Christopher Somerville

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

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Squirrels had been harvesting the green hazelnuts along Woodlands Lane; the split shells went crunching under our boots as we set out from Berwick St John on a cloudy morning. Beyond the gabled old house of Woodlands there was a bit of a pull up the breast of the hill, and then the exhilaration of a good old step-out along one of the ancient ridgeways that ride the nape of these south Wiltshire downs. Jane, a South Downs girl born and bred, strode out with a big smile on her face, delighting in the poppies along the cornfield headlands, the nodding harebells and powder-blue buttons of scabious in the trackway verges, and the sense of being high up among the swooping hills of proper chalk-and-flint country.

Steep hill slopes whose sheep-nibbled turf had never been disturbed by any plough plunged away to flat and sinuous valley bottoms, where the pale coffee colour of the newly harrowed earth lay streaked with darker chocolate, sign of watercourses still active under the soil. It was like walking on a relief map, a fabulous one. Full of exultation, we came down through Norrington Farm to reach Alvediston’s little Church of St Mary, where a group of recondite ramblers on a church crawl were discoursing in the churchyard.

Blink and you’ll miss Alvediston. The thatched Crown Inn stood locked up tight, in a state of suspended animation between owners. Walking on, we found sparrowhawks clattering from the ash trees in Elcombe Hollow, fat sheep cropping the vale under Pincombe Down, and wonderful views along the sweep of the north-facing hills.

The Ox Drove is another ancient trackway of the Wiltshire Downs, broad and tree-lined between wide grazing verges, a drove road and pedlar’s highway since time out of mind. We followed it along the crest of the downs as cloud thickened in the north, looking out to the mounded ramparts of Winkelbury hillfort. The golden coffin buried at the summit, the lucky thorn tree that grows there, the devil who grants wishes to those who march round the hill while cursing and swearing … All yarns the drovers swapped and the pedlars spun to drive away the demons of the old hard roads across the downs.

Start & finish: Talbot Inn, Berwick St John, Wiltshire SP7 0HA (OS ref ST 947223)

Getting there: Berwick St John is signed off A30, 3½ miles east of Shaftesbury

Walk (8 miles, moderate grade, OS Explorer 118): Leaving Talbot Inn, round right bend; up Church Street. Round left bend by Old Rectory; in 20 yd, right (946224) along Woodlands Lane. Just past Woodlands House (951232), track splits 3 ways. Ignore yellow arrow; take middle way, diagonally left uphill for 600 yd. Through gate in fence (948237; blue arrow/BA); aim half left across down to gate in far left corner (BA). On through next wooden gate; follow path to turn right along stony trackway (948245). In 1 mile, right (961248) down green path to Norrington Farm. Ahead through farmyard; past last barn, left (967238) over stiles through 4 fields to road (976238 – St Mary’s Church opposite). Right to T-junction in Alvediston (976234 – Crown Inn opposite). Right; in 50 yd, left (‘Elcombe Farm’). Follow road, then track up Elcombe Hollow for 1¼ miles to Bigley Barn (977216). Right along Ox Drove trackway for 1½ miles. 250 yd before road, right (954208) along path for 1¼ miles below Winkelbury hillfort to road (953223); left to Berwick St John,

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

Lunch: Talbot Inn, Berwick St John (01747-828222); Crown Inn, Alvediston (NB closed at time of writing).

More info: Salisbury TIC (01722-334956; www.visitwiltshire.co.uk); www.ramblers.org.uk

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

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God, what a miserable summer! Rain, rain and  … yes, more rain, drenching the Cornish beaches, making rivers of the Cornish lanes. Today, for a miracle, it wasn’t forecast to rain till, ooh, ten a.m. at least. So I was up with the lark (there were no larks to be heard; they were probably cowering in the nest), quit the underfloor heating and woodburning stove of the Cow Barn holiday cottage with a sigh, and was down on Polkerris beach by six o’clock.

