Search Results : Nottinghamshire Notts

Nov 262022
 


First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
'Testing For Gas' memorial in Silverhill Wood Country Park Sandstone cutting, Teversal Track Lake in Silverhill Wood Country Park Pleasley Pit chimney Pleasley Pit Mining Museum chimney, engine house and headstock The distant headstocks at Clipstone Colliery The Skegby Track The Skegby Track, once a colliery railway

Kids on bikes came skeltering down the hill at Silverhill Wood Country Park. Young buckthorn with bright orange berries, maples, hawthorn and spruce formed a scrubby forest rich in autumn colours, with fine views opening over rolling green country.

At the summit of the hill we came to a seated figure in bronze, a miner in helmet and pit boots, holding up his Davy lamp and scanning it for signs of gas. It was the only clue that beneath the woodland and the hill itself lay the pit heap of Silverwood Colliery, one of seventy-five Nottinghamshire coal mines now closed but commemorated on a plaque below the statue.

Nottinghamshire County Council has done wonders hereabouts, greening the area’s colliery sites, turning slagheaps into woods and industrial railways into multi-user paths. The hill summit at Silverhill Wood is said to be the highest point in Nottinghamshire at 205 m/673 ft, a claim fiercely contested by several other ‘highest points’ locally. The Country Park added an extra five metres to the top of the pit heap, just to make sure.

Standing beside the bronze miner we saw Lincoln Cathedral’s towers thirty miles away on the eastern skyline, the crooked spire at Chesterfield and the outline of Bolsover Castle to the north, and north-east the slim chimney at Pleasley Pit, our next aiming point on this walk.

At the bottom of the hill we found the Teversal Track, an old railway in a tunnel of large oak, ash and beech, with views out into a landscape of dip and roll. A tremendously tall embankment crossed the tiny wriggling stream called Merril Sick, and the old line came to Pleasley Pit, closed in 1986 and now a country park and mining museum.

Unlike almost every other redundant pit in the area, Pleasley has retained its tall brick engine house, its 130-ft chimney, and its two gaunt headstocks with their winding wheels over the old shafts. As objects of industrial architecture they are stunning; as memorials to hard, productive working lives, extremely poignant.

A right-angle of two old railways led through more gently rolling countryside. The wind stripped lemon-yellow leaves from the trackside hazels and laid them on the path. We landed back at Silverhill Wood aware as never before of the roadways, levels and shafts hidden under these fields and hills.

How hard is it? 8 miles, easy, mostly flat paths and tracks

Start: Silverhill Wood Country Park car park, Silverhill Road, Fackley, Notts NG17 3JL (OS ref SK 470616)

Getting there: Bus 417 (Sutton-in-Ashfield)
Road – M1 Jct 29, A617 to Pleasley; Teversal and Fackley signed from here.

Walk (OS Explorer 269): From side of car park furthest from entrance, follow path. In 100m, left past info board, uphill to miner’s statue (471621). Down steps, left along trail. In nearly 1 mile pass between lakes (477620). Left beside lake to Teversal Track (480617,‘Pleasley 2 miles’). Left for 1¾ miles to T-junction at ‘Pleasley Country Park’ sign (495640). Right to Pleasley Pit museum (499643). Through car park; left along Pit Lane; in 100m, right along Skegby Track (501643). In a little over 2 miles at ‘Skegby Track’ sign, right (494616) onto Link Track (sign). In 1 mile at ‘Silverhill’ sign (479615) keep ahead and fork right on narrow path to road (478616). Dogleg left/right over barrier into Silverhill Wood Country Park. In 400m left at Lakes; left (477620) back to car park.

Lunch: Carnarvon Arms, Fackley Road, NG17 3JA (01623-559676, thecarnarvon.co.uk)

Accommodation: Tap Haus, 219 Leeming Lane North, Mansfield Woodhouse NG19 9EX (01623-625804, taphausmansfield.co.uk)

Pleasley Pit Mining Museum: pleasleypittrust.org.uk

Info: nottinghamshire.gov.uk

 Posted by at 01:47
Jun 182022
 


First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
The broad, tranquil River Trent near Trent Locks Swans on the Trent near Attenborough Nature Reserve Swan and cygnets (one hitching a ride) on the Trent near Attenborough Nature Reserve Attenborough church spire 1 scrape lagoon at Attenborough Nature Reserve River Trent near Attenborough Nature Reserve, with Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station on the skyline River Trent near Attenborough Nature Reserve, with Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station on the skyline 2 Sluice on the River Trent near Attenborough Nature Reserve Houses by the River Trent Houses by the River Trent 2 Houses by the River Trent 3 The Erewash Canal enters the River Trent Chimney and cooling towers at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station Trent Lock on the Erewash Canal Attenborough church spire 2

It didn’t take long to shake the dust of post-industrial Long Eaton from our shoes. As soon as we had turned off the main road and were down on the towpath of the Erewash Canal, it was all cosy red brick architecture, drooping willows and slowly chugging narrowboats with flowerbox roofs.

In the half century between its completion in the 1780s and the coming of the railways, the Erewash Canal had an absolute field day transporting everything from millstones and deal planks to cheese, lead and pottery. In 1808 alone it carried more than a quarter of a million tons of coal. The focus of all this activity was down at the southern end, where at Trent Lock it joined a mighty confluence of waterways.

Trent Lock still buzzes and bustles, but these days with fishermen, boaters, duck feeders and drinkers at a brace of jolly pubs. Here the River Soar, the Erewash and a couple of cut-through canals join the River Trent, a wide and powerful water highway that bends and snakes along its valley. Over the trees beyond the river loomed the eight massive cooling towers and giant chimney of Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, an apparition more like an artistic installation than a coal-guzzling, CO2-belching monster of obsolescence.

Walking the western bank of the Trent past swimming lakes and broad meadows, we watched sand martins flitting round their nesting holes in the orange-red flanks of the river. Sand and gravel lie in thick beds along the Trent Valley, dug out over the years to form great hollows now flooded into a new purpose as wildlife lakes.

Flocks of Canada geese, great crested grebes and tufted duck with their slick black ponytails sailed the calm waters of Attenborough Nature Reserve’s string of manmade lagoons. Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust has run the reserve since the 1960s, a remarkable achievement in enabling free public access alongside the welfare of wildlife here.

A whitethroat let out a burst of burbling song from a goat willow as we headed away from the gravel pits past Attenborough’s Church of St Mary with its dark stone needle of a spire. From a perch in a half-downed alder a blackcap projected a counterblast of brilliant notes, the sound fading behind us as we turned up the village street towards the station.

How hard is it? 5 miles (7½ with Kingfisher Trail, 6¼ with Tufted Duck Trail); easy; riverside paths.

Start: Long Eaton station, NG10 2DF (OS ref SK 481322)
Finish: Attenborough station, NG9 6AL (OS ref 518346)

Getting there: Rail to Long Eaton.
Road: Long Eaton railway station is on Wilsthorpe Road, signed off A6005 Beeston-Derby (M1 Jct 25)

Walk (OS Explorer 260; downloadable Attenborough Nature Reserve trail map at broxtowe.gov.uk): From Long Eaton station, cross roundabout; follow Fields Farm Road across canal; right (486322) onto canal towpath. South to Trent Lock (491311). Left along Trent Valley Way. In 3 miles, at grass triangle, left (520335, ‘Attenborough Nature Centre’). At roundabout (516339) left to Nature Centre. To continue walk, from roundabout/car park follow ‘Bridleway to Attenborough Village’. In 300m, you reach a fork (518342). If following Tufted Duck or Kingfisher Nature Trails, bear right for circuit, returning to roundabout/car park, and to fork. To finish this walk, left from fork (‘Attenborough Village & Church’) on bridleway past St Mary’s Church (519343). Left up Attenborough Lane (‘Erewash Valley Trail’) to Attenborough station.
Return to Long Eaton station.

Lunch: Attenborough Nature Centre, Barton Lane, Chilwell, Notts NG9 6DY (0115-972-1777)

Accommodation: De Vere Orchard Hotel, Beeston Lane, Nottingham, NG7 2RJ (0115-697-8175, devere.co.uk)

Info: nottinghamshirewildlife.org

 Posted by at 02:15
Sep 292018
 


First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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The two children came pelting out of the trees near the spanking new Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre, home-made bows in hand. ‘Look!’ shouted the girl in the green peaked hat, and sent her stick arrow flying across the clearing. ‘No, look at me!’ squealed the little boy behind her. He stopped to bend his bow, the string snapped, and his sister fell around in heartless laughter. Robin Hood would have had something to say to her on the subject of looking after the weak and misfortunate, I’m sure.

