not?
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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Robbing the rich, helping the poor, tossing his friends into streams and whacking his foes into submission – Robin Hood (or Wood, or Locksley, or Fitzooth) is the nearest we’ve got to a national saint, better than that milk-and-water St George by a long chalk. We all love jolly, carefree Robin, and we all want to be on his team, frolicking in the greenwood with the Merrie Men.

A select band of Times readers set off from Sherwood Forest’s Visitor Centre, the beauty of the autumnal forest and the gentle pace of the walk soon loosening all tongues. Karen and Lynn had come all the way from Bedford, their first time in Sherwood. ‘Absolutely beautiful,’ was the verdict. ‘We weren’t expecting it to be so open – you think of a forest as trees close all round, don’t you?’

It’s true – our psyches have been stocked since childhood with Grimm’s fairy tale forests, deep, dark and dangerous. Yet the thousand acres that remain of the old Sherwood Forest are more of a mosaic – open ground, broad grassy, rides, farmland, clearings, patches of heath and wetland.

Sherwood’s famous veteran oaks really are huge; bulbous old giants with troll faces and knotted limbs, blasted, cracked, hollowed, yet still defiantly sprouting leaves. It’s reckoned each one hosts more wildlife than a whole forest of commercial conifers. Under them we found Granny’s Cakes generously spilled – fly agaric fungi, deadly and beautiful in glossy scarlet sprinkled with sugary white.

‘Lincoln Green? They made the dye with a mixture of woad and weld,’ quoth our walk leader David Wenk, adding modestly ‘ – or so I’m told. Now, a bit of a historic thrill up ahead!’ It was a memorial cross marking the burial place of the headless corpse of King Edwin of Northumbria, after his death in battle in 633AD – a strange image on this peaceful morning.

We ascended the gentle dome of Hanger Hill, known to Robin Hood and his contemporaries as Thyngehoe – perhaps a Norse ‘thing’ or meeting mound, surmised David. With the wide views, and our voices carrying far down the slope, we could well believe it.

A slug of hot chocolate and a nibble of lebkuchen and we went on under silver birches whose turning leaves, acid green and yellow, glowed against the sombre Scots pines. Tiny tots came pelting past, absorbed in their own greenwood fantasies.

Nearing the Visitor Centre once more, we came by the Major Oak, a salutary presence to end the walk. Old enough to have sheltered Robin Hood himself, the ancient oak with its craggy rind and soft heart leans on wooden crutches like a veteran of a thousand-year war.

Start and finish: Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre, Edwinstowe, Notts NG21 9HN (OS ref SK 627677)

Getting there: Rail – (www.trainline.com; www.railcard.co.uk) to Mansfield (7 miles). Bus – 10A from Mansfield. Road – M1 Jct 28; A38 to Sutton-in-Ashfield; A 6075 to Edwinstowe; B6034 to Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre. Car park £3

Walk (6 miles, easy, OS Explorer 270): From Visitor Centre follow Greenwood Walk and Birklands Ramble (signed) for ⅓ mile. Just beyond ‘Major Oak/Fairground’ signs, keep ahead (621676, blue arrow) on bridleway (‘Clipstone’ fingerpost). In ¾ mile pass path on left (‘Edwinstowe’). In another 300m, at T-junction (606676), left along wide ride. Right beside A6075; in 250m, bear right away from road on Robin Hood Way/RHW (604663, green arrow). In ⅓ mile, fork right (600665, RHW). In 600m pass memorial cross on left (593666). In another 300m, at corner of forest, cross track; ahead for 100m, then right at junction (591667; white arrow on tree; RHW).

In 1 mile at T-junction (599681) dogleg left, then right off RHW, on track heading NNE past Thyngehoe (summit of Hanger Hill – unmarked). In 250m track forks (600684); don’t go right, but keep ahead along ride. In 600m cross RHW (606686); ahead through barrier. (‘Sherwood Forest, Edwinstowe YHA, Dukeries Trail/DT’). Fork immediately right on bridleway (horseshoe signs). In ¾ mile at junction, left (617679, DT). Path forks immediately; don’t go right up slope, but keep ahead to Major Oak (621679); RHW to Visitor Centre.

Lunch, information and green peaked hats: Sherwood Forest Information Centre (01623-823202; www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/sherwoodforestcp)
Accommodation: Forest Lodge Hotel, Edwinstowe, Notts (01623-824443; www.forestlodgehotel.co.uk
English Country Walks (David Wenk): 07932-953174; www.englishcountrywalks.com
www.LogMyTrip.co.uk www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com