Christopher Somerville

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


Greatford Hall lies beyond its boundary wall, a handsome rebuild in pale Lincolnshire limestone of the old country house where during the 18th century Dr Francis Willis practised pioneering forms of psychiatric treatment. His patients were misfortunate gentlemen of quality, the most illustrious of whom was the occasionally demented King George III.

In the village church alongside we found a bust of Dr Willis, bald and benign. The memorial eulogised the good doctor, ‘happily the chief agent in removing the malady which affected the present majesty in the year 1789’. The physician’s kindliness and benevolence were attested ‘by the tears and lamentations which followed him to the grave.’

With this touching image in mind we left Greatford and struck out north across the flat South Lincolnshire landscape, following the twisty Macmillan Way under a sky of grey and pink clouds. A proper midwinter afternoon, with floods gleaming in the fields beside the East Glen River and bushy-headed willows leaning over their reflections in the streaky water.

This is a countryside where church steeples have only the skeletal pylons as rivals for skyline prominence. The slender tower and spire of St Faith’s at Wilsthorpe beckoned us from afar. Inside, a dusty stone knight, perhaps a Mortimer, lay recumbent in a corner of the sanctuary, legs crossed at the knee to commemorate his two crusades, a purse and sword at his elaborate belt. The sculptor had furrowed the warrior’s brow with deeply incised lines, giving him a curiously worried expression.

Down the lane in Braceborough, little fierce stone lions guarded the label stops of the church windows. A mistle thrush was stabbing slots in a pile of apples that had fallen across the fence into the graveyard.

The homeward path led south over big fields of winter wheat, the slithery mud pocked with deer slots. In Shillingthorpe Park lumps and bumps in the wide grassland showed where immaculate parkland had superseded a medieval settlement. Trees had swallowed what little remains of Shillingthorpe Hall, a fine mansion which once housed a group of Dr Willis’s psychiatric patients.

Beyond the woods the West Glen River ran swift and swollen, stained bright yellow with floody mud. Towards nightfall we followed a quiet country road back into Greatford as a band of rooks flew chuckling and chattering overhead towards some distant roost.

How hard is it? 5½ miles, easy; field paths and country roads. NB can be wet around West and East Glen Rivers – take wellingtons in case!

Start: Church of St Thomas of Canterbury, Greatford, near Stamford PE9 4PX (OS ref TF 086119). Park near Hare & Hounds PH.

Getting there: Bus 45 from Stamford (Call Connect, 0345-263-8253))
Road – Greatford is signed off A6121 (Stamford-Bourne) at Carlby, between Essendine and Toft.

Walk (OS Explorer 234): From NE corner of churchyard, path to road. Left; in 150m pass Ash Lodge on right; on next left bend, fork right on Macmillan Way/MW (086122, fingerpost). Follow MW through fields (fingerposts, yellow arrows) for 1¼ miles, crossing East Glen River (089131), to road opposite St Faith’s Church, Wilsthorpe (092136). Left; in 150m, left (091138, ‘Braceborough’). Follow road for 1 mile to Braceborough. Left at Village Hall (081131) to visit St Margaret’s Church and return to Village Hall; right for 600m to cross Greatford road (079126). Follow path through fields for nearly 1 mile to join MW in Shillingthorpe Park. Left (072116, fingerpost) on MW to road (075111); left for 1 mile to Greatford.

Lunch: Hare & Hounds, Greatford PE9 4QA (01778-560332) – open Mon-Fri, 2-9; Sat, Sun, 12-10.

Accommodation: Crown Hotel, Stamford PE9 2AG (01780-763136, kneadpubs.co.uk)

Info: Stamford TIC (01780-755611); visitlincolnshire.com

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


Postbridge lies more or less in the middle of Dartmoor, its main attraction the medieval clapper bridge that crosses the East Dart River. Early on this brisk morning I had the bridge with its great granite slabs and piled supports to myself.

Out on the open moor a broad grassy bridlepath ran south through pale wiry grass. All round the long skyline of the moor swelled, its smooth undulations broken by the hard outlines of granite tors.

Down in a sheltered hollow the white cottages of Bellever lay cradled in dark forestry. The village has its own clapper bridge; the central slab is missing, and it would be a brave leaper who dared the jump.

A gravel roadway led through the conifers of Bellever forest to where Laughter Hole Farm lay silent and derelict among ancient trees trailing long green beards of usnea lichen. Beyond the farm the track headed on across the moor, wide open country all round, low ridges and hidden valleys, stunted thorns and willows dotting the coarse grass.