Whether bold Robyn Hode, the forest outlaw of the early medieval ballads, really existed or not is open to question. He certainly lives on in the imaginations of dozens of kids in Lincoln green hats who were dashing about and shooting the tree trunks in the outskirts of Sherwood. A fair number of them had made it as far as the Major Oak, a colossal veteran with a golden crown that could well be old enough to have dropped an acorn on Robin’s head as he sat at parliament with his Merry Men in its shelter – one of uncountable legends about the greenwood hero.

Once past the Major Oak, the clamour of young voices fell behind. The wide woodland track of Robin Hood Way took us west through the heart of Sherwood Forest, where immensely distorted and swollen old oaks raised arthritic limbs in the shadows. These tremendously characterful trees owe their survival to their imperfections. Had they stood straighter and taller, they would have been cut down for timber long ago. In the carpet of red and gold leaves at their feet grew clusters of fly agaric with white-spotted scarlet caps, fungi so potently psychotropic that even the most reckless outlaw would steer clear of them.

When fugitives from justice such as Robin Hood lived in Sherwood, the Forest was 100 times its current size and covered 150 square miles of country. Nowadays it all fits comfortable into two square miles. Somewhere toward the middle we found the Centre Tree and turned north along a grassy bridleway into Sherwood’s northerly neighbour, Budby Forest. Here the trees opened out into a broad heathland of golden bracken and purple heather.

The track swung south again through a stretch of wood pasture grazed by long-horned cattle with chocolate-brown coats and white streaks up their backs, a stylish combination. We stopped to admire their sleepy stolidity, and reckoned that the Merry Men would have been exceptionally pleased to encounter such slow-moving lunches on the hoof. Hollywood has dandified the doings of such as Robyn Hode, but the life of a Sherwood Forest outlaw must have been pretty tough. You had to take your chances when every man’s hand was against you.

Start: Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre, Edwinstowe, Notts NG21 9RN (OS ref SK 627677)
Getting there: Visitor Centre signed off B6034 just north of Edwinstowe (A6075).
Walk (5 miles, good forest tracks, OS Explorer 149. Online maps and more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): From Visitor Centre, follow signposted Major Oak walk. Just beyond Major Oak, fork left (not through gate) and follow Robin Hood Way/RHW green arrows. In ¾ mile at Centre Tree, right (607676, ‘public bridleway’) on RHW for 1¼ miles. At crossing with 7-finger post, right (604695, ‘Budby’). In ¾ mile at crossing (616694), right through kissing gate; fork left on grassy bridleway, keeping ahead for 1½ miles to Visitor Centre.
Lunch/Accommodation: Forest Lodge, Edwinstowe, NG21 9QA (01623-824443, forestlodgehotel.co.uk) – friendly, comfortable village stopover
Info: Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre (01623-824643, visitsherwood.co.uk)
experiencenottinghamshire.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

 Posted by at 02:24
Apr 152017
 


First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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Linby stands at the edge of the Nottinghamshire coalfield: a neat, solid, stone-built village, handsome and comfortable. A yellow froth of daffodils lapped up against the stepped preaching cross on the village green, an earnest of spring as we stepped out along the old railway cycle path on the outskirts of the village.

The old line has been sensitively landscaped, the track snaking back and forth to relieve its geometric straightness. Blackthorns in the hedge were dusted white with blossom. A wren chattered manically inside the beetroot-purple leaves of a bramble bush. At the top of an ash sapling a newly arrived chiffchaff sang his two-tone territorial song, fluffing out his pale breast feathers and bobbing his neat olive-coloured cap.

Over the silver birch and oak trees of Freckland Wood a buzzard circled, giving out its cat-like wail. It’s hard to credit that this mature-seeming woodland conceals what was, until a few years ago, a raw hill of colliery slag. The contrast seemed more acute when we turned north-east past a little cottage-ornée lodge and headed into the broad parkland of Newstead Abbey, a world away from the brick-built pit villages nearby.

A fine long avenue of horse chestnuts led us on, each upturned bough end bursting out in a pale green bud of leaves as sticky as glue to the touch. At the top of the drive a wide lake and noisy sluice separated a battlemented and turreted extravaganza known as The Fort from the massive frontage of Newstead Abbey, half monastic ruin and half-Jacobean mansion.

When the poet George Gordon, 6th Baron Byron, managed to sell house and estate for £94,000 in 1818 he thought himself well rid of it. Byron loved Newstead Abbey in a romantic way, but it had cost him dear. He’d inherited the estate from his great-uncle, the 5th Baron Byron, a.k.a. “The Wicked Lord”, who had deliberately run everything down and ruined the great house and the woodlands just to spite his own son during a family feud.

Just beyond the house and lake we turned south along the Robin Hood Way. There were glimpses of the walled gardens and lakes of Newstead Abbey, and a wonderful oak avenue that led us homeward by way of Papplewick church. Here Robin Hood saved fair maid Ellen from her marriage to a rich old man and delivered her all a-blush to his merrie man Alan-a-Dale, who’d loved her all along – a tale swoonsome enough for Lord Byron at his most romantic.

Start: Horse & Groom Inn, Linby, Notts NG15 8AE (OS ref SK 535511)

Getting there: Bus 141 (Mansfield-Hucknall)

Road – Linby is signed off A611 between Mansfield and Hucknall

Walk (6¼ miles, easy, OS Explorer 270): From Horse & Groom, right up road. Right at roundabout; in 30m, right (‘public footpath’) along Cycle Trail No 6. In 1¼ miles, at Linby Trail sign (525528), bear right and continue on Cycle Trail 6. In 1¼ go between The Fort and Newstead Abbey (541538); continue up drive, and in ⅓ of a mile, turn right (544541) along Robin Hood Way for 1¼ miles. At B683 (549519) right along pavement. At left bend in Papplewick (549514), right (‘Path to Linby’). In 200m, just before metal gates, left through wooden gate (547514). Follow field path to B6011 (539512); right into Linby.

Lunch: Horse & Groom, Linby (0115-963-3334, thehorseandgroom-linby.co.uk)

Newstead Abbey: 01623-455900, newsteadabbey.org.uk

Nottingham TIC: 08444-775-678

visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk
The January Man – A Year of Walking Britain by Christopher Somerville (Doubleday, £14.99).

 Posted by at 01:58
Jun 042016
 


First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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‘There’d be 40 gardeners here back in Victorian times,’ said the National Trust volunteer, digging the rhododendron verges at Clumber Park, ‘and not one of them was to be seen by the lords and ladies. They’d hide in the bushes and creep out with the shears – snip, snip! – when the fine folk had gone.’

Henry Douglas, 7th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyme, founded the Chapel of St Mary the Virgin by the lake at his family seat of Clumber in 1889. The church of deep pink sandstone stands as tall and elegant as many a cathedral, full of glorious stained glass by Charles Kempe, delicate wood carving, and enough stone demons to keep the Devil good company.

It was the 2nd Duke, handsome Henry Pelham-Clinton, who poured out his money on landscaping Clumber Park and creating its great serpentine lake in the mid 18th-century. We walked the lake as far as the dock where the 4th Duke once kept a miniature frigate, with a sailor employed full-time to tend it. The path looped inland and back to the water, where tufted duck sailed with brilliant white flanks and intense golden eyes. A mother coot scooped seeds from the lake surface to feed her tiny scarlet-faced chick, beak tip to beak tip.

Beyond the lake we turned off across a belt of heather, broom and silver birch – a wild contrast to the neatly contrived artificiality of the landscaped park. A bridleway led through the birch and pine of Hardwick Wood to the outskirts of Hardwick, built as an estate village for the park, its cottages with steep ornamental gables and giant chimney stacks. In the E-shaped yard of the model farm, a peep through a chink in a barn door disclosed a collection of beautiful old agricultural wagons in the gloom.

A long stretch by the southern shore of the lake, looking across to the chapel spire, and we were crossing the Palladian arches of Clumber Bridge. Coot sat tight on their domed nests in the shallows, and a duck of mixed parentage ducked its head ecstatically in the lake, sending showers of diamond droplets flying in all directions.

Start: Clumber Park main car park, near Worksop, Notts, S80 3AZ (OS ref SK625746)

Getting there: Clumber Park is signed from B6034, off A616 between Ollerton and Cuckney.

