Christopher Somerville

Maulin Mountain, Co. Wicklow, Ireland

Oct 242009

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

Facebook Link:

It was a cold and cloudless day in the Wicklow Hills. Lordy-Lord, what a beautiful morning it was. The blue sky stretched wall to wall, the wind hissed and roared sleepily in the treetops, and the conical top of Great Sugar Loaf stood like a dove-grey cut-out along the ridge from the cheeky tilted quiff of its little brother. The trees of Crone Woods pressed close around the zigzag path I was climbing with Dubliner Conny O’Connell – Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, skeletal larch and the occasional tattered but noble Scots pine.

We rounded a bend, the trees fell back, and a hidden valley opened at our feet. It was Lord Powerscourt who had the forest path cut out by hand during the 19^th century, so that his guests could enjoy the wonderful prospect from on high. Cradled in the green bowl tumbled the Powerscourt Waterfall – more of a waterslide, in fact – bouncing in long slippery steps down a glistening chute of rock. The 725 m peak of Djouce Mountain, an elegant pyramid of rose pink and smoky blue, filled the notch in the hills behind, the ridge wrapping the whole scene round.

We turned aside from the red route of the Looped Walk, and followed the Wicklow Way up and across a hillside of felled trees. Here the long distance path plunged downhill, and we made up along the spine of Maulin Mountain, the summit in our sights at the crest of a long rubbly trail of sparkling quartzite pebbles.

At the top of Maulin, sitting out of the wind in the lee of the summit cairn, Conny picked out the sights in a stunning 360^o panorama – Kippure hulking to the west, Mullaghcleevaun far down in the south-west, and off in the east the soft shimmer of the sea in St George’s Channel beyond the crumpled ridge of the Sugarloaves. In the haze Dublin itself still looked a city of human scale, with church spires and towers rather than skyscraper blocks to draw the eye.

It was a view that could have held a walker for any length of time. In the end it was the cold wind that blasted us off the peak, down the steep breast of Maulin, and on through the dark, silent ways of Crone Woods once more.

Start & finish: Coillte car park at Crone, Co. Wicklow (OS ref O (letter ‘O’!) 193142)

Getting there: From Dublin – M11, R117 to Enniskerry; minor road via Onagh Bridge to car park

Walk (4½ miles, moderate/hard, OS of Ireland 1:50,000 Discovery Map 56): Follow red arrow route (RA) and Wicklow Way ‘walking man’ (WW). In 1¼ miles, sharp right bend (Powerscourt Waterfall ahead). Pass bench on right. In 30m, RA forks right past map, but keep ahead along WW. At top of climb (WW), right across felled slope (WWs). Through gap by lone tree, where WW goes left, turn right (no waymark), following wall uphill to ‘Keep to Path’ sign. Left here to Maulin summit. Aim NW for distant, large white building; descend through stone wall; steeply downhill; cross stile by gate into forest. Right downhill on zigzag road (RA waymarks on trees – hard to spot!). Near bottom of slope, descend wooden steps to track. Ignore RA pointing right; cross and descend through trees to car park.

NB – Online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Picnic

Accommodation: Glenview Hotel, Glen of the Downs, Wicklow (01-287-3399; www.glenviewhotel.com)

Footfalls Walking Holidays, Trooperstown, Co. Wicklow (0404-45152; www.walkinghikingireland.com)

More info: Bray Tourist Office (00-353-0)1-286-7128

www.discoverireland.i.e/walking and www.coillteoutdoors.ie

Sandstone Trail, Cheshire

Walks 1 Response »

Oct 172009

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

Facebook Link:

A fine morning of blue sky, a brisk north wind, and the vast open spaces of the Cheshire plain soaking up the early autumn sunshine. Warblers sang loudly in the woods above Higher Burwardsley as Jane and I set off from the very hospitable Pheasant Inn to explore the heights and the breathtaking views along the Sandstone Trail. This splendid three-day path hurdles the upthrust of Cheshire’s backbone, a sandstone ridge that runs from the River Mersey south to the Shropshire border.

In the oak and birch woods of Bulkeley Hill, sandstone steps gleaming with mica chips bought us quickly up to the ridge. Following its east-facing lip, we looked out between twisted old sweet chestnuts over the steep 300-ft plunge of the escarpment to chequered farmlands lying in the sun and the shadowy rise of the Pennine hills on the far horizon. A set of narrow gauge railway lines plummeted away down the incline; installed 60 years ago by water engineers, and long disused, they still cling precariously to the slope.

A succession of viewpoints claimed our tribute of gasps and whistles – Name Rock incised with names of walkers and lovers, overlooking Bulkeley village; Rawhead, the highest point on the Sandstone Trail at 746 ft, facing west towards the loom of the Welsh hills; the Iron Age hillfort of Maiden Castle, looking south to the rise of the Long Mynd in distant Shropshire. Below the heights, the soft sandstone ridge had been scooped by wind and weather into caves and hollows – the damp ferny hollow of Dropping Stone Well; a bulging cave under Rawhead where dusty green lichen harmonised to perfection with the dusky pink of the stone; Mad Allen’s Cave on Bickerton Hill, the home of an erstwhile hermit. And punctuating all, the view back northwards to the pale 13^th-century walls of Beeston Castle on its wooded knoll.