I turned off along a green track to pass the Laughter Man, a 10-ft tall standing stone on the slope of Laughter Tor. From here Bellever Tor stood tall on the western skyline, a jumble of granite that resolved itself as I got nearer into piles of flat wind-sculpted rocks stacked like grey pancakes. Near the top Dartmoor ponies grazed, glancing at me from under their rock star fringes.

It might have been the arresting profile of Bellever Tor that caused our ancient ancestors to construct their sacred sites across the slopes of Lakehead Hill. I followed a rough path through the tussocks, stumbling upon stone circles, a cist burial under a flat capstone, and a row of twelve tooth-like stones carefully aligned with the rising and setting of the sun.

There was something about these obscure monuments half buried in the moor grass that made me linger in their presence far longer than I’d intended to. Walking on at last, I thought of Tom White of Postbridge, a lovelorn suitor who dallied too long with his girlfriend. The pixies of Bellever Tor caught him on the way home and taught him a lesson by making him dance from midnight till dawn.

How hard is it? 5¾ miles; moderate; rough moorland paths. No recommended in mist.

Start: Bellever Forest car park, Postbridge PL20 6TH (OS ref SX 647786)

Getting there: Bus 98 (Tavistock-Yelverton)
Road – Postbridge is on B3212 between Moretonhampstead and Two Bridges

Walk (OS Explorer OL28): From car park, follow signs to clapper bridge (649788). Just before bridge, turn south off road (‘Bridleway’); up steps onto moor. In ⅔ mile at gate (652778) cross track; bridleway descends into Bellever. At road, left (656773) to clapper bridge (659773). Return along road; left through forest car park; follow track past Laughter Hole Farm (659759). On up hill (‘Country Road B3157’ fingerpost). At gate leave trees (658755); ahead (‘Dunnabridge Pound’). In 500m at cross-tracks (654752), right past Laughter Man standing stone (653753); on towards Bellever Tor. In ½ mile through/over gate (646758); right on grassy track to Bellever Tor summit (645764). Down broad path towards forest; in 400m, fork left (646767) on path up right flank of tussocky Lakehead Hill between forestry blocks. Follow it for 1 mile past cairn circle and cist (644774), stone row (644776) and stone circle (644777) to Kraps Ring settlement (645781). Path through trees beyond (post ‘5A’); in 200m, right on track, then left to Postbridge.

Lunch/Accommodation: East Dart Inn, Postbridge PL20 6TJ (01822-880213)

Info: Visitor Centre, Postbridge (01822-880272, dartmoor.gov.uk)

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


A pigeon was performing its soft and melancholy dirge as we left Upper Wield on a quiet morning. Thatched roofs peeped over immaculately kept hedges around the village green. Everything was neat and orderly – even the fingerpost pointing the way was handsomely carved in wood.

Out in the fields the Three Castles Path, dinted with horseshoe prints in the sticky mud, made west in the skirts of Barton Copse and Wield Wood. The still sky overhead was packed with heavy-bellied clouds, and soon a mizzly drizzle came our way – not honest rain, but a wetting miasma that blurred all views.

In the shallow valley to the south below Armsworth House a couple of recently created lakes winked like steely eyes in a wide sweep of shaven grass. Beside the path lay carefully seeded meadows and a plantation of young oak, cherry and field maple, each sapling in its swaddling band of biodegradable tree guard. Everything in view spoke of thought and money, plenty of both, invested judiciously with the future health of the countryside in mind.

The shower passed, and blackbirds and thrushes struck up. I began to hum the ‘after-the-storm’ bit from the Pastoral Symphony. A green woodpecker shot out of Godsfield Copse like a bolt from a crossbow, cackling manically as it sped away across the maize stubbles.

The name of Godsfield holds a clue. In the 12th century the Knights Hospitallers founded a preceptory or monastery here, and around two centuries later a chapel (now in private hands) was built at Godsfield. We saw its pitched roof rising beyond a garden wall as we passed Godsfield Farm and headed south for the ancient trackway of the Ox Drove.

Cattle and sheep were driven for many centuries along this wide highway between Old Sarum and its junction with the Harroway, oldest road in Britain, at Five Lanes End near Basingstoke. Evocative names, and there is another style for the old drove road too – the Lunway, from the Scandinavian ‘lundr’ or sacred wood.