Walk (6 miles, easy, OS Explorer 270. NB: online maps, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): From car park follow ‘Chapel’. From chapel (627746), left along lakeside path. At Boat House dock, left (632748), heading north close to fence. In 150m, right through stone gateway; pass gate on right; at pair of stone gateposts, right on gravel path. At ‘In The Wood’ info board (633755) right across neck of lake, then left along causeway road. In 300m, beyond lake, right off road (631756, ’16’ marker on left side of turning) on gravel path. In 400m, right along road (630759); in 200m, right (‘Bridleway’) on bridleway. At road (634760), right into and through Hardwick. At T-junction, right (639754); opposite farmyard, left past log barrier and NT ‘No Parking’ sign (‘Route 5’). In 50m, left across water (639752); follow path along south side of Clumber Lake. In 1¼ miles, meet road at a car park (623740); continue along road. In 300m, right across Clumber Bridge (621738). Fork right along road. In 150m, right past log barrier on woodland path. At road with barrier, right to car park.

Lunch: Clumber Park tea rooms

Accommodation: Forest Lodge Hotel, Edwinstowe, Notts NG21 9QA (01623-824443, forestlodgehotel.co.uk)

Clumber Park: 01909-544917, nationaltrust.org.uk/clumber-park

experiencenottinghamshire.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

 Posted by at 01:42
Jan 032015
 


First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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‘Mackerel, love – you won’t get fresher!’ winked the fishmonger at Southwell’s Saturday market. Ten flavours of sausages to the left of him, a hundred colours of cotton reel to the right, and countless jokes in his arsenal. I saw that very face later in the morning, agelessly cheerful and knowing, where some unremembered mason had carved it seven hundred years ago on a bracing rib of the Chapter House in Southwell Minster.

Southwell is a snug, self-sufficient little Nottinghamshire town, full of gorgeous red-brick houses, with the spectacularly large and beautiful minster church as its pride and joy. There’s a warm honey glow to the stone, and a treasure of carvings still sharp in detail. Contorted faces peeped and grinned from the 14th century choir screen – a peasant riding a laughing king, a churl giving his bum a good scratch. In the Chapter House were leaves of oak and field maple, exquisitely fashioned, and a riot of tiny, boldly staring Green Men, some defaced by the sword cuts of Puritan zealots. Anyone who could greet such figures with outrage rather than laughter and wonder must surely be in need of a humour transfusion.

I came out of the Minster with a head full of marvels to find a chilly mist settling down across the Nottingham countryside. The Robin Hood Way trail led me out of Southwell along the track of an old railway that once brought coal and silk to the town – coal from the Nottinghamshire pits to burn, and silk to be spun in the big brick mill out at Maythorne beside the winding River Greet.

From Maythorne and its handsome old workers’ cottages I crossed into Norwood Park, once the private deer park of the Archbishop of York, now the haunt of golfers. On among stumpy apple trees, their boughs entwined with mistletoe, and south through the big open pastures and biofuel acres of the Brackenhurst Estate. Then a homeward plod across the misty plough, slipping and sliding among beet plants, with the shouts of Southwell’s Saturday footballers coming up from the pitches by the Potwell Dyke. I didn’t catch a glimpse of the twin towers of the Minster until they loomed magnificently out of the mist, right above my head.

Start: Southwell Minster, Southwell, Notts NG25 0HD (OS ref SK 702539)

Getting there: Bus route 100 (Nottingham-Southwell)
Road – Southwell is on A612 between Nottingham and Newark-on-Trent

Walk (6½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 271): From Minster, right down Church Street. At S-bend, bear left (703538); take right-hand of 2 paths (‘Potwell Dyke, Robin Hood Way/RHW’). In 300m, cross road (706539) and on. In 250m, cross Newark Road and on (708540, RHW). In 50m, dogleg right/left down Merrison Way. Follow RHW to A612 (710541). Left and left again along railway trail (RHW, Southwell Heritage Trail/SHT).

In 500m, at road, dogleg right/left past Caudwell’s Mill (707544), and on, following RHW on right bank of River Greet for 1¼ miles to Maythorne Mill (697557). Cross river (RHW, SHT); down road, across old railway (695554), on to Kirklington Road at Maythorne Cottages (692551). Dogleg right/left into Norwood Park. Along drive past golf course (yellow-topped posts). In 600m, at crossing of tracks (689546, fingerpost), bear half left through orchard, then between greenhouses, for 600m to cross Halam Road (690540). On across field; cross B6386 (690538) and on; cross next road (690537, fingerpost) and on to cross footbridge. Here path forks; take left fork along hedge. Cross Westhorpe Dumble stream (690534); on far bank keep ahead up slope, then along field edges. At a hedge (691529, RHW) dogleg right/left; on to road (691524). Left (RHW) to cross A612 (695525 – take care!).

Right for 150m; left (694523) along Hicking Lane between University buildings. Through wooden gates and on to second pair of gates (699524). Left; in 200m, opposite road on left, turn right through gate (698526, RHW), and on to road (700526). Right; in 70m, left (fingerpost, RHW) across field to waymark post (702529, RHW). Half right to hedge gap (704530). Left here with hedge on right, downhill past football field to path (702534). Right (yellow arrow) and left across Potwell Dyke; follow lane to Minster.

Lunch: Old Theatre Deli Café, Queen Street, Southwell (01636-815340)

Accommodation: Saracen’s Head Hotel, Southwell, NG25 0HE (01636-812701) – characterful, creaky and comfortable.

Local Trails: downloadable at southwellcouncil.com.

Info: Southwell TIC (01636-819038)
visitengland.com; www.satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk; LogMyTrip.co.uk

 Posted by at 01:33
Dec 032011
 

When it comes to Sherwood Forest, there’s only one name on everyone’s mind. Who cares if England’s philanthropic hero really existed or not?
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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Robbing the rich, helping the poor, tossing his friends into streams and whacking his foes into submission – Robin Hood (or Wood, or Locksley, or Fitzooth) is the nearest we’ve got to a national saint, better than that milk-and-water St George by a long chalk. We all love jolly, carefree Robin, and we all want to be on his team, frolicking in the greenwood with the Merrie Men.

A select band of Times readers set off from Sherwood Forest’s Visitor Centre, the beauty of the autumnal forest and the gentle pace of the walk soon loosening all tongues. Karen and Lynn had come all the way from Bedford, their first time in Sherwood. ‘Absolutely beautiful,’ was the verdict. ‘We weren’t expecting it to be so open – you think of a forest as trees close all round, don’t you?’

It’s true – our psyches have been stocked since childhood with Grimm’s fairy tale forests, deep, dark and dangerous. Yet the thousand acres that remain of the old Sherwood Forest are more of a mosaic – open ground, broad grassy, rides, farmland, clearings, patches of heath and wetland.

Sherwood’s famous veteran oaks really are huge; bulbous old giants with troll faces and knotted limbs, blasted, cracked, hollowed, yet still defiantly sprouting leaves. It’s reckoned each one hosts more wildlife than a whole forest of commercial conifers. Under them we found Granny’s Cakes generously spilled – fly agaric fungi, deadly and beautiful in glossy scarlet sprinkled with sugary white.

‘Lincoln Green? They made the dye with a mixture of woad and weld,’ quoth our walk leader David Wenk, adding modestly ‘ – or so I’m told. Now, a bit of a historic thrill up ahead!’ It was a memorial cross marking the burial place of the headless corpse of King Edwin of Northumbria, after his death in battle in 633AD – a strange image on this peaceful morning.

We ascended the gentle dome of Hanger Hill, known to Robin Hood and his contemporaries as Thyngehoe – perhaps a Norse ‘thing’ or meeting mound, surmised David. With the wide views, and our voices carrying far down the slope, we could well believe it.

A slug of hot chocolate and a nibble of lebkuchen and we went on under silver birches whose turning leaves, acid green and yellow, glowed against the sombre Scots pines. Tiny tots came pelting past, absorbed in their own greenwood fantasies.

Nearing the Visitor Centre once more, we came by the Major Oak, a salutary presence to end the walk. Old enough to have sheltered Robin Hood himself, the ancient oak with its craggy rind and soft heart leans on wooden crutches like a veteran of a thousand-year war.