We gathered succulent bilberries on the lowland heath of Maiden Castle, and descended with reddened fingers and tingling mouths into the meadows on the west of the great ridge. The homeward path was spiced with individual pleasures – a Methodist church at Brown Knowl like a turreted mansion in a Gothic fable; Harthill’s little chapel, school and gabled estate cottages on the green; and a last swing back along the Sandstone Trail towards the Pheasant Inn, with a giant sunset spreading gloriously all over the western sky.

Start & finish: Pheasant Inn, Higher Burwardsley (OS ref SJ 523566)

Getting there: M6 to Jct 16; A500 to Nantwich, A534 towards Wrexham. At Fuller’s Moor, right (‘Harthill, Tattenhall’); past Harthill, right to Burwardsley; then follow ‘Pheasant Inn’. Park at inn (NB Please ask permission and give inn your custom!).

Walk (11 miles, easy/moderate grade, OS Explorer 257): From Pheasant Inn, left to crossroads; left up Fowlers Bench Lane, over crossroads (ignore ‘Sandstone Trail/ST’ to left). Follow lane to gatehouse at Peckforton Gap (526559). Right along ST (yellow arrows with footprint) for 4 miles to Maiden Castle (498529). At foot of descent beyond Maiden Castle, ST turns left (496528); bear right here (yellow arrow/YA) down shallow stone steps, following YA through scrub. Go through gate; in 150 yards, at National Trust ‘Bickerton Hill’ sign (493531), right for ¼ mile to T-junction in Brown Knowl (495535). Right; follow road past church, for ½ mile to A 534 (497542). Left for 150 yards; cross (take care!); through kissing gate (fingerpost); down field edge; cross brook. Uphill to skirt left of Park Wood; follow YAs to Harthill (501552). Right along road for 50 yards; left down Garden Lane (fingerpost) for 250 yards, then uphill on left of hedge. At top of slope (506553), left to 2 stiles. Cross right-hand one (YA); climb through Bodnook Wood. Cross paddock, then track (YA); climb slope to lane (509552); left (YA). Pass entrance to Droppingstone Farm (512553); continue below wood for ¼ mile to meet ST (515552). Follow it past Rawhead Farm drive; in 50 yards, left over stile (519552); follow field edge to cross stile at corner of wood (522553; YA). Left along track for ½ mile to Peckforton Gap gatehouse; follow ST for nearly ½ mile to road (527566); left (‘Pheasant Inn’) to car park.

NB Many steps, some unguarded cliff edges on Sandstone Trail! Extra care crossing A534!

Lunch: Picnic; or Coppermine Inn (01829-782293) on A534 at Fuller’s Moor.

Accommodation: Pheasant Inn, Higher Burwardsley (01829-770434; www.thepheasantinn.co.uk) – excellent country inn; good food and friendly welcome

More Information: Whitchurch TIC, 12 St Mary’s Street (01948-664577; www.visitcheshire.com); www.tastecheshire.com

Guidebook: Walking Cheshire’s Sandstone Trail by Tony Bowerman (Northern Eye Books) – www.northerneyebooks.com; www.sandstonetrail.com

Forsinard Flows, North Scotland

Walks No Responses »

Oct 102009

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

Facebook Link:

The two-car train clacked and rattled its way up the Strath of Kildonan from the Sutherland coast, the landscape on either hand becoming increasingly high, wide and wild. Brown and grey bog-land swept away to hilly horizons on all sides. No green fields, no cosy farms, no settlements. Stepping down onto the platform at Forsinard Station, way out in the middle of these vast peatlands, I watched the train groan off towards Wick and felt a very long way from anywhere familiar.

The Flow Country occupies about a million acres of the northernmost Scottish mainland. This is the wettest and wildest landscape in Britain, lumpy with mountains and overspread with enormous swathes of sphagnum bog, apparently dead and bare, in fact seething with rare and extraordinary wildlife. The RSPB’s Forsinard Flows National Nature Reserve, based on its visitor centre in the former station buildings at Forsinard, preserves nearly 40,000 acres of this fragile and sombrely beautiful country from encroachments that threaten it in the shape of forests planted for investment purposes, agricultural ‘improvements’, wind-farms and other disturbances. It’s the pleasure of Colin Mair, the Forsinard reserve warden, to take visitors out walking across the reserve and give them a precious insight into an ecosystem whose treasures might escape the notice of uninstructed wanderers.

‘Greenshank, greylag goose, cuckoo …’ Colin recited the ‘recently spotted’ list as we tramped west across the squelchy sphagnum towards the dark peak of Ben Griam Beg, closely watched by three red deer hinds. ‘Golden plover, osprey, black-throated and red-throated diver – and golden eagle, though I haven’t seen that one myself.’ The divers are rarities nationally, but nothing unusual to birdwatchers in the Flows.