No sacred forests surround the Ox Drove today – just thick hedges enclosing the flint-floored trackway, twenty metres from edge to edge, as it carried us through the gently swelling landscape towards journey’s end.

How hard is it? 7 miles; easy; field paths and trackways.

Start: Upper Wield, near Alresford SO24 9RU approx (OS ref SU 630387)

Getting there: Bus 41 (Basingstoke-Alresford), Wed and Fri
Road – Upper Wield is signed from B3046 (Basingstoke-Alresford) at Preston Candover.

Walk (OS Explorer OL32): From phone box, follow ‘Preston Candover’. In 100m left (‘Church’); then follow bridleway fingerposts/FPs (Three Castles Path). In 2¼ miles, 250m beyond end of Godsfield Copse, left along farm drive (598374). In ⅓ mile pass Godsfield Cottage (601371); follow drive past chapel (605370) to road (606367). Right; in ⅓ mile on right bend, left (604361) up drive (‘Lower Lanham’). In 50m, right (FP) through kissing gate/KG. Up field to KG; half left across field. At far side (607356), left along field edge; in 100m, dogleg right/left to join broad Ox Drove Way track between hedges. In 1¼ miles pass Upper Lanham Farm (620368); in ½ mile fork left through gate (627373) on track bending left to road (627377). Left to junction; left (‘Armsworth’); in 300m right (624378, stile, FP). Through KG; on beside Barton Copse. In 300m, cross stile (626380), then left through hedge. Half right across 2 fields to Three Castles Path (628386); right to Upper Wield.

Lunch: Yew Tree, Lower Wield SO24 9RX (01256-389224, theyewtreelowerwield.co.uk)

Accommodation: Swan Hotel, West Street, New Alresford SO24 9AD (01962-732302, swanhotelalresford.com)

Info: visit-hampshire.co.uk

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


Pied wagtails were pattering sidelong up the slate roofs of the cottages along the straggling lane through Great Asby. ‘Three Greyhounds?’ said the cheerful lady near the bus shelter. ‘Just over the packhorse bridge, can’t miss it.’

At the southern outskirts of the village we turned along a farm road that wound into open country. A flight of several dozen wintering fieldfares swooped into an ash tree, bounced and chattered amongst themselves, then fled downwind, their grey heads and dark tails showing out against a streaky blue sky.

A stone barn, sturdily buttressed, stood by the lane. Here the roadway roughened as it rose through rushy fields. Away south sombre moor tops lay under rolling cloud, and behind us in the east the rampart of the North Pennine hills climbed into a slate-grey murk. But here in this rolling countryside between the hills, sunlight lay thick and gold across pasture that was squared and striped with carefully maintained stone walls.

Beyond Halligill we left the track and plodged across rain-sodden fields, scrambling over a muddy beck and trudging down the grassy track to Gaythorne Hall. The farmer came puttering up on a quad as his ewes scampered away in communal panic. ‘Lambing from January on’, he told us.

Gaythorne Hall in its dell looked magnificent even in the steely embrace of scaffolding – a three-storey Tudor house, gabled and handsomely porched. We squeezed through an obstacle course of gates and a cattle crush to gain the farm lane that wound through sheep pastures up to the moor road back to Great Asby.

By the road lay the Bronze Age burial mound of Hollin Stump, where Victorian antiquarians unearthed three skeletons and a horse skull. What religious or magic connotation that had had was anyone’s guess. Walking on, we wondered what those remote ancestors would have made of the enormous rainbow that arced down from a black stormy sky towards the distant Pennine heights.

Nearing Great Asby we passed an exhausted ram lying prone in a field, smeared from head to tail with blue raddle. You might think that all rams lead the apolaustic life. But this one, surrounded by a hundred grazing ewes whose rumps he had ‘painted’ blue, bore a grim expression that said a ram’s lot at tupping time is not all beer and skittles.

How hard is it? 6 miles; easy/moderate; moorland roads and field paths, some boggy.