Start and finish: Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre, Edwinstowe, Notts NG21 9HN (OS ref SK 627677)

Getting there: Rail – (www.trainline.com; www.railcard.co.uk) to Mansfield (7 miles). Bus – 10A from Mansfield. Road – M1 Jct 28; A38 to Sutton-in-Ashfield; A 6075 to Edwinstowe; B6034 to Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre. Car park £3

Walk (6 miles, easy, OS Explorer 270): From Visitor Centre follow Greenwood Walk and Birklands Ramble (signed) for ⅓ mile. Just beyond ‘Major Oak/Fairground’ signs, keep ahead (621676, blue arrow) on bridleway (‘Clipstone’ fingerpost). In ¾ mile pass path on left (‘Edwinstowe’). In another 300m, at T-junction (606676), left along wide ride. Right beside A6075; in 250m, bear right away from road on Robin Hood Way/RHW (604663, green arrow). In ⅓ mile, fork right (600665, RHW). In 600m pass memorial cross on left (593666). In another 300m, at corner of forest, cross track; ahead for 100m, then right at junction (591667; white arrow on tree; RHW).

In 1 mile at T-junction (599681) dogleg left, then right off RHW, on track heading NNE past Thyngehoe (summit of Hanger Hill – unmarked). In 250m track forks (600684); don’t go right, but keep ahead along ride. In 600m cross RHW (606686); ahead through barrier. (‘Sherwood Forest, Edwinstowe YHA, Dukeries Trail/DT’). Fork immediately right on bridleway (horseshoe signs). In ¾ mile at junction, left (617679, DT). Path forks immediately; don’t go right up slope, but keep ahead to Major Oak (621679); RHW to Visitor Centre.

Lunch, information and green peaked hats: Sherwood Forest Information Centre (01623-823202; www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/sherwoodforestcp)
Accommodation: Forest Lodge Hotel, Edwinstowe, Notts (01623-824443; www.forestlodgehotel.co.uk
English Country Walks (David Wenk): 07932-953174; www.englishcountrywalks.com
www.LogMyTrip.co.uk www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com

 Posted by at 03:44
Jul 252009
 

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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In the caverns of Creswell Crags they left the bones of arctic hare and reindeer, along with the tools that cut-marked the bones – black and white flint, delicately slivered and still razor sharp. What they felt and dreamed, these ancient ancestors of ours, hides in the shapes of antlered stags, bears, bison and long-billed birds that they incised some 13,000 years ago into the cave roof that sheltered them from Ice Age winds and snows.

As Jane and I walked down the leafy tunnel of the Robin Hood Way on a sunny evening, our heads were full of bears and bones. As we strolled the green acres of the Welbeck Estate, though, other wild imaginings took over. The splendidly eccentric 5th Duke of Portland – a kindly man, known as the ‘workman’s friend’ – created employment far and wide in this district by having an extraordinary series of tunnels constructed in the mid 19th century. Two led to a vast equestrian school built by the Duke; another, wide enough for two carriages to pass, ran for well over a mile to the South Lodge.

The Robin Hood Way wound through the cornfields and grasslands of the Welbeck Estate. A few feet below our boots ran the South Lodge tunnel, hidden in the ground. ‘Tunnel Skylights’ said the Explorer map, teasingly. It proved impossible to find them in the grass; but there was a wonderful view of the pepperpot turrets and fantasy towers of Welbeck Abbey, peeping over the trees beyond a lawn where archers were busy at target practice. Give or take a Chelsea Tractor or two, it could have been a scene from the life of the celebrated greenwood hoodie of nearby Sherwood Forest.

At the gates of Welbeck were the coal mines that made the Dukes of Portland rich and provided the 5th Duke with his expert tunnelers. Now the mines lie abandoned, with their spoil heaps as memorials. Towards sunset Jane and I threaded a tiny sunken lane to the hamlet of Penny Green, then crossed the vast tip of Belph Colliery, orange and black and streaked with fleets of water. Cavemen incising by firelight, the Duke of Portland in his echoing chambers, the miners of Belph: our evening walk had turned out to be all about the underground.

Start & finish: Creswell Crags Visitor Centre, Creswell S80 3LH (OS ref SK 538744)

Getting there: Train (www.thetrainline.com; www.railcard.co.uk) or bus (Stagecoach service 77 or First service 150) to Creswell (1 mile from Centre). … Road: M1 (Jct 30); A616 to Creswell; follow ‘Creswell Crags’ signs

Walk (7½ miles, easy grade, OS Explorer 270): From Creswell Crags Visitor Centre turn right along green lane (Robin Hood Way/RHW) to cross A60 (546744 – please take care!). Along drive opposite (bridleway fingerpost). At Oaksetts Lodge (552745) bear left up track for 150 yd, then follow signposted bridleway (RHW). In 300 yd, left (557744 – bridleway fingerpost) on grassy track for ⅓ of a mile to gravel drive (560748). Right to gate; left across lake and on for ½ mile to South Lodge (568754). Cross Broad Lane; continue for 1 mile through woods (‘Worksop’ fingerpost), then over fields.

At path crossing just past Oak Wood, with 2 yellow arrows (y.a.) on right, turn left (571770) down green lane. At end, left over stile (y.a.); ahead along field edge. In 300 yd, right over brook at yellow post (567767). Aim across field for another; through successive kissing gates; on to recross Broad Lane (564763). Keep ahead (‘Belph’ fingerpost), following yellow-topped posts, to cross Walling Brook (555760). Follow waymark arrows towards chimney, passing Belph Grange to reach stile onto A60 (548757). Left along verge for 100 yards; then cross road (please take great care!); follow path diagonally across field to lane. Right for 50 yd; left (545756 – fingerpost) down field edge. Left across stream; right along path by weirs to road at Penny Green Cottages (543756).

Left for 100 yd; left over stile (fingerpost). Keep ahead on path, up and over old tip. This section is a work in progress; path route may have altered, but aim due south to reach gate onto Hennymoor Lane (542750). Cross lane; down green lane opposite (black/yellow arrows) for ⅓ of a mile to A60 (546745). Right along pavement for 100 yards; right up RHW to Creswell Crags Visitor Centre.

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

Pack of 8 circular Notts walks: order from Nottingham TIC on 08444-77-5678.

Lunch: Creswell Crags coffee shop

Creswell Crags Museum, Tours etc: 01909-720378; www.creswell-crags.org.uk

More info: Worksop TIC (01909-501148); www.visitnotts.com

 Posted by at 00:00
Dec 182010
 

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1. Lanlivery and Helman’s Tor, Cornwall

Lanlivery lies lost among its high-banked lanes to the west of Lostwithiel, a tiny hamlet sprinkled around the nucleus of St Brevita’s Church and the ancient Crown Inn. The pub – cosy and welcoming – dates back to Norman times. In fact it predates the church; the masons who built St Brevita’s with its tower of striped granite were put up there. As for Brevita: rather charmingly, absolutely nothing whatever is known about her – or him. There’s certainly a Saints Road or Saints Way that runs past the village, a former droving track (now a waymarked long-distance path) whose slanting course across the Cornish peninsula is dotted with ancient crosses, wells, standing stones and burial sites. It’s this path you follow between high hedges, a secret lane that smuggles you through the fields until you come out at the foot of Helman’s Tor. Up at the summit among the granite boulders you’ll find a logan or rocking stone – see if you can discover the subtle pressure needed to make it rock, while admiring the sensational views across the rolling Cornish farmlands.

Start: Crown Inn, Lanlivery, near Lostwithiel PL30 5BT (OS ref SX 079591)

Walk symbol: 4 miles, 2 hours, OS Explorer 107

Route: From Crown Inn, take Luxulyan road. At chapel, straight on (‘Lanivet’). In a quarter of a mile, right up green lane (‘Saints Way’) for 1 and a quarter miles to car park under Helman’s Tor. Climb Tor; return same way.

Lunch symbol: Crown Inn, Lanlivery (01208-8727071; www.wagtailinns.com).

Grade: 2/5 boots. Gentle ascent of tor. Green lane can be muddy!

Info: Lostwithiel TIC (01208-872207); www.visitcornwall.com

 

2. Stourhead and Alfred’s Tower, Wiltshire

Superb 18th-century Palladian grounds and park created by the Hoares – father Henry ‘The Good’, son Henry ‘The Magnificent’. Stroll a circuit of the lake and its temples, follies and grottoes, or step out up the valley to the wonderful Rapunzel-like Alfred’s Tower on the ridge above. Then cosy up to a cockle-warming casserole in the Spread Eagle Inn at the park gates, or plump for cake and cuppa in the tearooms.

