Christopher Somerville

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


A cloudy, murky morning over Cranborne Chase. The views from Win Green were all melted into muted greys. The topograph on the saddle of high ground hinted at the prospect: fifteen miles northeast to Salisbury, twice that to the Isle of Wight down in the southeast.

Children skipped and tumbled down the steep slope towards the wooded Ashcombe valley. The sharp spring wind was soon shut away, and calm descended on the deep green cleft where the path ran edged with primroses, violets and pungent wild garlic in full flower.

These woods of the Ashcombe Estate are a prime example of careful management and discreet signage. The vast hunting forest of Cranborne Chase, on whose borders they lie, was once a different affair – a tangled tract of deep forest where outlaws skulked and wild locals in straw helmets beat up gamekeepers and poached the deer.

Down in Tollard Royal all was peachy, the snugly thatched cottages of flint and clunch, the gossipers on the benches round the village pond, all in a Sunday morning peace under steep valley slopes.

We climbed over a ridge where spring lambs were busy butting milk out of their mothers’ udders. In the cleft below the rains of late winter were drying, leaving Munday’s Pond a soggy circle of nettles.

Our path lay uphill, breasting a slope beside the old hazel coppice of Rotherley Wood. A marvellous sentinel oak, twisted, split and bow-backed, stood with its feet in a flood of bluebells, and the hazel stools themselves were circled by the sharp evergreen leaves of butcher’s broom, another indicator of ancient woodland.

Up on the back of Rotherley Down lumps and bumps in the turf showed where a Romano-British settlement was excavated in 1886-7 by local landowner General Augustus Pitt Rivers. ‘Skulls’, says the inscription on a modest pillar. ‘1 was brachycephalic, 3 were mesaticephalic, 6 were dolichocephalic, 3 were hyperdoliocephalic, one was uncertain’. The General, father of modern British archaeology, remained an educator to his fingertips.

Beyond the settlement site we turned along the chalky white track of the old Ox Drove ridge road towards Win Green. The clouds had cleared, and the Isle of Wight lay blue and humped on an invisible sea far in the southeast, a view familiar to those residents of Rotherley Down two thousand years ago.

How hard is it? 7¼ miles; easy; downland and woodland tracks

Start: Win Green car park, near Tollard Royal, SP7 0ES (OS ref ST 924204)

Getting there: Tollard Royal (B3081) signed from A350 (Shaftesbury-Blandford Forum). At top of hill before Tollard Royal, follow ‘Donheads’, then ‘Win Green’.

Walk: Through gate at top of car park; follow path along fence and downhill. Follow ‘Wessex Ridgeway’/WR and ‘Footpath’ signs through Ashcombe valley. In 1¾ miles, hairpin back left (937185, ‘Tollard Royal’ fingerpost); in 50m right through 2 gates (WR); follow path with fence on right. In ¾ mile, just before Tollard Royal pond (945178), left over stile. (NB for King John Inn, right at road). From stile climb bank, at top, on through gate (arrow) along fenced path to stile (949181). Diagonally left down to gate (940184, Munday’s Pond on left). Ahead on grassy track up slope beside Rotherley Wood. In ⅔ mile track enters wood; ahead through gate onto open down; Pitt-Rivers information pillar and excavations to right (950194). Opposite pillar, left through gate; right up middle of fields (arrows) to Ox Drove road (949205). Left; in ½ mile fork left (938206, ‘Cranborne Droves Way’), then right on chalk trackway. In ¾ mile, beside NT ‘Win Green’ sign, left (928207) up grass path to car park.

Lunch/Accommodation: King John Inn, Tollard Royal SP5 5PS (01725-516207, kingjohninn.co.uk)

Info: cranbornechase.org.uk

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


The south Cotswold village of Miserden seems to have it all – shop, post office, school, dentist, craftspeople, (occasional) bus, and a cosy and welcoming pub. In addition it’s a pretty place of mellow limestone houses, barns and field walls.

Do rural Edens like this harbour serpents? Impossible to believe it as we passed a posse of happily babbling village toddlers on their morning constitutional and set out along an old country lane. Hock-deep mud and a surface abraded to stumbly rubble by winter’s floods soon brought us back to earth.

Two worlds intersected along the route from Miserden to Througham. The byway, evolved to suit man’s objectives, led purposefully between the two settlements, while claw-scraped mudslides in the banks marked the passage of animal highways crossing the man-made track on the way to and from unknowable destinations.