Meadow pipits flitted from sprig to sprig of the heather, common scoter (not so common, actually) and teal bobbed on the dark lakelets or ‘dubh lochans’ that formed a watery maze on the top of the rise. The dubh lochans get their name from their peat-shaded water, and peat is the keynote here – ten feet deep of unrotted vegetation that has been lying on the acid rock below ever since the last Ice Age. From the flat bog surface rose tuffets of emerald and ruby sphagnum. I bent to plunge my fingers deep into a pale grey velvet cushion of woolly fringe moss, and found myself looking at a tiny scarlet sundew, an insectivorous plant with a marbled fly trapped fast in its sticky hairs.

Up on the ridge we crept towards Gull Loch. There were no divers there today; just a solitary greenshank who got up and flew quickly away, his scarlet back a dazzling white spot against slate-grey clouds, his piercing ‘tew-tew-tew!’ coming back to us – a perfect expression of the wild spirit of this haunting and remarkable place.

Start & finish: Forsinard Flows National Nature Reserve Visitor Centre, Forsinard station, Sutherland KW13 6YT (OS ref NC 891425)

Getting there: Train (www.thetrainline.com) to Forsinard.

Road: A897 Helmsdale-Melvich road to Forsinard.

Walks:

Dubh Lochan Trail (1 mile, easy grade, leaflet guide): paved walkway to pools near Visitor Centre.
Forsinard Trail (4 miles, easy grade, leaflet guide): self-guided circular walk – fields, bog, pools, woods – riverbank, from car park on A897 (904485), 4 miles north of Forsinard.
Guided Walk (3–4 miles, moderate grade, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1 May-31 August each year): walk with Reserve Warden to pools west of Visitor Centre. Wet and boggy – wear Wellingtons / waterproof shoes.

NB: online maps, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk.

Lunch: Forsinard Hotel (01641-571221; www.theforsinard.co.uk)

Accommodation: Station Cottage, Forsinard (01641-571262;

http://www.scotland-index.co.uk/station_cottage/station_cottage.htm) – from &40 dble B&B

More information: Forsinard Flows NNR visitor centre (01641-571225; www.rspb.org.uk; www.nnr-scotland.org.uk); www.visitscotland.com/perfectwalks or ring 0845 22 55 121

Melynllyn and Dulyn Lakes, Snowdonia

Walks No Responses »

Oct 032009

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

Facebook Link:

A cold autumn morning, with the Snowdonia mountains smoking with cloud. We were looking for a high and handsome walk, something tastily mountain-flavoured but without actually ascending too far. ‘Going in the Carneddau? Tops are all covered, rain’s on the way,’ predicted a tough-looking hero of the hills in the Betws-y-Coed sports shop. As so often in the mountains of Wales, however, he’d reckoned without the effects of local weather. We started under gloomy morning skies, and finished in glorious afternoon sunshine. In between, there were the two secret lakes of Melynllyn and Dulyn.

You can’t see either Melynllyn or Dulyn from the upland car park at Llyn Eigiau, high above the Conwy Valley and bang in the middle of the Carneddau range. In fact they lay well hidden until we had climbed the old quarry track round the shoulder of the tongue-tinglingly named Clogwynyreryr, and were deep in the hidden valley behind. Dulyn was the first to slide into view across the cleft, a dark sliver of water in a bowl of rock-scabbed cliffs 500 feet high. But it was Melynllyn we came to first, skirting an old quarry building where a great cast-iron flywheel stood buried up to its axle in rubble. The slate around Melynllyn is studded with tiny particles of abrasive quartz, and first-class hones or whetstones were quarried here to sharpen the scythes and sickles of Victorian Britain.

The clear water of Melynllyn lay hidden until the last moment. As we gazed, a fish jumped and disappeared with a little plosive plop and a ringburst of ripples. A steep track led down to Dulyn, black and still under its cliffs. The twisted fingers of an aeroplane propeller reached out of the water like a demon hand in a Tolkien setting. As many as 20 planes have crashed into the cliffs above Dulyn over the years, and their engines and wing parts still litter the rocks and waters. It was a solemn, hauntingly beautiful place to sit on a rock and eat our sandwiches before taking the long and squelchy homeward path.

Start & finish: Llyn Eigiau car park (OS ref SH 731662)

Getting there: Train (www.thetrainline.com; www.railcard.co.uk) to Dolgarrog Halt (4½ miles by footpath). Road: A5/A470 to Betws-y-Coed; B5106 to Tal-y-Bont; left at Talybont Farmhouse (just before bus shelter and Y Bedol/The Lamb PH); mountain road for 3 miles to car park.