‘Mackerel sky, mackerel sky, neither wet, neither dry,’ we said as kids, and here was a sky as blue and silver as a mackerel’s belly, together with a soft mist rolling in with the south-west wind. I climbed the old cliff road to Tregaminion Farm with ferns and wet grasses pearling my rain trousers. Three calves stood in the farmyard with their muzzles in a manger; none looked up as I went by. All else was still and silent at Tregaminion, and at Trenant and Lankelly beyond. Never a dog barked as I crossed the fat neck of the Gribbin Head peninsula, a ghost slipping through a rain-soaked landscape now glinting brilliantly in early sunshine.

In the hamlet of Lankelly the herringbone walls were smothered in foxgloves and wall pennywort. I found the flowery, high-banked hollow of Love Lane, and followed it down through Covington Woods to the shattered old stub of St Catherine’s Castle high on a cliff knoll on the south flank of Fowey. The little town slumbered opposite its counterpart village of Polruan, the sister settlements held apart by the jaws of the River Fowey through which a yacht was sneaking out towards the open sea.

It was a beautiful hike back along the cliffs, across the lake outfall at impossibly picturesque Polridmouth, up on the nape of Gribbin Head under the soaring, candy-striped lookout tower. As always in such places, I longed for a six-year-old companion to play at Rapunzel. Rain began to freckle in from the sea as I skirted the sea buckthorn thickets beyond Gribbin Tower, but I beat the serious stuff into Polkerris by a short head. Now for a bacon sandwich and a good solid cup of bo’sun’s tea. Proper job, that’d be.

Start & finish: Polkerris car park, PL23 1ET (OS ref SX 094523)

Getting there: Polkerris is signposted off A3082, 1½ miles west of Fowey

Walk (6 miles, moderate grade, OS Explorer 107): From Polkerris car park (pay), walk down lane, past Rashleigh Inn, down ramp to beach. Left up ramp past Polkadot Café/Polkerris Beach Watersport shop. At ‘Toilets’ sign, right up path (‘South West Coast Path/CP’). In 20 yards, CP goes right up steps, but you keep ahead up sunken lane to road (096522). Right for 250 yards; left (‘Saints Way/SW’). Skirt right round Tregaminion Farm (yellow arrows/y.a.), and on along field paths for 1/3 of a mile to Trenant Cottage. Cross driveway; on along hedged path, then through fields, across stream valley, up to Lankelly Farm. Right along Coombe Lane; in 300 yards, left (SW); in another 300 yards, right (115515; SW) along Love Lane, descending towards sea for 1/3 of a mile. Just before houses, leave SW (117511) and follow CP past NT Covington woods sign (acorn waymark, y.a.). Follow CP for 3¾ miles, via Coombe Haven, Polridmouth and Gribbin Tower, back to Polkerris.

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

Lunch: Rashleigh Inn (01726-813991; http://www.therashleighinnpolkerris.co.uk/) or Sam’s on the Beach (01726-812255; http://www.samsfowey.co.uk/index.php/onthebeach)

Accommodation: The Mill or The Cow Barn near Lostwithiel (http://www.cottages4you.co.uk/) – very stylish conversion; lots more available locally

More info: Fowey TIC (01726-833616; http://www.fowey.co.uk/); http://www.ramblers.org.uk/

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

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The bonxie surveyed me coldly, raising dark wings and issuing a harsh double croak from its hooked, half-open beak. These fierce inhabitants of the Shetland Isles (‘great skuas’ to the outside world) are not at their sweetest during the chick-rearing season. Instead of launching itself at me and skimming the top of my head with outstretched feet, however, the bonxie contented itself with a good hard stare until I’d walked on out of its personal space. The chicks must still be in the egg, I realised. Last time I had climbed the Hill of Hermaness – the northernmost point of Unst, the northernmost island in the entire British archipelago – a bonxie had swooped so close it had actually parted my hair. I’d smelt the fishy reek of its breath as it screamed in my face, and instantly conceived a deep respect for the fearless great skua.

Dodging the bonxies is just one of the many thrills of Hermaness. As you climb the path past the peat-brown lochans there’s the chance of spotting snipe and golden plover, and perhaps a rare red-throated diver sailing the water. On your right the craggy cliffs of Burra Firth dissolve in and out of the mist. And as you crest the hill and start down the last slope in Britain, up ahead sail the skerries that close off these islands. A line of canted, gleaming rock stacks with cumbersome, enchanting names: Vesta Skerry and Rumblings, white with nesting gannets; Tipta Skerry; Muckle Flugga with its high perched lighthouse. A little further off rises the round blob of Out Stack, prosaically named, romantically situated: the end of the end.