Start: Stourhead car park, BA12 6QD (OS ref SX 778340) – signed from B3092 Zeals-Maiden Bradley road, off A303 at Mere

Walk symbol: 1 and a half miles round lake (1 hour) or 5 and a half miles Alfred’s Tower circuit (2-3 hours), OS Explorer 142 (grounds map available at Visitor Centre)

Route: From Visitor Centre. down path. Don’t cross bridge to gardens and house; turn left to Spread Eagle Inn and Lower Garden entrance (pay/show NT card). Anti-clockwise round lake. For Alfred’s Tower circuit: At Pantheon, don’t turn left across Iron Bridge; continue through trees to gate and gravel roadway. Right (‘Alfred’s Tower’); follow blue arrows up valley for 1 and a half miles. At top, left to Alfred’s Tower. From tower, retrace steps 100 yards; right into woods (yellow arrow/YA). In 300 yards YA points right, but keep ahead on main track. In 500 yards at crossroads, main track swings left (YA); but take downhill path. In 200 yards near foot of slope, left (YA) past shed; follow YA back to Pantheon; cross Iron Bridge; complete lake circuit.

Lunch symbol: Spread Eagle Inn (01747-840587; www.spreadeagleinn.com)

Tea symbol:

Grade: Lake 2/5 boots; Alfred’s Tower 3/5.

Stourhead (National Trust): 01747-841152; http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-stourhead

 

3. Chidham Peninsula, West Sussex

The Chidham peninsula hangs like a skate’s wing in the middle of Chichester Harbour’s vast flats of marsh and mud. At any time of year you’ll get a tang of green countryside and a salty smack of the sea here. In winter there’s the added thrill of big crowds of over-wintering seabirds.

From the friendly Old House At Home pub in Chidham village, grass paths lead to the eastern shore of the peninsula. There’s a fine view across water, mud flats and saltmarsh to the squat grey spire of Bosham church above a cluster of waterfront houses – every chocolate-box artist’s dream of delight. The sea wall path runs south around Cobnor Point with its wonderfully gnarly and contorted old oaks, and on up the edge of Nutbourne Marshes where wildfowl spend the winter in their tens of thousands. A new sea bank has been built inland here, against the day when the old one is washed away by the never-satisfied, ever-hungry sea.

Start: Old House At Home PH, Chidham PO18 8SU (OS ref SV 786040)

Walk symbol: 5 miles, 2 hours, OS Explorer 120

Route: From pub, right along road. Just before church, right along grassy path (fingerpost), past Chidmere Pond to road. Right for 100 yards; right (fingerpost) through car park; left along hedge to shore (797034). Right (clockwise) round peninsula for 3 miles to pass Chidham Point (779042). In a quarter of a mile, right (781045) on footpath along field edges to road; right to Old House At Home.

Lunch symbol: Old House At Home PH, Chidham (01243-572477; www.theoldhouseathome.co.uk)

Grade: 1/5 boots. Flat seawall path.

Info: Chichester TIC (01243-775888; www.visitchichester.org); Chichester Harbour Conservancy (www.conservancy.co.uk)

4. Shoreham and Eynsford, Kent

A really delightful walk in north Kent’s wide Darent Valley. The rood screen and organ casing in Shoreham’s church boast fabulous carving. Just down the road, Water House (private) was a 19th-century haven for artists including William Blake and Samuel Palmer. The Darent Valley Path takes you north in lovely river scenery to pass Lullingstone Castle, a gorgeous Tudor country house, and Lullingstone Roman Villa – 30 rooms, several frescoes, and a magnificent mosaic floor. At the turn of the walk, Eynsford is a photogenic old village with a fine tumbledown Norman castle. From here you follow a quiet road up a secret valley, then climb over the ridge through the woods to return to Shoreham.

Start: Shoreham station, Shoreham, Kent TN14 7RT (OS ref TQ 526615)

Walk symbol: 8 miles, 3-4 hours, OS Explorers 147, 162

Route: Shoreham station – Shoreham church (523616) – Water House (521616) – Darent Valley Path (signed) north for 3 and a half miles via Lullingstone Castle (530644) and Lullingstone Roman Villa (530651) to Eynsford. Left along A225 to Eynsford Castle (542658); return through village. Just before railway bridge, left past Eynsford station; follow Upper Austin Lodge Road for 1½ miles. Before Upper Austin Lodge, fork right past golf clubhouse; footpath south-west through woods for 1 mile to cross A225 and railway (526618); dogleg left to Station Road – Shoreham station.

Lunch symbol: Olde George Inn, Shoreham (01959-522017); teashops and pubs in Eynsford

Grade: 2/5 boots. Field and woodland paths (muddy!).

Info: Lullingstone Castle and gardens (www.lullingstonecastle.co.uk) closed till April; Lullingstone Roman Villa and Eynsford Castle (EH; www.english-heritage.org.uk) open Wed-Sun till 31 Jan (closed 24-26 Dec, 1 Jan); open daily thereafter.

 

5. Regent’s Canal, Victoria Park and Thames Path

To get you going on this exploration of east London’s waterways and markets, a gentle blur of reggae among the earring and shawl stalls in the covered shed of Old Spitalfields Market. Next, Brick Lane’s street market – curry, chilli, salsa, roasting beef and goat; titfers and tomatoes, fish and fascinators, bread and chairs, sandwiches, socks and sun-specs in more colours than the good Lord ever made. A pause to commune with the animals in the city farm; then you follow Regent’s Canal’s towpath towards the Thames in company with tinies in pushchairs, runners, strollers and the dog walkers of wide green Victoria Park. Approaching the river, the colossi of Canary Wharf and the space-rocket nose of the Gherkin rise pale and ghostly. There’s the smack of tidal waves and a tang of the sea as you swap the stillness of the canal for the salty vigour of the Thames, to stroll upriver into the cosmopolitan heart of the city once again.

Start: Liverpool Street station (Central/Circle/Metropolitan/Hammersmith & City)

Walk symbol: 8 miles, 3-4 hours, OS Explorer 173, London A-Z pp 40-2, 54-6

Route: Liverpool Street Station –- Old Spitalfields Market – Brick Lane – Bethnal Green Road – City Farm – Haggerston Park. Regent’s Canal to Limehouse Basin. Thames Path to St Katharine Docks. North via Mansell Street and Commercial Road to Liverpool Street.

Lunch symbol: Beigel Bake, Brick Lane (0207-729-0616) – salt beef, cream cheese, fish: you name it, it’s here in a fresh-baked bagel

Grade: 1/5 boots.

More info: Old Spitalfields Market www.visitspitalfields.com; Brick Lane Market www.visitbricklane.org; Regent’s Canal http://www.bertuchi.co.uk/regentscanal.php; Thames Path www.walklondon.org.uk

Reading: London Adventure Walks for Families by Becky Jones and Clare Lewis ( Frances Lincoln)

 

6. Ingatestone and Mountnessing Hall, Essex

Here’s a beautiful ramble in easy country (but muddy!) out in mid-Essex, a much-overlooked walking county. Ingatestone Hall is a superb Elizabethan mansion with ranks of mullioned and latticed windows, acres of tiled roofs, crowstepped gables and castellated turrets. Cross the fields to Buttsbury church on its ridge; then head south through old field lanes and horse paddocks to the outskirts of Billericay. A stumpy spire beckons you west across the River Wid to where St Giles’s Church and handsome Mountnessing Hall with its tall chimneys stand companionably side by side. From here field paths lead north past Tilehurst, a Victorian mansion out of a Gothic fable, and on back to Ingatestone.

Start: Ingatestone station, Essex CM4 0BS (OS ref TQ 650992)

Walk symbol: 7 miles, 3 hours, OS Explorer 175

Route: From station, left on path; left to cross railway; Hall Lane to Ingatestone Hall. Field path (yellow arrows/YAs) to St Mary’s Church, Buttsbury (664986). Buttsbury road – footpath south for 1 and three quarter miles (YAs) via Little Farm and Buckwyns Farm to road on west edge of Billericay (661977). Left for 150 yards to right bend; ahead here on footpath for 1 mile to Mountnessing Hall and church. Field path north (YAs) for three quarters of a mile to road (648975) and Westlands Farm. Path via Kitchen Wood to Tilehurst; road to Ingatestone Hall and station.

Lunch symbol: Star Inn, Ingatestone (01277-353618)

Grade: 2/5 boots. Gentle farmland paths. Can be very muddy!