Walk (6 miles, moderate/difficult, OS Explorer OL17): Cross stile at east end of parking place (732663); follow paved path. Cross stile (727666); follow track past sheepfold and up shoulder of Clogwynyreryr for 1¾ miles to ruin near Melynllyn Reservoir (706656). Ignore footpath on map; continue along track to SE corner of reservoir (703658). Follow track skirting to right of crags, steeply down to reach Dulyn Reservoir. Follow path above bothy (707664), along hillside above Afon Dulyn. Pass Scots pine clump; cross first stream (709669), then fence by ladder stile. Cross Ffrwd Cerriguniaun (713671), and another ladder stile (715673). Cross Afon Garreg-wen (718675); then head a little right, aiming downhill for white dam 1/3 mile away. Ford Afon Dulyn below dam (725675); follow track to Maeneira farm ruin (728673) and on to re-cross stile below sheepfold (727666) and return to car park.

Conditions: A mountain walk – hill-walking clothes, boots, gear. Homeward path could be tricky in mist.

NB – Online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Picnic

Accommodation: Mairlys B&B, Betws-y-Coed (01690-710190; www.mairlys.co.uk; from £60 dble), or Acorns B&B, Betws-y-Coed (01690-710395; www.betws-y-coed-breaks.co.uk; from £60)

Snowdonia Walking Festival: 16-18 October 2009 (www.snowdoniawalkingfestival.co.uk)

More info: Betws-y-Coed TIC (01690-710426; www.visitwales.co.uk); www.ramblers.org.uk

Portesham and Hardy’s Monument, Dorset

Walks No Responses »

Sep 262009

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

Facebook Link:

A blackbird was singing on the garden wall of Portesham House, where stone lions couchant guarded the porch. Thomas Masterman Hardy, who lived here in the Dorset downs as a young boy in 1778, was destined for fame as a much-loved sailor and man of action. Horatio Nelson’s close friend and trusted Flag Captain died loaded with honours in September 1839. In that month his namesake, the future novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, became the tiniest of twinkles in his mother’s eye at Higher Bockhampton, a few miles over the hills to the east. It’s not the great writer who is commemorated by the tall stone Hardy’s Monument on the downs, but the fighting admiral from little Portesham village.

Near the path to Hardy’s Monument crouches the Hell Stone, a neolithic tomb resembling a heavily armoured giant crab, whose nine massive stone legs support a huge capstone of flint-studded conglomerate. The Devil, playing a game of quoits, hurled the Hell Stone here from the Isle of Portland ten miles away, so local stories say.

Up in a cold wind by the monument, Jane and I savoured that fabulous tale along with an equally fabulous burger of local beef, cooked and served with a relish of friendly banter by the pony-tailed man in the Hobo Catering van. Hobo the Canadian Inuit dog (who has kindly lent her name to the admirable fast-food business run by her master) followed every mouthful with the soulful gaze of true cupboard love.

Truth to tell, Hardy’s Monument looks more like a factory chimney than a memorial to a national hero. But the views over Dorset are sensational. Even more stunning is the prospect from the steep ridge above Waddon House, where we paused on the way back to Portesham. Downs and farmlands, the shingle bar of Chesil Beach, St Catherine’s Chapel on its knoll of strip lynchets, the Devil’s quoits pitch of Portland lying like the Gibraltar of Wessex on a bay of molten silver – if any view could entice an adventurous lad to sea, it would be this.

Start & finish: King’s Arms, Portesham, Dorset DT3 4ET (OS ref SY 603857)

Getting there: Train (www.thetrainline.com; www.railcard.co.uk) to Upwey (6 miles); Bus service 61 from Dorchester (www.surelinebuses.co.uk); Road – Portesham signed off A35 Dorchester-Bridport at Winterbourne Abbas

Walk (7 ½ miles, moderate grade, OS Explorer OL15): From King’s Arms, cross street; up Church Lane; right up Back Street; left opposite Manor Close (602860). Follow ‘Portesham Withy Beds, White Hill, Abbotsbury Round Walk/ARW’ signs/waymark arrows. Pass withy beds; through gate at end of trees (592860). Sharp right up steep bank; follow fence (fingerpost, ARW) for 1/3 mile. Right over stile (592865) by ‘South Dorset Ridgeway, Hardy’s Monument/HM’ marker stone. Follow ‘Inland Coast Path/ICP’ for 2/3 mile to road (601869). Left (great care!) for 30 yd; right (HM fingerpost) down fence for 2 fields. Detour right (605869; ‘Hell Stone only’) over stone stile to Hell Stone (605867); return to path; follow ICP through wood to Hardy’s Monument (613876). Cross road; follow ICP to recross road (616877; ‘ICP, Jubilee Trail/JT’). In 1/3 mile (620874), right off ICP, following JT for 1 ¼ miles past Bench farm ruins (624864) to road (630857). Right; in 100 yd, right (’Portesham’); in 200 yd, right over stile (yellow arrow/YA). Diagonally right to ridge top; follow fence (stiles, YAs) for 1 mile. Through gate by Portesham Farm (612861); left down drive; right along lane into Portesham.