Down there in the thrashing water, some time around 1850, Lady Jane Franklin scrambled from a tiny boat up the slippery flanks of Out Stack and cried a prayer for her missing husband into the wind. The Arctic winter of 1845 had swallowed Sir John Franklin and his 142 companions as they searched in vain for the North West Passage, and Lady Jane was left to weep and mourn in public, raising funds for fruitless rescue expeditions with her tears and imploring.

I had it all to myself, the whole magical place. Fulmars circled, puffins scurried, gannets wheeled and plunged, the wind blew like a challenge. I dropped to the turf, grinning all over my face, and stared out north to where, a thousand miles beyond the curve of the sea, the Arctic ice began.

Start & finish: The Ness parking place, Burrafirth, Isle of Unst (OS ref HP612147).

Getting there: Flybe (www.flybe.com) / Loganair (www.loganair.co.uk) fly from Inverness and Glasgow to Shetland.

Bus and ferry (http://www.zettrans.org.uk/bus/NorthIsles.asp), Lerwick-Haroldswick, Isle of Unst. The Ness is another 3 miles (bicycle hire, Dial-A-Ride service, 01957-711666)

Road with ferries: A968, B9086.

Walk: (5 miles, moderate, OS Explorer 470). From Ness parking place at end of road, follow marked circular path (green-topped posts) round Hermaness. Allow 2-3 hours. Remote, windy, boggy and slippery underfoot: dress warm and dry; walking boots. Take great care on cliff edges. Bring binoculars and stick. Information leaflets in metal box at start of path. NB: Great Skua (‘bonxie’) dive-bombs during chick-rearing season, generally late May until July, coming close but rarely striking. To deter, hold stick above head. Please avoid Sothers Brecks nesting area, May-July.

Online maps, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Bring picnic.

Accommodation: Irene and Tony Mouat, Clingera, Baltasound, Unst, ZE2 9DT (01957-711579) – exceptionally friendly B&B, or self-catering at North Dale (sleeps 4: 3½ miles from Hermaness) or Baltasound (sleeps 6).

Cruises to Muckle Flugga: contact Tony Mouat, above.

Hermaness info: Scottish National Heritage, Lerwick (01595-693345; www.snh.org.uk)

More info: Lerwick TIC (01595-695807)

www.visitshetland.com; www.visitscotland.com

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

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Frederick Hervey, 4^th Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Londonderry from 1768-1803, was a remarkably broad-minded man. In that intolerant era of Penal Laws against Catholics, the Bishop allowed the local priest to celebrate Mass in the Mussenden Temple, one of the follies he erected around his preposterously extravagant Downhill Estate on the cliffs outside Castlerock. Hervey was also fabulously red-blooded and eccentric, fond of his wine and the ladies, addicted to foreign travel and art collecting, apt to have himself borne around in a palanquin and to drop spaghetti on the heads of pilgrims passing below his balcony in Rome.

Jane and I entered Downhill on a brisk windy morning under the knowing grins of the ounces or mythic lynx-like beasts that guard the estate’s so-called ‘Lion Gate’. Beyond lay the Bishop’s enormous Palace of Downhill in poignant ruin, its grand fireplaces hollow and stark, its windows blank, state rooms carpeted with grass and open to the sky. In the heyday of Downhill this incredible centre of luxury high on the cliffs had an entrance facade flanked by Corinthian pilasters, with a double stair leading to the door. There was a State Dining Room, a State Drawing Room, and a two-storey gallery for the Bishop’s superb art collection, all covered by a magnificent dome. Facade and double stair still stand, but now the interior walls, once beautified with exquisite plasterwork, are sealed with functional Ministry-of-Works concrete, the elaborate mosaics are gone from the chimney breasts, and buttercups and clover have taken the place of Wilton and Axminster. It’s a strange, uncanny and altogether haunting atmosphere in the empty shell of the Palace of Downhill.