Info: Ingatestone Hall (01277-353010; www.ingatestonehall.com) open Easter-Sept; guided tours at other times by arrangement

Chelmsford TIC (01245 283400; www.visitessex.com)

 

7. Little Chalfont and the Chess Valley, Buckinghamshire

As soon as you get into the woods that lie north of Chalfont & Latimer tube station, you’re immersed in proper countryside. The Buckinghamshire landscape slopes to cross the winding River Chess and reach the charming small village of Latimer, where the heart and harness of Lord Chesham’s bold charger Villebois are buried in the village green. From here the Chess Valley Walk leads by the river. Out in the fields you pass the brick-built tomb of ‘Mr William Liberty of Chorleywood, Brickmaker, 1777’, and follow the beautiful River Chess up to Church End (Christmas-themed 14th-century church frescoes, and delightful Cock Inn). The main feature of the homeward walk is Chenies village with its vast church monuments and grand Tudor manor – the house is haunted by the ghost of King Henry VIII.

Start: Chalfont & Latimer tube station, Metropolitan line, HP7 9PR (OS ref SU 997975)

Walk symbol: 7 miles, 3 hours, OS Explorer 172

Route: From station follow Chess Valley Walk across River Chess to Latimer; then east for 2 miles along River Chess valley, passing William Liberty’s tomb (009987), Valley Farm (026090) and Sarratt Bottom. At 034984, opposite footbridge over Chess, left on footpath to Church End (Holy Cross Church; Cock Inn), Return to cross 2 footbridges; in 100 yards fork right (032984) – path via Mountwood Farm (024984) to Chenies. Bridleway west via Walk Wood, Stony Lane (005982) and West Wood to Chess Valley Walk (997981) and station.

Lunch symbol: Cock Inn, Church End (01923-282908; www.cockinn.net)

Grade: 2/5 boots. Field and woodland paths.

Info: Chenies Manor (01494-762888; www.cheniesmanorhouse.co.uk) open April-Oct.

High Wycombe TIC (01494-421892); www.visitbuckinghamshire.org

 

8. Goring to Pangbourne, Oxfordshire/Berkshire

This is one of the most appealing sections of the Thames Path, linking two classically attractive Thames-side pairs of towns by way of a lovely wooded path. Descending the hill from Goring’s railway station, you turn left along the river bank and are swallowed in a tunnel of trees. Here the Thames snakes through the Goring Gap, a cleavage between the thickly wooded Berkshire Downs and the more open and bare Chiltern Hills.

Soon you are out in wide grazing meadows, passing under the stained and weatherbeaten brick railway bridge that carries Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Western Railway line across the river. Now the Thames Path enters woodland of beech, yew, alder and willow; soon it climbs to the rolling downs, before striking into a farm track and then the road down into Whitchurch-on-Thames. Cross the Thames into Pangbourne. Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind In The Willows, lived in Pangbourne for the last eight years of his life, and is buried in the churchyard just up the street. It was at Pangbourne that the soaked and miserable heroes of Three Men In A Boat abandoned their craft and caught the train back to London.

Start: Goring & Streatley station, RG8 0EP (OS ref SU 603806)

Walk symbol: 5 miles, 2 hours, OS Explorer 171

Route: From Goring station, left and left again to River Thames; left on Thames Path to Whitchurch; cross river to Pangbourne station; return to Goring.

Lunch symbol: Ferryboat Inn, Whitchurch (0118-984-2161; www.theferryboat.eu)

Grade: 3/5 boots. Flat path by river; some ascents in woodland.

Info: Wallingford TIC (01491-826972); www.nationaltrail.co.uk/thamespath

 

9. Apperley, Deerhurst and the River Severn, Gloucestershire

A gorgeous half-day’s walk in classic River Severn country – rolling, green, gentle, bucolic. From the Severnside village of Apperley you follow field paths north to climb a ridge with wonderful views, before dipping down to the river at Lower Lode. Tewkesbury’s Abbey and half-timbered houses are just up the river-bank; but the walk heads south, with the wide Severn at your elbow. Make time to explore Odda’s Chapel and St Mary’s Church at Deerhurst with their rare and beautiful Saxon stonework and angel carvings, before heading back downriver to the Coal House Inn for ‘steak on a stone’ – a hungry walker’s delight.

Start: Coal House Inn, Gabb Lane, Apperley GL19 4DN (OS ref SO 855284)

Walk symbol: 6 and a half miles, 3 hours, OS Explorers 190, 179

Route: From Coal House Inn, up lane; in 50 yards, footpath (fingerpost) to road (862282). Left through Apperley; follow ‘Tewkesbury, Cheltenham’; left past village hall (867285; fingerpost). Footpath for 1 mile by Wrightfield Manor, passing Deerhurst Vicarage (872293), to cross road (873298; 3-way fingerpost). Cross stile (not gateway!); north for a third of a mile to pond (874303); north along ridge for 1 mile to River Severn at Lower Lode Lane (881317). Left along Severn Way for 1⅓ miles to Deerhurst; detour left to Odda’s Chapel (869299) and Church of St Mary (870300). Return to Severn Way; continue for 1⅓ miles to Coal House Inn

Lunch symbol: Coal House Inn, Apperley ((01452-780211)

Grade: 3/5 boots. Field and riverside paths. Can be muddy!

Info: Tewkesbury TIC (01684-855040);

http://www.enjoyengland.com/destinations/find/south-west/gloucestershire/dg.aspx

 

10. Ysgyryd Fawr (‘The Skirrid’), Abergavenny, Gwent

Ysgyryd Fawr, the Holy Mountain, rises in a beautiful and striking whaleback above the neat farming landscape on the eastern edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park. To see it is to want to climb it, whether you’re a hill-walker, country rambler or active youngster. The climb from car park to summit is just under a thousand feet, and once up there (a really superb spot for mince-pies and hot coffee) you are monarch of a huge view around the Welsh Border country. Traces of earthen ramparts show where Iron Age tribesmen fortified the hilltop, and a scatter of stones marks the site of St Michael’s Church, where the Catholic faithful attended the outlawed Mass during the 17th century.

Start: Car park on B4521, 2 and a half miles east of Abergavenny (OS ref SO 328164). NB – Please don’t leave valuables on show!

Walk symbol: 3 and a half miles round base, 2 and a half miles to summit and back (both 1 and a half – 2 hours), OS Explorer OL13

Route: From car park, follow pass across fields, up through Caer Wood, through gate (327172). Left to make clockwise circuit of base of hill; otherwise right. In 300 yards, either keep ahead for anti-clockwise circuit, or fork left. Steep climb, then levelling out for half a mile to reach summit (330182). Retrace steps; or continue, forking left or right to descend steep north slope to bottom; left or right to return to car park via round-base path.

Lunch symbol: Walnut Tree Restaurant, Llanddewi Skirrid (01873-852797; www.thewalnuttreeinn.com)

Grade: 3/5 boots round base; 5/5 to summit (steep). Wrap up warm!

Info: Abergavenny TIC (01873-857588); www.brecon-beacons.com

 

11. The Stiperstones, Long Mynd, Shropshire

It’s tough, but you’ve got to do it … tear yourself away from the warm welcome and fabulous home baking at the Bog Centre, and venture out up the stony path among the extraordinary quartzite outcrops of the Stiperstones. Cranberry Rock, Manstone Rock, the Devil’s Chair, Shepherd’s Rock – they poke up out of the beautifully restored heathland along their ridge like craggy spines on a stegosaurus back. Legends of warlocks and witches hang thickly round the Stiperstones. Lady Godiva rides naked there still. When the mist is down, the Devil himself sits brooding in his great rock Chair.

From the ridge you descend steeply to the Stiperstones Inn. It’s a stiff climb afterwards, and a stony lane home.

 

Start: The Bog Centre, Stiperstones, SY5 0NG (OS ref SO 355979)

Walk symbol: 5 miles, 2-3 hours, OS Explorer 216

Route: From Bog Centre, footpath/road to south end of Stiperstones ridge (362976). Follow Shropshire Way past Cranberry Rock (365981), Manstone Rock (367986) and Devil’s Chair (368991). From cairn just before Shepherd’s Rock (374000), bear left on steep descent between Perkins Beach and Green Hill to road in Stiperstones village (363004). Left past Stiperstones Inn for 400 yards; left across stile (361002; fingerpost, arrows); steep climb for half a mile (arrows), up past National Nature Reserve board to reach stony lane (36294). Follow it south, parallel to Stiperstones for ¾ mile. At Black Ditch opposite Cranberry Rock, through gate (361983); footpath down to road and Bog Centre.