NB – Online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Hobo catering van at Hardy’s Monument (presence likely, not guaranteed); King’s Arms, Portesham (01305-871342; www.kingsarmsportesham.com; B&B available)

More info: Dorchester TIC (01305-267992)

www.westdorset.com; www.ramblers.org.uk

Malvern Hills, Worcestershire

Walks No Responses »

Sep 192009

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

Facebook Link:

Nine o’clock on a Sunday morning, with streamers of cloud hiding the top of Worcestershire Beacon and the whole Malvern range spread under a cool and cloudy sky. Dew soaked our trousers as we brushed through the pastures and corn stubbles, walking north in a patchwork countryside of green and gold with the Malverns bulking on our right hand.

In the straggly hamlet of Evendine, a screech among the masses petunias of a beautiful cottage garden made us jump. ‘Oh, that’s Harry our young bantam cockerel,’ chuckled the lady of the house, leaning out of her window. ‘That’s his little trick, startling people as they go by. A blonde with highlights, he is. We’re getting him a couple of lady friends to shut him up!’

We struck off down a farm lane towards the high wrinkled ramparts of the British Camp, one of several ancient forts and strongholds along the ridge of the Malverns. Long-tailed tits and blackbirds lifted their voices among the oaks and overshot coppiced hazels of Hatfield Coppice as we trod the broad track of the Worcestershire Way southwards along the foot of the hills. We fingered the green, apricot-like fruit of a bullace tree that leaned across the path, making one of those fantasy resolutions never actually to be fulfilled, to return and pick the ripened yield for a Christmas of bullace gin around the fire.

Following the medieval Shire Ditch up the spine of Broad Down, then on up the magnificent quadruple ramparts of the British Camp, I thought of proud Caractacus defying the Romans from these heights in 51AD. The last stand of the Catuvellaunian king probably didn’t happen here, in point of fact, despite what legends say. But watching children in bright football shirts swooping like buzzards down the slopes, and looking away into Wales and up over the Midland plains – a hundred-mile view – it seemed a place where old spirits might linger.

Looking down, we made out the churchyard of St Wulstan’s at Little Malvern, where Edward Elgar lies. ‘If ever you’re walking on the hills and hear this,’ said Elgar of the cello concerto he composed below the Malverns, ‘don’t be frightened – it’s only me.’

Start & finish: British Camp car park, on A449 opposite Malvern Hills Hotel, Wynds Point, Jubilee Drive, Malvern WR13 6DW (OS ref SO 763404)

Getting there: Train (www.thetrainline.com; www.railcard.co.uk) to Colwall (¾ mile from Evendine by footpath). Bus (www.herefordshire.gov.uk): 44B or Malvern Hills Hopper. Road: M5, M50 (Jct 1); A38, A4104 via Upton-on-Severn to Little Malvern; A449 towards Ledbury.

Walk (3½ miles, moderate grade, OS Explorer 190): Cross A449 (take care!); up B4232 (‘West Malvern’). In 10 yd, by public lavatories on left, are 2 fingerposts; follow right-hand one (past WCs). In 50 yd, cross stile; keep ahead downhill, across field and over stile with 2 yellow arrows/YA; keep ahead to cross stream and stile (760409); ahead (YAs) to road by Upper House in Evendine (759413). Left for ¼ mile; just past Lower House Farm, left (755412; fingerpost, YA) along lane. In ⅓ mile, left over stile by Oldcastle Farm gates (756406; YA), then 2 more stiles, before aiming diagonally left uphill (757405) to cross stile at corner of Hatfield Coppice (758404; YA). In 30 yd, right over stile (YA); follow Worcestershire Way/WW through trees to cross A449.

Continue south on WW. In ⅓ mile cross steep track (758396); in another ⅓ mile, cross stile with reservoir on right (761392). In 200 yd, left (YA) off WW up track for 100 yd to saddle of ground where 5 paths meet (762390). Sharp left uphill on broad gravelly track; in 30 yd, at ‘Hangman’s Hill, Broad Down’ marker stone, bear right uphill on track which swings left to follow Malvern ridge northwards. In ¼ mile descend left to toposcope on saddle (762395); follow ‘British Camp Earthworks’ sign to summit. Continue on track to second summit (760400), and down to car park.

NB – More walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Malvern Hills Hotel (01684-540690; www.malvernhillshotel.co.uk); café/kiosk at car park

More info: Malvern TIC, 21 Church Street, Great Malvern (01684-892289); www.malvernhills.org.uk; www.malvernhillsaonb.org.uk

Muker and Keld, Swaledale, North Yorkshire

Walks No Responses »

Sep 122009

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

Facebook Link:

A brisk west wind, a chink of sun in the Swaledale clouds after days of rain over North Yorkshire, and the clatter of walking sticks on the road outside Muker Teashop where Jane and I were finishing our Yorkshire rarebits. Out in the village street a hairy-kneed rambler of the old school frowned at Jane’s Satmap device. ‘Get you lost, will that,’ was his pithy judgement.