A grey squirrel scampered across the lane in front of me, so intent on its course that it darted right over the toe of my boot. The sunken track, more stream than lane, rose to Througham under hazels festooned with catkins and minuscule female flowers, tufty and scarlet.

We passed the handsome old country house of Througham Court, its gables pierced with dove holes. A high wall concealed a garden laid out by the owner according to mathematical formulae, medical principles and cosmic theory. Less abstruse but just as wonderful, a prunus on a grass triangle by the road stood covered with pink blossom, loudly humming with a smother of bees hard at work.

Another stony lane led to a pasture where seven roe deer ran in line across our path, each creature rising in turn to spring over a fence, easy grace personified.

In High Wood off-roaders had trenched the byway with ruts too deep and flooded to walk in. We teetered along the muddy margins before plunging down a hillside path to the hidden valley of the Dillay Brook. An upward slog, a tangle of storm-toppled trees to negotiate like a giant’s game of spillikins, and a last stretch through sheep pastures under a sky milky with late winter sunlight and jingling with the early spring twittering of skylarks.

How hard is it? 7 miles; moderate; muddy and wet in parts, especially in High Wood.

Start: Carpenter’s Arms, Miserden GL6 7JA (OS ref SO 937088).

Getting there: Off B4070 (Birdlip-Stroud)

Walk (OS Explorer 179); Leaving pub, right; at T-jct, right; in 200m, left (933086, ‘Restricted Byway’). In 400m, fork left (930085); follow lane to Througham. In ¾ mile where tarmac begins, left (921081). 50m past Througham Court, ahead off right bend (921078) along lane. In 300m fork right at sheds (921075). Green lane, then field paths to road (914074). Left; fork right; at T-jct, right (912073). In 450m cross road (908076), then 3 fields to lane (905079). Left (very muddy!). In ½ mile lane bends sharp right (899081); descend on side path with wall on right. In 150m fork downhill. At bottom, cross track (899085); up path opposite. In 350m at top of rise fork right past house (901087). In 200m, ahead (blue arrow) for ⅔ mile (some fallen trees to negotiate) to gate into field (912086). Path to cross 2 roads (914087, 916087); on down to Honeycombe Farm. Path (left side of silage clamp) to road; right (ignore ‘Private’ sign). At gate, left-hand of 2 stiles (923090); path uphill (gate, yellow arrow) across 3 fields to road (931090). On across field to road (933089); right into Miserden.

Lunch: Carpenter’s Arms, Miserden (01285-821283, thecarps-miserden.co.uk)

Accommodation: Falcon Inn, Painswick GL6 6UN (01452-222820, thefalconpainswick.com)

Info: Nailsworth TIC (01453-839222)

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


As we drove the narrow twisty road down Glenbrittle after a stormy night, it was a relief and a thrill to see the sharp silhouettes of the Black Cuillin mountains stamped against the sky.

We started up a broad steep grass slope towards Skye’s most magnificent backdrop, the Cuillin Ridge, standing dark and dramatic with clouds drifting among its razor-toothed peaks. The view back south was of dark blue waves riding in from Loch Brittle to cream on a long sandy beach.

Heather, moor grass and white crustose lichen clung to the peat that covered the underlying rock, grey knobbly gabbro from which the sun struck a cheerful sparkle. Violets were rebeginning to struggle out among the clumps, and curlews had already begun their haunting territorial calls.

The well-made path trickled with runnels as the rain-sodden slopes disgorged their surfeit of water. We paused for a breather and a look back over Loch Brittle to where the Cocktail Isles had slid into view – flat-backed Canna, mountainous Rhum and the volcanic prow of Eigg.

A posse of climbers heading for the ridge swung past us, belts a-clink with multicoloured clips. I felt my customary twinge of envy for their careless athleticism and daring, then bent my efforts once more to the upward climb.

Now the sunshine fell behind and we were forging up the cleft of Coire Lagan in the shadow of the Cuillin ridge. A short sharp scramble up a jumbled staircase of rocks with a stream hissing down beside the path. Then the reward at the top of the climb, the still black pool of Loch Coire Lagan under tremendous upthrusts of black gabbro, with the shark fin of Sgùrr Thearlaich rising dramatically to the 992-metre pyramid of Sgùrr Alasdair, highest peak in the islands.

Descending past Loch an Fhir-bhallaich towards Eas Mòr’s horse-tail plume of falling water, we stopped for a last look at the high black rock spires of the Cuillin Ridge. The clouds were already drifting back, and against their grey backdrop a magnificent golden eagle, monarch of the range, was slowly wheeling away.