Down on the brink of the basalt cliffs beside the domed Mussenden Temple, we looked out on a most sensational view: the sea shallows creaming on seven clear miles of sand that ran west in a gentle curve towards the mouth of Lough Foyle, with the clouded hills of ‘dark Inishowen’ beckoning from far-off Donegal.

That proved a quite irresistible call. Down on the strand we pushed into the wind. Waves hissed on the tideline, sand particles scudded by. Surfers rode the waves like water demons. The black and green rampart of the cliffs was cut vertically by white strings of waterfalls, the falling cascades blown to rags in mid-plummet. All this vigour and movement whipped us onwards to where the preserved sand dunes of Umbra rose between strand and cliff foot. A complete change of tempo here, sheltered among the sandhills, down on our hands and knees among pyramidal orchids of blazing crimson, yellow kidney vetch, lady’s bedstraw sacred to the Virgin Mary, and tall spikes of common spotted orchids of such a seductive milky pink and blue it was all I could do not to take a surreptitious lick at them.

Lying prone in the dunes, looking back through a screen of marram grass and clovers, we saw the dark pepperpot shape of the temple on the brink of Downhill cliff. Had the bold Bishop of Londonderry kept a mistress in there, as stories say? I rather hope he had, and his palanquin and spaghetti-tureen, too.

Start & finish: Lion Gate car park, Downhill Estate, Castlerock BT51 4RP (OS of NI ref C 757357)

Getting there (www.nirailways.co.uk): rail to Castlerock (½ mile), Ulsterbus service 134. Road: On A2 between Castlerock and Downhill Strand

Walk (6 miles, easy grade, OS of NI Discoverer 04): From Lion Gate car park explore Walled Garden, then Downhill Palace ruin, then Mussenden Temple (758362). Return anti-clockwise along cliff. From Lion Gate cross A2 (take care!); right downhill beside road on pavement. Short stretch with no pavement leads to foot of hill. Right under railway; left along Downhill Strand. After 1 ¼ miles, where river leaves dunes, look left for Ulster Wildlife Trust’s Umbra Dunes notice (732359). Follow fence through dunes to descend on Benone Strand. Continue to Benone (717362 – lavatories, Visitor Centre, sometimes ice cream vans). Return along beach and A2 to Lion gate car park.

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

Lunch: Pretty Crafty Studio (signed across A2 from Lion Gate) for a cuppa and cakes

Accommodation: Downhill Hostel (028-7084-9077; www.downhillhostel.com) at foot of hill – dormitory (from £12) or private (from £35 dble, £60 for 4 adults). Whole hostel bookable.

More info:

Downhill (NT): 028-2073-1582; www.nationaltrust.org.uk

Coleraine TIC: 028-7034-4723; www.discovernorthernireland.com

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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The little hilltop town of Rye oozes charm, from its red roofs and cobbled laneways to its ancient timber-framed smuggler’s pub, the Mermaid Inn. Weatherboarded brick houses line the steep streets, their window-frames picked out in black and white, roses and hollyhocks blooming along their walls and round their dimity doors. On a pin-sharp summer’s morning I climbed the tower of St Mary’s Church (steps of stone and brick, treads of wood, wobbly ladders, hold-your-breath squeezes) to gaze over the town, and further on out across the flat green apron of Romney Marsh where East Sussex gives way to Kent. No wonder Henry James came to live and write here. Who wouldn’t be inspired by all that time-suspended, fabulously evocative beauty at their doorstep every day?

Out on the flatlands I went upstream against the seaward-sliding tides of the River Rother. Across the river rose a wooded cliff, the old line of the coast before the marshes were drained in medieval times. Soon I was across the river and up on top of the rampart, walking through fields of fat sheep with greenfinches darting through the hedges. The fortified manor house of Iden Mote has long gone, but the big horseshoe-shaped moat remains alongside the farm among orchards and oast-houses, symbols of the traditional husbandry of this fruitful region.

The church of St Peter and St Paul lay well beyond its parent village of Peasmarsh, a lovely small Norman building set with several strange animal carvings. Carved leopards playfully swallowed their own tails on the chancel arch. Outside in a drain at the south-east corner I discovered the stone likeness of a running beast – a horned stag, or perhaps a hare – tucked into the church foundations by a medieval mason with pagan sympathies.