A walled lane led up the sloping fellsides behind the village, the grazing fields dotted with the square-built farmhouses and small stone barns so characteristic of the Yorkshire Dales. Sun splashes and cloud shadows chased across them. It was a joy to be alive and walking up there in the face of the wind, climbing the old stony road to the crest of Kisdon Hill and following it down to Skeb Skeugh ford and the huddle of grey stone houses at Keld, the Norsemen’s well-named ‘place by the river’. I remembered the enormous kindness (and huge teapot) of Lizzie Calvert at her Thorns B&B house when I arrived here with my father more than 30 years ago, soaked and bespattered from a storm-bound Pennine Way.

On the outskirts of Keld, Jane and I joined that glorious and notorious long-distance treadmill, but only to cross the rain-engorged Swale. East Gill Force jetted down its black rock staircase and into the river with a muted rumble and hiss, and here we swung away from the Pennine Way and made for Crackpot Hall’s dolorous ruins. ‘Don’t miss Swinner Gill,’ we’d been advised by Nick and Alison Turner, owners of Muker Teashop. ‘It’s really something special.’

It was lead-mining subsidence that put an end to Crackpot Hall, and the ruins and spoil heaps of the Dales’ great lost industry lie all around – stone-arched mine levels, a tumbledown smelt mill deep in the cleft of Swinner Gill, and the precarious trods or tracks of the lead miners. All lay silent this afternoon, with the dale sides rising sharply to the sky, the beck sluicing below, and a breathtakingly beautiful prospect opening southward towards Muker down the sunlit floor of Swaledale.

Start & finish: Muker Teashop, Muker, Richmond, N Yorks DL11 6QG (OS ref SO 910979)

Getting there: Bus (http://getdown.org.uk/bus/search/muker.shtml): service 30 (Richmond-Muker-Keld, Mon-Sat) or 831 (Leyburn-Muker-Keld-Hawes, Sun & BH)

Road: A1; A 6108 or A6136 to Richmond; A6108, B6270 to Muker.

Walk (6½ miles, moderate/hard grade, OS Explorer OL30): Leaving Muker Teashop, left; left again up lane by Literary Institute. Forward; right by Grange Farm, left up its side (‘footpath to Keld’). Follow lane; then ‘Bridleway Keld’ (909982)up walled lane for ½ mile. Pennine Way/PW forks right, but continue for 30 yards, then bear right uphill by wall (903986; ‘Keld 2 miles’). At top of slope follow wall to left; continue climbing to open hilltop. Follow green road (fingerposts) over hill, down to ford beck, right along road. On left bend, right (893009; ‘Keld only’) into Keld.

Right down gravelled lane (893012; ‘footpath to Muker’). In 300 yards, left downhill (‘PW’). To return direct to Muker, turn right and follow PW. To continue walk, cross River Swale footbridge; left to reach top of waterfall. Where PW forks left, turn right along track (896011; ‘bridleway’ fingerpost). In ½ mile pass stone barn; in another 100 yards pass engine and steering wheel sunk in ground (!). In 50 yards fork left (904009) on stony track to Crackpot Hall. Aim for house above; then follow path (progressively narrower) into Swinner Gill. Where path forks opposite ruined lead mine buildings, take lower fork to fingerpost; turn back sharp right (911012; ‘Muker’) down narrow path to ford beck (911008; NB – if beck too swollen to ford safely, retrace steps to Crackpot Hall and follow main track south towards Muker).

Continue along path for ¼ mile to join main track; continue down Swaledale on right bank of river for 1 mile. Cross Swale by footbridge (910986); right (yellow arrow) for 50 yards, then left along meadow path for ½ mile back to Muker.

Conditions: Narrow, slippery paths in Swinner Gill

NB – Detailed directions, online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Farmer’s Arms, Muker (01748-886297) – a proper pub, and very welcoming

Tea and Accommodation: Muker Teashop (01748-886409; www.mukervillage.co.uk) – really warm and welcoming. Try the Yorkshire Rarebit and the sinful cake-and-cheese combo! £65 dble B&B

More info: Richmond TIC (01748-828742); www.yorkshire.com; www.ramblers.org.uk

Stoughton and Kingley Vale, West Sussex

Walks 1 Response »

Sep 052009

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

Facebook Link:

A still, sunny day lay over West Sussex. Pigeons were loud and throaty in the beeches around Stoughton. The rumble of harrow and roller sounded faint and far off from the stubble fields around Old Bartons farmhouse, where a crowd of wailing seagulls were following the gleaming disks as they turned grubs and worms into the sunlight. A Hereford bull stood dazed with sleepiness against the fence and permitted me to scratch his woolly poll and stroke his warm, dusty coat.

Up on the crest of Stoughton Down the woods hung dense and silent, darkened with summer heat. I threaded the pine plantations and oak groves on Bow Hill, with sensational views opening to the south over the sinuous tidal channels of Chichester Harbour, as blue and rippled as silk. Tree-lined tracks led on to the brow of Kingley Vale National Nature Reserve and the rounded green Bronze Age burial mounds of the Devil’s Humps.

