We’ve had a lovely stay at The Sherborne Arms. They only have three rooms and have just opened them, so don’t offer breakfast. There is a cafe opposite but they don’t serve food until 8 o’clock and we have a long day ahead of us. Fortunately, the nearby bakery, Fruit Cakes, opens at 6am, so we buy breakfast to take back to our room and stock up on provisions.
We are meeting up with Patch and his partner, Janet, for dinner tonight and he texts Rich to inform him that the distance between Northleach and Bisley is 14.3 miles ATCF ( as the crow flies). It’ll be further walking on the ground and we’re deep in Cotswold country now, so it’ll be constantly up and down as well. We set off on road initially, heading upwards to cross the A429, originally the Fosse Way.
The Fosse Way was a Roman road linking Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter) with Lindum Colonia (Lincoln), via Aqua Sulis (Bath), Corinium (Cirencester) and Ratae Corieltauvorum (Leicester). This whole area has several Roman remains, including some at yesterday’s Barrington Park. Rich tells me that even the name of the rock limestone is from the Latin. It is: limus means mud.
We head downhill and hear a hoarse cawing from a tall fir tree. We have binoculars with us and a quick look confirms that this is a raven, as these birds are steadily moving eastwards. We go down pancake hill to Lower Chedworth, bypassing the Roman villa that lies further to the north. This is an area Richard knows very well. Although he was born in Stourbridge, he grew up in Gloucestershire, attending school near here (of which more later).
As we enter the village, there is a heady smell of roses and wild flowers including oxeye daisies and green alkanet with its tiny blue blooms carpet the verges. Cotswold settlements don’t follow a set pattern. Sometimes they are deep in the valleys, sometimes on the hillside and occasionally on the top. Buildings just seem to have been constructed wherever the land happens to be flat.
We leave Lower Chedworth back on the Monarch’s Way. We enter a field and spot our first red kite of the day above a prehistoric long barrow. If it’s looking for food there, it’s a few millennia too late. We search for a place for a break, meet more ravens and finally locate some grass not infested by insects, where we have some chocolate and a gentle doze. We pack up and continue on, passing through a field of poppies with a view across to Cranborne Chase. It was our walk there, before the pandemic, that convinced me that we could actually do the HoCWalk.
We descend and cross the White Way, the site of a minor Roman road that served a number of villas in the Cirencester area. We go uphill entering the village of Rendcomb, the location of Richard’s alma mater, Rendcomb College. The school was founded by Noel Wills (of the tobacco family) to provide local boys from a modest background an inspirational education. This tradition continued into the 1980s, with a third of pupils coming from the local area and receiving significant financial assistance. We stop at the school shop for an ice-cream as Rich reminisces.
We head down and cross the river Churn, following up the road towards Woodmancote on the Macmillan Way. The Macmillan Way runs for 290 miles between Boston and Abbotsbury and was devised as a route to raise funds for the charity Macmillan Cancer Relief. The roadside is covered in wild garlic, whose thick scent just about distracts us from the steep gradient. Rich explains that pupils rarely visited the Woodmancote shop once the Rendcomb one opened, unsurprisingly.
There’s now a relatively flat plateau for a while before another down and up to cross the A417 Ermin Way (Glevum/Gloucester through Cirencester to Calleva/Silchester). Then it’s down again and across a ford to reach Duntisbourne Leer for a late lunch and entertainment from an acrobatic red kite.
We leave Duntisbourne Leer on tarmac, passing another long narrow as we head towards Edgeworth, crossing the great watershed where the tributaries of the Thames give way to those of the Severn. There are more steep inclined paths here as we pass a manor house on the only flat portion of ground before we aim for Battlescombe. Before we reach Battlescombe, however, we pass Edgeworth polo club with impossibly smooth and manicured pitches and a field of polo ponies that teams rent out for matches at huge cost. They are beautiful animals and very inquisitive.
We bypass Battlescombe on another footpath, where Richard startles a deer and gradually turn up to reach Hayhedge Lane. We follow this for a while then cut across a field bookended by smart kissing gates installed by the Cotswold Voluntary Wardens and enter the village of Bisley where we’re staying overnight. We’re negotiated the valleys of the rivers Leach, Coln, Churn and Frome and three other stream valleys. My phone displays the considerable difference between the alarming amount of ascent today compared with the previous days (the descent is not recorded).
We arrive at the Bear Inn for a rest, a shower and to meet Patch and Janet for dinner. It’s been an extraordinary day
Total distance: 239 miles
Comments