We have a substantial breakfast in the Old Swan and then head out into another cool, sunny morning. Rich says he doesn’t feel too bad “just lightly steamrollered”. We head off down the road and a red kite glides low overhead. Hares became the unofficial wildlife mascot of the HoCWalk, but red kites have usurped them on the HoLEwalk.
The road heads off up the hill and we realise that we are really in the Cotswolds now and steep, short climbs and descents are going to be the norm for the next few days. As we discovered before, wolds seem to be low, broken, steep-sided hills that challenge your fitness and resolve. The dictionary definition of the Anglo-Saxon wold is a high, open upland are but in England it means open hills overlying a base of chalk or limestone. Neither of these descriptions really capture their true nature. A cot may refer to a sheep pen, but no-one knows for certain.
We turn off the road downhill and hear the first of many aircraft that fly over as the day progresses. They look like cargo planes and must have come from RAF Brize Norton, as they are clearly military.
We are now in the valley of the river Windrush, which we follow for much of the day. Windrush is the name of the Oxford University summer crews that I rowed in, so it’s a fitting echo of yesterday (the men’s crew that Rich rowed in is called Cherwell, another Thames tributary). Sometimes we are next to the river, other times we follow on the side of ridges above it. We take a bridge across it by a factory and watch pied wagtails bobbing around the water.
We walk through fields of sleek cattle and crops and find ourselves following the Palladian Way. The Palladian Way is an 125 mile walk ‘linking England’s finest Palladian estates in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire’ beginning in Buckingham and finishing in Bath. This doesn’t seem to tally with the chocolate box Cotswold stone buildings that surround us. The stiles on the Palladian Way are mostly in a parlous state of repair. This might be a piece of architectural performance art, but more likely reflects the lack of intersection between fans of private Palladian estates and long-distance walkers. We negotiate a cattle grid over a shopping basket and head into the town of Burford for a break and to buy supplies for lunch
Burford is a pretty limestone market town and home to the nearby Cotswold wildlife park, which we visited years ago. It’s also blessed with excellent tea shops, including Hufflinks where we stop for flat whites and warm (vegan) lardy cake. We both recall village bakeries from our childhoods that served lardy cake. It turns out to be a specialty of southern middle England counties. The Hufflinks lardy cake is excellent. We leave Burford by a quiet road and, at an unmarked point, enter Gloucestershire.
We reach Little Barrington, another picture postcard village, with rose covered cottages and the ubiquitous 4 x 4s outside them. In fairness, the hills here are steep, so there’s some justification. There are mercifully few potholes though, unlike in Norfolk. This may be because there are fewer frosts or that the roads are better maintained or even that there is no need for the monster agricultural vehicles that punish the Norfolk highways. Most likely it’s a mixture of all three.
We head out of the village via a farm onto a hillside footpath where we finally see some Palladian architecture in the shape of Barrington Park, not that you can visit it. The estate was the subject of a contentious debate in the 1970s and 80s. Both the mansion itself and the tied houses in the surrounding villages were in a state of appalling disrepair but Charles Wingfield, the estate owner, would not apply for grant funding as it would mean the general public having some access to his property. The resulting scandal even made the Sunday Times magazine. The late historian, John Julius Norwich, stated in his 1980s compendium ‘Visitors asking to see the house do so at their peril’.
We head up to the village of Windrush, perched up on a hillside above the river, and stop for lunch. Here we meet a man who grew up 70 years ago here but is now visiting from Ramsgate. He discuss the changes from tied to owned cottages in the Cotswolds and he also mentions the tale of Barrington Park estate. Meanwhile, Richard has attracted a young jackdaw that can’t resist approaching to see what’s going on.
We leave the river Windrush behind after lunch and, instead, follow Sherborne Brook towards the hamlet of Sherborne. At some point here, we cross the line of our first ever long distance walk. This was a route between Gloucestershire youth hostels that Rich devised in much the same way as the journeys we’re doing now. I was 19 at the time, walking in trainers with a rucksack borrowed from my friend Gill’s brother, Simon.
All day, we have been travelling through countryside. Here there is more farming on the land than in Oxfordshire, but there are still lots of fields left as fallow meadows, in contrast to the heavy farmland use seen in East Anglia. There are carpets of Meadow Cranesbill and Herb Robert, both wild members of the geranium family.
As we exit Sherborne, we chat to a dry stone walker, working for the National Trust. The stones used to just be picked out of the fields but now can only be obtained from designated sites. The walls consist of external facings with gravel infill. A section of dry stone wall measuring 1 x 1 metres weighs 1 tonne.
We walk along the road to Farmington, where we join the Monarch Way. This is a 625 mile trail that approximates the escape route taken by Charles II after being defeated in the Battle of Worcester. It runs from Worcester via Bristol and Yeovil to Shoreham in West Sussex. It was devised by Trevor Antill, who described it in three books, and is maintained by the Monarch’s Way Association.
We hike uphill again and pass under the A40 leaving the Windrush/Sherborne valley and heading down into the valley of the river Leach. Sherborne Brook drains into the Windrush and both the Windrush and the Leach drain into the Thames. We arrive at the town of Northleach and the Sherborne Arms, our destination for the night.
Total distance: 221 miles
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