Here I was lucky enough to bump into Richard Williamson, for 30 years the manager of Kingley Vale, now its dedicated archivist and guardian angel. ‘The Chalkhill Blues are out,’ Richard confided. Following his directions, I found the brilliant silver-blue butterflies on the tiny patch they favoured at the edge of the reserve, and spent half an hour watching them feed, sunbathe and mate – heaven for butterflies, and pretty close to it for humans, too.

At last I got up from the sward of marjoram and harebells, shook out the cramps and went off to see the venerable yews of Kingley Vale. Visiting these bulbous trees with their arthritic limbs, all but naked of bark and extremely aged – some were old when the Romans arrived in Sussex – is like paying a call on a roomful of dignified, rather aloof Chelsea Pensioners in their birthday suits. One walks among them delicately and with a sense of awe. When eventually I tore myself away from their spell, it was to follow the path dreamily up through the flower-rich meadows of Kingley Vale, before resuming the downland ridge and the flinty trackway back to Stoughton in its sun-soaked hollow.

Start & finish: Hare & Hounds, Stoughton PO18 9JQ (OS ref SU 803115)

Getting there: Train (http://www.thetrainline.com/; http://www.railcard.co.uk/) to Chichester (8.3 miles). Road: A27 to Chichester; B2178 to Funtington; right by Fox & Hounds to Walderton; right to Stoughton.

Walk (6 miles, moderate grade, OS Explorer 120): Leaving Hare & Hounds, left up road. In 200 yd, right at Old Barton (fingerpost, yellow arrow/YA); then fork left on gravelled track (‘Monarch’s Way’ arrow). Pass barns (809115); on for 1 mile to 3-way bridleway fingerpost (824121). Right; in 200 yards, fork left (blue arrow/BA) on narrower path through fir grove. In 600 yd pass BA on right; in 350 yd, reach track crossing by Kingley Vale NNR notice (825113; 4-way fingerpost). Right along track for ½ a mile. Just past Devil’s Humps barrows, left by ‘Nature Trail’ post (819109), through gate. Follow numbered posts anticlockwise round Nature Trail, passing information shelter at 824100, for 2 miles to return to Devil’s Humps. Resume walk along track. In 300 yd, keep ahead by Kingley Vale NNR notice (817107; bridleway fingerpost, BA). In ¼ of a mile, reach edge of wood (813105); right on track for 1 mile to road in Stoughton; right to Hare & Hounds.

NB – Detailed directions, online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Hare & Hounds, Stoughton (02392-631433; http://www.hareandhoundspub.co.uk/); a pub that knows it’s a pub … with excellent food, too.

More info: Tourist Information Centre, 29a South Street, Chichester (01243-775888, www.visitchichester.org); ; http://www.ramblers.org.uk/

Carntogher Mountain, Co. Derry, Northern Ireland

Walks No Responses »

Aug 292009

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

Facebook Link:

It can be a wet old place, County Derry, after a month of good solid rain. Down in the glen of the Altkeeran River below Carntogher mountain, all was sedgy. But the old coach road along the glen gave firm footing through the turf. Streams ran orange from the iron minerals of the mountain, up whose green flank Jane and I went climbing.

Pink conquistador helmets of lousewort clashed with virulent red sphagnum in the banks of the tumbled wall we were following. It lifted us to the shoulder of the mountain, and a track where we met two walkers from a local townland. They pointed out Slieve Gallion ten miles to the south (‘a Derry mountain, despite what you might hear’) with great precision and pride. ‘I’ve walked this path since I was a boy,’ said one, ‘and by God I will do it till the day that I die!’

Up at the Snout of the Cairn, Shane’s Leaps lay just off the path – three innocuous-looking rocks. Did Shane ‘Crossagh’ O’Mullan, the light-footed outlaw with the scarred face whom all the ladies sighed for, once escape the lumbering English soldiery up here? So old tales say. At the Emigrants’ Cairn just beyond the Leaps we found a heart-stopping view to the hills of Donegal, the last prospect of their native land that those walking over the mountains to the ships in Lough Foyle would carry with them to ‘far Amerikay’.

Back across the slopes of Carntogher we went, following the boggiest of upland tracks, half peat and half puddle, past black heaps of iron-mining spoil to the top of the ridge and another most tremendous westward view, across the silver fishtail of Lough Foyle, on beyond the pale humps of Barnesmore and the Blue Stacks to the jagged spine of Errigal out at the edge of sight in western Donegal. Between Errigal and Mourne there cannot be fewer than a hundred miles. All Northern Ireland lay spread out for us, and we lingered long over this extraordinary feast.

On the way down we passed a Bronze Age cist grave. There was something about the little dark hole in the bank, slab-lined and secretive, that simply invited a tall and wild tale. But no-one was there to tell it to us today.

Start & finish: Tullykeeran Bridge, near Maghera (OSNI ref C 819045).