How hard is it? 5¼ miles; strenuous; mountain paths; one short, steep ascent with a little scrambling. For experienced, sure-footed walkers. Wear hill-walking gear; take map/GPS; consult weather forecast (mwis.org.uk)

Start: Car parking area near Glen Brittle campsite, IV47 8TA (OS ref NG 410205)

Getting there: From Skye Bridge, A87 north to Sligachan. Left on A863 (‘Dunvegan’). In 5 miles, left on B8009 (‘Glenbrittle, Carbost’). In 1.6 miles, sharp left at Merkadale for 8 miles (narrow road) to Glenbrittle.

Walk (OS Explorer 411): From car park area at end of road, continue along track. Pass to left of campsite toilet block (pitched corrugated roof); through kissing gate; up path. In a few metres fork left on path. In 600m ignore path that heads to right (421203) across small burn and waterfall; keep ahead uphill here. In ¾ mile ignore a left fork (434206), and another in 400m with a big cairn (438206), both these paths leading past Loch an Fhir-bhallaich; instead, keep ahead up main path. In another 200m path steepens beside Coire Lagan burn on your right, leading up a rocky ‘staircase’ to Loch Coire Lagan (444209). Return down same path; in ½ mile, near large boulder on right (438206), fork right at big cairn on path for 2 miles, passing Loch an Fhir-bhallaich (432208) and later Eas Mòr waterfall (420214) to descend to road at Glenbrittle House (412214). Left along road for ⅔ mile to car park.

Lunch: Picnic

Accommodation: Sligachan Hotel, IV47 8SW (01478-650204, sligachan.co.uk)

Info: walkhighlands.co.uk; visitscotland.com

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


The sky over eastern Cumbria was sliced in two: a great smoking curl of mist obscuring the tops of the North Pennine Hills standing east of Dufton, and away to the west beyond the green Vale of Eden a field of brilliant blue above the sunlit fells of the Lake District.

Down below the village Dufton Ghyll rushed in curls of bubbles between the sandstone walls of its miniature gorge. ‘Dan McPhee, 1874’ read a graffito scored in square letters into the dusky red rock, legacy of some long-forgotten quarryman. ‘Cockdick’, said another – maybe a nickname, maybe an insult.

Below the mossy quarry faces the path twisted among fallen fragments of beech and birch, then climbed to green pastures by way of stone steps hewn and placed by the quarrymen. In the yard at Greenhow Farm a collie crouched on guard on the tray of a quad bike; he never budged a muscle, only swivelling his narrowed eyes to track my progress out of his domain.

In the fields beyond, a gang of rams, muddy-coated and curly-horned, stood stolidly and stared me out. The sodden path squelched and slithered underfoot as I crossed Keisley Beck and came down into Flakebridge Wood.

From the sunless cottages at Flakebridge a rough path traced the lower edge of the wood, passing under beech boughs as yet leafless. Wild geese flew clamouring overhead, shadowy presences beyond the treetops – pinkfeet, I guessed, en route to their night roost.

The rutted farm road of Frith Lane led on to Esplandhill where a range of superb old sandstone barns stood tall. Tiny spears of bluebells were already pushing up in the hedge roots beyond, and a wren sang its chittering song in the alders along Brampton Beck where I crossed the racing water swollen with recent rainfall.

A final stretch northwards ran between wet rushy fields along Wood Lane. Moles had been driven up from underground by the flooding; their castles of finely dug earth stood tall, temporary refuge until their tunnels dried out under spring sunshine and became habitable once more. Ahead beckoned the cone of Dufton Pike, gilded by late afternoon sunshine, as my internal compass set course for the cheerful taproom of the Stag Inn on Dufton’s village green.

How hard is it? 5½ miles; easy; field paths. NB: Some fallen trees to negotiate around Dufton Ghyll.

Start: Dufton car park, Dufton, CA16 6DB (OS ref NY 690250)

Getting there: Dufton is signed from B6542 in Appleby (A66 Brough-Penrith)

Walk (OS Explorer OL19): Right along road; immediately right (‘Dufton Ghyll’); descend to cross ghyll (wooden footbridge, NOT stone bridge!). Left along bank (yellow arrow/YA). In ⅓ mile at Redbanks Bridge dogleg left/right over road (694245; ‘Keisley, Flakebridge’). On through Greenhow farmyard; follow ‘A Pennine Journey’ across fields (YAs, stiles). In 1¼ miles cross footbridge and stile opposite (706231, YA). Right up bank to wall stile beyond (705230, YA). Down to stile at corner of wood (704229); half left to ladder stile (703226). Cross stream; into Flakebridge Wood. In 150m join track (703225); in 100m, left at junction, down to Flakebridge (704220). Bear right on track, keeping to edge of wood. In 1 mile leave wood (693229, stile); follow Frith Lane to road at Esplandhill (685230). Right; in 100m left past Brampton Watermill. In 400m right over footbridge (683234); left to join Wood Lane. In 1 mile enter Dufton Ghyll Wood (688249); down to cross ghyll (footbridge); up into Dufton.