From Peasmarsh I followed a path through broad open grazing meadows among more flocks of stout white sheep. Overshot willows with bushy crowns lined the drainage channels. Beyond them Rye rode its hilltop, the red-roofed houses rising in a wave to the church on the crest, like some fabled city in a painting, or an augury of what might happen should the sea rise to reclaim the long-drained marshes of this coast and reach that stranded cliff once more.

Start & finish: Tourist Information Centre, Strand Quay, Rye TN31 7AY (Tel 01797-226696)

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

Road: M20 to Jct 9/10; A2070, A259

Walk (10 miles, easy/moderate grade, OS Explorer 125):
Leaving Rye Tourist Information Centre (918203), left up Mermaid Street to top; right along West Street past Lamb House to St Mary’s Church. Up Lion Street; right along Market Street; left down East Street; right along East Cliff, bending left to pass through Landgate (912205). Continue down to A268; right to roundabout; left on A259 to cross River Rother. Turn left along right (east) bank for 2¼ miles to Boonshill Bridge (936237). Cross river; follow lane past Cliff Farm, steeply up cliff, on for 600 yards to cross road (926237). Continue along right-hand field edge. At far end, field narrows like bottle neck; through hedge in top right corner; on to far end of next field where yellow arrow points forward through gateway (922237).
To visit Bell Inn, Iden, right through gap in hedge before gateway; diagonally left across field to cross stile in far hedge; over next field to cross stile; right to road; left to Bell Inn (918238). Return same way to gateway.
Through gateway; beside hedge for 400 yards/metres to Playden Lane. Ahead to cross B2082 (918233); on up gravelled lane opposite. In 400 yards, right at fork (914232); on past Iden Park for ⅓ mile to road (910236). Right for 75 yards, then left (fingerpost) into orchard. Bear left down nearest ‘ride’ to pass pylon; follow hedge on right, curving left to reach lane (907238). Right; at following right bend, ahead along gravelled lane to pass Iden Moat .
In front of twin oasts, left (899240); in 50 yards fork right through gateway. In another 50 yards ignore FP pointing right; keep ahead (bridleway arrow) on track through orchard. At far side, right through gate (897237); forward down field edge for 300 yards, then left on gravelled track past Old House Farm; on through Cock Wood to A268 in Peasmarsh (886230). Cross road; right for 50 yards; before Cock Horse Inn, left through gates into caravan field. Follow left-hand hedge; in top left corner cross stile, then stile opposite; diagonally across field to bottom left corner; cross stile; continue to road (885225). Right for 50 yards; left over stile. Keep right up hedge; in 75 yards fork left on path across field, keeping parallel with electric cables. Cross stile in far hedge; cross footbridge and another stile; ahead, following direction of waymark arrow on stile footboard, to reach Peasmarsh church (887218).
From church, left along road for 150 yards; on left bend, right (fingerpost; ‘Clayton Farm’) on gravelled track past Clayton Farm (893216); on for 600 yards to pass derelict building on left (897212). Shortly after, ignore right fork and keep ahead at waymark arrow post with hedge on left, through gate (‘High Weald Landscape Trail’/HWLT waymark) and on. Cross stile and plank footbridge (HWLT); on with hedge on left. Through gateway into open field. Continue, keeping to left of line of willows, towards gate on its own diagonally left ahead; go through (HWLT). Aim for right end of line of trees ahead; continue, soon between watercourses, to Rolvendene Farm (916210). Follow yellow HWLT arrows; bear right to River Tillingham on right. Follow it on tarmac path, to cross B2089 near railway level crossing.
For Rye station, left over crossing and first left.
Continue down lane, passing to left of windmill. Just before river, left through gate to cross railway (please take care!); on to road and Rye Tourist Information Centre.
NB – Detailed directions, online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Bell Inn, Iden (see below); Cock Horse, Peasmarsh (01797-230281)

Accommodation: Bell Inn, Iden (01797-280242; www.idenbell.co.uk)

Rye church tower: open daily. 85 steps including steep ladders; some narrow squeezes!

More info: Rye TIC (01797-226696; www.visitrye.co.uk)