Getting there: Ulsterb us (www.nirailways.co.uk) to Maghera (3 miles) or Swatragh (3½ miles). Road: A29 (Coleraine-Maghera); minor roads to parking place by ruined cottage at Tullykeeran Bridge

Walk 5½ miles, moderate grade, OS of Northern Ireland 1:50,000 Discoverer 8): (red trail): Follow road. 100 m beyond 3^rd bridge, left over stile by gatepost (red/blue arrows); follow track for ½ a mile into Altkeeran Glen (805407 approx). Right up path by tumbledown wall (red/blue arrows). In 3/4 of a mile, stony track crosses path (800058 approx); left (red arrow) to Emigrants’ Cairn and Shane’s Leaps (796058).

Return for 50 yards; left at post (red arrow) along grassy track to marker post on saddle of ground; walk 400 yards left here to ridge viewpoint over Lough Foyle and Donegal hills; return to marker post. Continue downhill along track for 2 miles, past cist grave (824061), through gates, down to road (823055). Right (red arrow) for 2 miles to car park.

NB – Online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk.

Downloadable map/instructions at

http://www.walkni.com/d/walks/319/Carntogher_History_Trail.pdf. Trail map at car park.

Lunch: Rafters Bar and Restaurant, Swatragh (028-7940-1206); food all day, open fire, warm welcome.

Accommodation: Laurel Villa Townhouse, Magherafelt (02879-301459; www.laurel-villa.com) – friendly, well-run ‘house of poets’. From £70 dble B&B.

More info: Magherafelt TIC (02879-631510)

Orford and River Ore, Suffolk

Walks No Responses »

Aug 222009

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

Facebook Link:

A breezy, sunny day, and the East Anglian coast lay under a proper Constable sky. I hadn’t been to Orford for some time, and was looking forward to diving in again among the mellow brick houses and curly Dutch gables of the old Suffolk port, silted away from direct contact with the sea for the past 400 years. In the car park of the Jolly Sailor near Orford Quay I found the odorous booth of the Sole Bay Cheese Company open for business. Well, you have to, don’t you? Munching a granary bun slathered with Norfolk White Lady – a creamy, tangy, stinking sheep’s cheese you’d give your fleece for – I set out along the seawall path into the bright afternoon, content to the gunwales.

Halyards clinked in the stiff south-east breeze, and the chuckle of waves on the pebbly shore of the River Ore underlay the harsh screeching of black-headed gulls. The tide was setting up the narrow river which runs separated from the sea by the ten-mile-long shingle spit of Orford Ness. The isolated spit, out here on the remote Suffolk coast, was perfectly placed for experiments with Armageddon weapons. Pagoda-roofed laboratories where nuclear bombs were subject to fierce stress tests still stand on the low horizon of the Ness, sinister in silhouette against this afternoon’s pale North Sea sky. Beyond them lay the blank-faced grey block of the building that once housed the top secret site code-named ‘Cobra Mist’. What a splendid wheeze, bending radio waves round the curvature of the earth to monitor Soviet rocket launches behind the Iron Curtain. And how illustrative of Sod’s Law that a mystery hum should have condemned the whole huge and costly scheme to a fruitless abandonment.

Shelves of saltmarsh fringed the Ore, their pools and creeks glinting red and green with mineral salts. Along the river scudded sailing boats, heeling extravagantly in the blasting wind. Lapwings tumbled over the cornfields and river with wheezing cries, and oystercatchers skimmed away on black and white scimitar wings with a ‘pic! pic!’ of alarm. Soon the tan-coloured cylinder of the Martello Tower on Slaughden Beach – still defying the ever-encroaching sea – hove up on my starboard bow, and beyond it the red roofs and white houses of Aldeburgh on their slight rise of ground.

It was hard to tear myself away from the splashing yachts, the courting birds and the breezy exhilaration of the coast. But there were compensations on the homeward hike through a rolling hinterland rich in corn and potatoes: partridges whirring low over the fields, bright flowers in the green lanes, sandy tracks through the conifer forests, and the pure pleasure of walking country roads with never a car in sight or sound.

Start & finish: Jolly Sailor, Orford, Suffolk IP12 2NL (OS ref: IM 424497)

Getting there: A12 to Woodbridge, then follow ‘Orford’ signs.

Walk (10 ½ miles, easy grade, OS Explorer 212): Jolly Sailor – Orford Quay – sea wall path to Slaughden Point (461553) – inland for 2/3 mile to 450551 – green lane to road (439546). Left along road; right by Ferry Farm; follow road for 1&freac12; miles to pass Depewall Cottage; right (426527) into Tunstall Forest to 421526; left on bridleway for 1¼ miles, passing All Saint’s Church (420520) to cross B1084 (417508). Left at 417506 to road (420502). Right fork to T-junction by Crown & Castle (421499). Continue to sea wall (424493); left to Orford Quay.

NB: Detailed directions, online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Take picnic

Accommodation and food: Jolly Sailor PH (01394-450243; www.jollysailor.net) – refurbished, characterful, very friendly. Fabulous homemade pâte and other food.

More info: Aldeburgh TIC (01728-453637; www.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk/tourism); www.ramblers.org.uk

Orford Ness: www.nationaltrust.co.uk.

Older Entries Newer Entries