Lunch: Stag Inn, Dufton (01768-351608, thestagdufton.co.uk)

Accommodation: Crown & Cushion, Appleby CA16 6XB (01768-351595, robinsonsbrewery.com)

Info: Appleby TIC (01768-351177)

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


An ice-cold breeze coming east off the Chiltern Hills stung my eyes with wind tears as I followed the puddled track of the Icknield Way out of Bledlow. The low winter sun topped the trees on the crest of Wain Hill and threw the medieval ridge-and-furrow of the fields below the slope into sharp relief.

The Icknield Way, ancient thoroughfare across these chalk lands, ran at the feet of the hills. Soon I turned off on a carpet of wind-blown beech and oak leaves, into a steep holloway that rose up the escarpment in the chilly shade of a yew grove.

Near the top a fat ginger tomcat on a cold tin roof yawned massively as he watched me go by with supreme indifference. A path at the crest of the ridge brought me to a wonderful viewpoint over the Vale of Aylesbury where the sun was sweeping up the last of the morning mist and spreading golden light like butter over thirty miles of low-lying country.

A flock of goldfinches, softly twittering, flitted away from the thistle heads where they had been feasting. I passed the Bronze Age burial mounds of Chinnor Barrows, smothered under juniper and bramble, and dipped down another slippery hollow to the feet of the scarp once more.

The Ridgeway, companion to the Icknield Way, ran here in a succession of snaky curves under beech and ash. Silver birch trunks, their heartwood rotted where they lay, were no more than empty cylinders of bark where spiders and tiny beetles lay in their winter inertia.

The pearlescent sun swam down between the bare treetops of Thickthorne Wood. I followed a footpath over the grassy billows of the lower slopes before setting back across bare, silent stubble fields. A red kite wheeled down to land nearby and pick up a worm, short commons in the hungry months of the year.

Back in Bledlow with its beautiful old Church of the Holy Trinity and charming cottages of brick and timber framing, I ducked into the Lions of Bledlow pub. Literally ducked – the place was full of scalp-scraping beams, a properly cosy pub for sitting and replaying this perfect winter walk.

How hard is it? 5 miles; easy, but muddy, sticky and slippery in places!

Start: Church End, Bledlow HP27 9PD (OS ref SP 778021)

Getting there: Bus 320 (Chinnor – Princes Risborough)
Road: Bledlow (NB – not Bledlow Ridge!) is signed off B4009 between Chinnor and Princes Risborough (A4129/A4010)

Walk (OS Explorer 171): Beside Lions of Bledlow PH, through gate (‘Footpath only’), across field, right along Icknield Way/IW (775017). In ½ mile at Hempton Wainhill, follow IW/Ridgeway between two houses and on (770012). In 600m fork left uphill (767009, ‘Bridleway, Wildlife Walk’). At top of rise, left over barrier (767002, ‘Chinnor Barrows’) and on. In ⅔ mile, back at Hempton Wainhill, right (IW). In 100m in front of house, fork right (770012, ‘Ridgeway/IW/Bridleway’). In ½ mile, just past track crossing, right (778011, gate, ‘Footpath’) across fields, soon with trees/fence on left. In ½ mile, just before crossing hedge, left (782006, gate). Right; in 20m, right (gate, ‘footpath’); cross field; cross Wigan’s Lane (784004). Down driveway; in 400m on right bend, left (787001, blue, yellow arrows). In 100m path bends left; in 300m, before waymark post (787004), left through hedge; recross Wigan’s Lane (785005). Follow fence; in 300m pass ‘Footpath’ gate; in 20m left (782006, gate); right along hedge. In 200m fork right through trees (781008); cross IW (781011); path by hedge to Bledlow.

Lunch: Lions of Bledlow PH (01844-343345, thelionsofbledlow.co.uk)

Accommodation: Inn at Emmington, Sydenham OX39 4LD (01844-351367, theinnatemmington.co.uk)

Info: chilternsaonb.org