Lunch symbol: The Bog Centre; or Stiperstones Inn, Stiperstones village (01743-791327; www.stiperstonesinn.co.uk)

Grade: 4/5 boots. Rough and stony around Stiperstones; steep descent to road; steep ascent to lane.

Info: Bog Centre (01743-792484; www.bogcentre.co.uk)

 

12. Thetford Forest, Suffolk/Norfolk border

Thetford Forest covers some 80 square miles of the sandy Breckland country along the Norfolk/Suffolk border; and as it’s largely composed of conifers, you might think it’s a gloomy old place for a winter walk. In fact low winter light lends mystery to the dark forest. Walking is sheltered and easy. Well-waymarked Yellow and Red Trails circle out from High Lodge and Thetford Warren Lodge respectively; combining the two gives you an excellent morning’s stroll. Children love clambering on the huge squirrel, spider, woodpecker and chum along the Giant Play Sculpture Trail (wheelchair and buggy friendly). Towards the end of winter there will be a night-time spectacular as the trees are transformed into the Electric Forest, with stunning light and sound effects.

Start: High Lodge Forest Centre, IP27 0AF – signed off B1107 Thetford-Brandon road (OS ref TL 809850)

Walk symbol: Red Route, 3 and a half miles; Yellow Route, 3 miles; Red/Yellow combined 7 miles; Giant Play Sculpture Trail (Easy Access), 1 mile. Map online (see below); OS Explorer 229

Lunch symbol: High Lodge café.

Grade: 1/5 boots. NB Parts of trails may be closed for forestry operations; diversions signposted.

Info: High Lodge Forest Centre (01842-815434; http://www.forestry.gov.uk/highlodge)

Electric Forest (www.theelectricforest.co.uk) – over February half-term 2011 (19 to 27 February), plus 3 to 6 March. Book your slot (5-9 pm) online or tel 01842-814012; £15.50 adult, £10 concessions, £41 family. 1 and a half mile self-guided walk by night; spectacular lights, effects; food and drink

13. Robin Hood and the Royal Forest, Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire

This Sherwood Forest walk follows the newly-opened ‘Robin Hood and the Royal Forest’ trail from the Visitor Centre near Edwinstowe. It passes two massive and venerable trees, the Major Oak and the Centre Tree – the philanthropic outlaw’s hideout and rendezvous, according to legend. From here the trail curves through the forest to reach King Edwin’s Cross, marking the spot where Edwin, King of Northumbria, was buried after his death in battle in 633AD. A track on the edge of the forest brings you to Edwinstowe and the Norman church of St Mary. Were Robin Hood and Maid Marian married here? Anyone with an ounce of romance thinks so.

Christmas-flavoured celebrities at Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre include St Nicholas, who will be manning his grotto till 19 December (11-4), and the Dukeries Singers who belt out their Christmas songs on 19th (2-3 pm).

Start: Sherwood Forest Country Park Visitor Centre car park, Edwinstowe, Notts NG21 9QA (OS ref SK 627676)

Walk symbol: 6 miles, 3 hours, OS Explorer 270

Route: From Visitor Centre follow Blue Trail to Major Oak 621679); on along Robin Hood Way to the Centre Tree (606676); ahead, keeping same direction, for three quarters of a mile; left (595672) along ride for a third of a mile; left (591667) past King Edwin’s Cross (594666) to meet A6075. Left along verge for 300 yards; left (north) for half a mile; right (607671) for nearly a mile towards Visitor Centre. Right (621676) on bridleway to Edwinstowe and St Mary’s Church. Return to Visitor Centre.

Lunch symbol: Visitor Centre

Grade: 2/5 boots. Forest tracks.

Info: Sherwood Forest Country Park Visitor Centre (01623-823202); www.sherwoodforest.org.uk

 

14. Beverley and Westwood, East Yorkshire

A cosy, friendly town, some truly astonishing medieval artwork, a wide green common and a (very) characterful pub with coal fires and great food – what more could you ask of a winter walk? Beverley Minster and St Mary’s Church between them boast some of the finest stone carvings in Britain – merry musicians, gurning demons, Green Men spewing foliage, forest monsters and improbable animals. Gaze and marvel your fill; then stroll through the town, every vista packed with nice old buildings. Walk across the racecourse and out over the wide open spaces of Westwood Common, carefully preserved from development by Beverley’s vigilant Pasture Masters. From the Black Mill high on its ridge there’s time for a lingering prospect over the town, before making for the warmth, good cheer and bright fires of the White Horse in Hengate – know to all as Nellie’s.

Start: Beverley station, HU17 0AS (OS ref TA 038396))

Walk symbol: 5 miles, 2-3 hours, OS Explorer 293

Route: Beverley Minster – Wednesday Market – Saturday Market – St Mary’s Church. Through North Bar – along North Bar Without – left down Norfolk Street onto Westwood Common (025401). Ahead across racecourse, then A1174 (019397). Ahead through Burton Bushes, to exit stile at far side (010392). Aim for Black Mill on hill (021390). From mill, aim for St Mary’s tower; through Newbegin Pits dell to footpath on far side (027395). Right past Westwood Hospital; left along Lovers Lane (027394 – kissing gate, lamp post) to St Mary’s Church and town centre.

Lunch symbol: White Horse, Hengate, Beverley (01482-861973; www.nellies.co.uk)

Grade: 2/5 boots. Town pavements, grass paths

Info: Beverley TIC (01482-391672; www.realyorkshire.co.uk)

15. Whitby and Hawsker, North Yorkshire

Whitby is a great winter town, full of museums, teashops and odd nooks and crannies. It’s also where Bram Stoker based Dracula, and the walk starts up the steps, through the clifftop churchyard and by the towering abbey ruins haunted by the toothy Transylvanian. Then a wonderful, wind-blown three miles along the cliffs where Victorian miners dug shards of fossilised monkey-puzzle trees. Polished and shaped by craftsmen, the fragments became shiny black jet, to be turned into ornaments that made many Whitby fortunes. Inland over the fields, and then a smooth stretch of the old Whitby & Scarborough Railway, a hop over the River Esk across mighty Larpool Viaduct, and a bun and cup of tea in Elizabeth Botham’s iconic and excellent teashop.

Start: Whitby harbour bridge (OS ref NZ 900111).

Walk symbol: 8 miles, 4 hours, OS Explorer OL27

Route: Church Street – 199 Steps – St Mary’s Church (902113) – Whitby Abbey – Cleveland Way coast path east for 3 miles. Near Gnipe Howe farm, cross stream (934091); in another third of a mile, right (936086; arrow, ‘Hawsker’ fingerpost) to Gnipe Howe (934085). Farm drive for two thirds of a mile – right on Scarborough-Whitby Railway Path for 2 and a half miles. Cross Larpool Viaduct (896097); in 250 yards, right (arrow; Esk Valley Walk ‘leaping fish’ fingerpost) – cross A171 (898102). Right for 100 yards; left (fingerpost), descending to west quayside – ahead along River Esk to bridge.

Lunch symbol: Windmill Inn, Stainsacre (01947-602671, closed Tues and Thurs lunchtime; Elizabeth Botham’s Teashop, 35-9 Skinner Street, Whitby (01947-602823; www.botham.co.uk)

Grade: 3/5 boots. Coast and field paths (muddy round Gnipe Howe Farm); cycleway

Info: Whitby TIC, Langborne Road (01723-383637); www.yorkshire.com

 

16. Keld and Tan Hill, North Yorkshire

A long morning’s or afternoon’s walk in a very beautiful location, this moorland hike is an absolute peach, especially if the sun’s out and it’s a crisp winter day. You start from Keld Lodge Hotel, a great conversion job on the old youth hostel, and walk through the pretty stone-built village of Keld before crossing the River Swale by some fine waterfalls. The well-marked Pennine Way National leads you north across open, rolling moorland, with the Tan Hill Inn beckoning– a classic walker’s inn, very lively and warm. The return walk is down a ribbon-like moorland road; then you retrace your steps along a mile of the Pennine Way before taking the footpath down lovely Stonesdale to the rushing waterfall of Currack Force on the outskirts of Keld.