Start: Three Greyhounds PH, Great Asby, Appleby-in-Westmorland CA16 6EX (OS ref NY 681132)

Getting there: Great Asby is signed from B6260 (Appleby-Orton)

Walk (OS Explorer OL19): Right across bridge; left; at junction by post box, right on farm road (679129). In ½ mile pass barn; fork right (672128), In ⅓ mile track bends right towards Halligill (663128), but keep ahead over stile (yellow arrow/YA). In 50m, stile over wall on right (arrow). Half right towards left/south end of Halligill Wood. Cross beck and stile (659129, YA); up bank to step stile. Follow direction of arrow, slightly right; plantation soon in sight to right; just beyond it, double stile (656130, YA). Slight right across field to gates/stile (YA). Cross beck; follow cart track to Gaythorne Hall (650132), hidden in dip. In front of house, right (‘Drybeck’). In 50m, left (‘Gaythorne Cottages’) through walled paddock, then heavy gate, then wooden gate on right, to farm road (649131). Ahead; in ⅓ mile at Gaythorne Cottages, left (644123, ‘Great Asby’) on moor for 3 miles to Great Asby.

Lunch: Picnic; or Three Greyhounds, Great Asby (01768-351428, asbyparish.org.uk – contact for opening times).

Accommodation: George Hotel, Orton CA10 3RJ (01539-624071)

Info: asbyparish.org.uk; Appleby TIC (01768-351177)

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


The thrush seemed completely unafraid. It stood its ground under the silver birches on the forest path, its beak full of grubs, as I approached. It wasn’t until we were almost in touching distance of one another that it flew off among the trees. I watched it go, then moved on to where the steely flat waters of Llyn Cynwch made a dull mirror of the upland valley.

This portion of woodland, fellside and upland grazing a few miles north of Dolgellau belongs to the Nannau Estate. Since Victorian times the public has enjoyed the estate’s permission to wander a network of paths. I was setting out on this brisk day to explore the Precipice Walk high above the steep, glacier-scoured valley where the Afon Mawddach widens towards what George Borrow in his classic 1862 travel book Wild Wales termed its ‘disemboguement’ in Barmouth Bay.

A rocky path, clear on the ground but tricky to find footing on, led round the northern nose of a tall ridge before edging back along the brink of the precipice. The slope down to the river 700 feet below was steep and tree-hung, vertiginous in a couple of spots. But the views were quite sensational, out to the estuary below its headland, south to where Cadair Idris sprawled in full majesty of ridges, cliffs, corries and peaks against the clouds.

The Precipice Walk rounded the southern end of the ridge and fell away to the lake shore and a level stroll back to the car park. But I wasn’t quite satisfied. On the other side of the road rose Foel Offrwm, the ‘Hill of Sacrifice’, a tall knobbly eminence crowned with an Iron Age hill fort. The views from up there ought to be sensational too.

And so they were, once I had slogged up the zigzag path, past a tempting resting bench and on up to the tumble of stones that once formed a strong defensive wall for the ancient stronghold at the summit. By the curious square cairn I revolved slowly, taking in one of Snowdonia’s finest prospects – the lumpy Rhinogs and the serpentine Mawddach to the west, the Arans and Arennig to the east where I had climbed last year, the long tented back of Cadair Idris capturing the whole of the southern skyline, and away to the north a hint of the tall mountains that form the roof of Snowdonia.

How hard is it? 5½ miles in total. (Precipice Walk 3½ miles; Foel Offrwm 2 miles up-and-down). Precipice Walk mostly level, but rocky, stumbly path; Foel Offrwm a strenuous hill climb.

Start: Precipice Walk car park, near Dolgellau, LL40 2NG (OS ref SH 745211)

Getting there: Bus 33 (Dolgellau – Llanfachreth)
Road – On Llanfachreth road, signed off A494 between Dolgellau and Rhydymain.

Walk (OS Explorer OL23): Turn right along marked path at top of car park. In ½ mile through gate marked ‘Danger; Deep Drops’ (741212); in 100m uphill along wall. Follow it to right, then follow the obvious ‘Precipice Walk’ circuit. Watch your feet on this rocky path!
Back at car park, cross road and follow lower track parallel with road. In 250m, before gate, fork right (748212, ‘Foel Offrwm’ on marker stone) up side path, through gate and on. In 250m fork right up path (‘Copa Foel Offrwm’). In 100m bend right with the path, and keep climbing in same direction. At bench, fork back left (750213 approx) on path to summit cairn (750209). Return same way.

Lunch: Picnic

Accommodation: Afon Rhaiadr Country House, Rhaiadr Wnion, Dolgellau LL40 2AH (01341-450777, afonrhaiadr.co.uk) – very comfortable and welcoming B&B.

Info: snowdonia.gov.wales/walk/precipicewalk
visitwales.com

Walking the Bones of Britain – a 3 Billion Year Journey by Christopher Somerville is published by Doubleday.