Start: Keld Lodge Hotel, Keld, N. Yorks DL11 6LL (OS ref NY 110839)

Walk symbol: 9 miles, 4 hours, OS Explorer OL30

Route: Right along road; left into Keld. Right (893012; ‘footpath to Muker’). In 300 yards, left downhill (‘Pennine Way/PW’). Cross River Swale footbridge; follow PW for 4 miles to Tan Hill Inn (897067). Left along road for 100 yards; left on moor road for 1 and three quarter miles. Just before Stonesdale Bridge, left on bridleway for 200 yards (884043); right on PW for 1 mile. Just beyond Frith Lodge drive, right on footpath (890030), south for three quarters of a mile to meet bridleway near Currack Force on Stonesdale Beck (888016). Left to PW and Keld.

Lunch symbol: Keld Lodge Hotel (01748-886259; www.keldlodge.com); Tan Hill Inn (01833-628246; www.tanhillinn.co.uk)

Grade: 3/5 boots. No steep ascents, but rough moorland paths. Hillwalking gear, boots.

Info: Richmond TIC (01748-828742); www.yorkshire.com

 

17. Askham and Heughscar Hill, Cumbria

Alfred Wainwright wrote his walking guidebook Outlying Fells Of Lakeland (Frances Lincoln) for ‘old age pensioners and others who can no longer climb high fells’. That makes his Heughscar Hill walk perfect for those with a bellyful of Christmas grub. A farm lane winds west from Askham village on the eastern edge of the Lake District, bringing you gently up to the ‘heights’ of Heughscar. This modest green ridge of limestone pavement gives stunning views west over Ullswater to the Helvellyn range, and east to the upthrust of Cross Fell on the Pennine spine. The old Roman Road of High Street carries you to The Cockpit, an ancient circle of knee-high stones on a wide moor. From here green paths and farm tracks return you to Askham.

Start: Queen’s Head Inn, Askham CA10 2PF (OS ref NY 514237)

Walk symbol: 5 and a half miles, 2-3 hours, OS Explorer OL5

Route: Follow wide tree-lined street uphill. West out of village past Town Head Farm (508236). Over cattle grid; ignore tarred road branching left; keep ahead with wall on right for three quarters of a mile, passing barn (502232). At Rigginleys Top (498230), through gate; aim for corner of wood half a mile ahead. Along wood edge. At far corner (489229), aim a little right on path past boundary stone (488230) to Heughscar Hill summit (tiny cairn, 488232). On for a third of a mile to Heugh Scar crags (486237). Descend left; left along broad track of High Street. In two thirds of a mile descend to pass cairn (483227); on to stone circle (482222 – ‘The Cockpit’ on map). Aim for wood edge uphill on left (491229); return to Askham.

Lunch symbol: Queen’s Head, Askham (01931-712225; www.queensheadaskham.com)

Grade: 3/5 boots. Farm tracks, moorland paths.

Info: Penrith TIC (01768-867466); www.golakes.co.uk

 

18. Gilsland and Birdoswald Fort, Hadrian’s Wall, Northumberland

This fascinating ramble is one of the Hadrian’s Wall Linked Walks – short, circular, family-friendly walks that take in a glimpse of the Wall and some of its countryside. Start from Gilsland, following Hadrian’s Wall Path beside the monument. At Willowford Farm there’s a fine section of Wall. In the 1,600 years since the Romans left Britain, these handy stones have built houses, barn and walls all along the line of the Wall. Willowford Farm is full of them. One barn wall incorporates a stone with an inscription, the lettering all but faded: ‘The Fifth Cohort of the Century of Gellius Philippus (built this)’.

Beyond the farm, the river and its steep bank offered the Romans a natural defence. Here are the massive abutments of Hadrian’s great bridge across the river. Before a footbridge was built here in the 1960s, children walking to school in Gilsland would cross the river by aerial ropeway – what a thrill that must have been.

Beyond lies Birdoswald fort with its fine gateways, its drill hall and its pair of stone-paved granaries big enough to feed a garrison of up to a thousand men. Here you leave Hadrian’s wall and descend through hazel and oak wood to cross Harrow’s Beck, before a stretch of country road back into Gilsland.

 

Start: Samson Inn, Gilsland, Northumberland CA8 7DR (OS ref NY 636663)

Walk symbol: 3 and a half miles, 2 hours, OS Explorer OL43

Route: Gilsland – Hadrian’s Wall Path to Birdoswald Fort – lane towards Breckney Bed Bridge. Path (616665) – cross Harrow’s Beck to road (622669) at The Hill – right to Gilsland.

Lunch symbol: Samson Inn, Gilsland (01697-747220)

Grade: 2/5 boots. Good paths.

Info: Walk – http://www.eccp.org.uk/images/great-days-out/BirdO-Gilsland2.pdf

Birdoswald Roman Fort (01697-747602; www.english-heritage.org.uk/birdoswald); www.hadrians-wall.org

 

19. Old Military Road, Creetown to Gatehouse-of-Fleet, Dumfries & Galloway

Following the chaotic troop movements of the ’45 Jacobite Rebellion, the Old Military Road from Creetown to Gatehouse-of-Fleet was built in 1763 to allow soldiers an easy march through to Stranraer, port of embarkation for Ireland. You get a flavour of its military straightness and purpose as you follow it out of Creetown, a narrow tarmac ribbon running through woods and past a fine old stone circle, climbing over wild moors, to shed its surface and run as a stony green lane down to the poignant ruin of Anwoth Old Kirk with its tombs and inscriptions. Climb to the heights of the lumpy Boreland Hills (wonderful views), before descending into neat and charming Gatehouse of Fleet.

Start: Creetown clock tower, High Street/St John Street DG8 7JF (OS ref NX 476589)

Walk symbol: 9 miles, 4 hours, OS Explorers 311, 312

Route: Uphill up High Street (‘Gem Rock Museum’). In 150 yards, right (‘Glenquicken Farm’). Follow road for 5 miles, crossing Billy Diamond’s Bridge (508585) and stone circle beyond (far side of field on right; 509582) then past Cambret and Stronach Hills. Where road bend sharp right (548582) keep ahead (‘Lorry restriction’ sign) across Glen Bridge. 300 yards past Lauchentyre cottage, ahead over crossroads (561574); on for 3 miles to Anwoth. Up right side of Old Kirk (582562; ‘public path Gatehouse’); yellow arrows/YAs to gate into wood (584562). Steeply up; leave wood; left (YA). At next YA post bear left; follow YAs through hollows of Boreland Hills; down to Gatehouse-of-Fleet.

Return to Creetown: bus service 431 or 500/X75

Lunch symbol: Ship Inn, Gatehouse of Fleet (01557-814217; www.theshipinngatehouse.co.uk)

Grade: 2/5 boots. Easy all the way.

Info: Gatehouse TIC, Mill on the Fleet (01557-814212); www.visitdumfriesandgalloway.co.uk

 

20. Castle Archdale, Co Fermanagh

During the Second World War, Lower Lough Erne’s huge sheet of water was perfectly placed (once a secret deal over airspace had been struck with the Republic) for Sunderland and Catalina flying boats, based on the wooded peninsula of Castle Archdale, to hunt U-boats out in the Atlantic. Follow the waymarked World War II heritage trail as it loops round the headland, past fuel and ammunition stores as overgrown and ancient-looking as Stone Age huts, down to the marina with its big white beacon and memorial stone to wartime crash victims, and out along the ‘Burma Road’, a jungly path cut through the forest to reach the isolated explosives dumps. The lake views are superb, too.

Start: Castle Archdale Visitor Centre, near Lisnarick, BT94 1PP

Walk symbol: 2 and a half miles, 1-2 hours, OS of NI Discoverer 17; downloadable maps/instructions at www.walkni.com

Route: (World War 2 Heritage Trail marked with numbered posts): From Courtyard Centre car park, sharp left past ‘No Entry’ sign on path through trees. Follow ‘Woodland Walk’ signs to roadway. Left for 30 yards; right to marina. Left to beacon; left along shore path; bear right at yellow marker, continue on cycle track. At another yellow marker, right to shore path. Follow it through Skunk Hole car park. Follow ‘Butterfly Garden’ past pond, butterfly garden and deer enclosure. Dogleg right and left to gate at drive (don’t go through!). Left along path; right to castle gardens.

Lunch symbol: Tullana on the Green, Lisnarick (028-6862-8713; www.tullanaonthegreen.co.uk); Molly’s Bar, Irvinestown (028-6862-8777; www.mollysbarirvinestown.com)

Grade: 1/5 boots. Surfaced paths

Info: Castle Archdale Visitor Centre (028-6862-1588;

www.ni-environment.gov.uk/places_to_visit…/parks/archdale.htm) – winter opening Sundays, 12-4

www.discovernorthernireland.com

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