Cotswold Way : Stage 4

Old Sodbury to Hawkesbury Upton – 26 November 2018

View towards Chipping Sodbury

Here we are (all four of us) on a train again, surprisingly empty for a Monday morning. The new “normal” train from Didcot Parkway (to give it its official title) to Bristol Parkway and then to Yate. Yes it was “new” being one of the bimodes (electric and diesel). All very nice, but hard seats and noisy when under diesel power. Anyhow let’s not get started about trains. 

We arrived in Yate just after 11am and caught a bus to Yate Bus Station. The driver thought we were on the wrong bus thinking that when we said “bus station” we wanted to go to Bristol. We changed buses and headed out to Old Sodbury opposite the Dog Inn where we left off last time.

St John's, Old Sodbury

Interesting bus fare charging system. N was charged over £2 for a journey of about 1.5 miles from Yate station to the bus station in Yate but about half of this for the further distance out to Old Sodbury. On the return later that day, Hawkesbury Upton to Yate station was less than £2 for a distance of at least 10 miles!

We headed off through a farm yard and followed the signs up the hill slope to Old Sodbury church. It was a fine day, sunny at times though a bit cool if you stayed still for too long. The clouds had lifted and there was a fine view out to the west. We debated what the far hills were, probably the Forest of Dean.

Our route for the day was to follow the Cotswold Way until Hawkesbury Upton. P had researched the buses and determined that we could make it there in time to catch the bus back.

Black sheep

Ramparts, Sodbury fort

The first point of interest was the remains of the iron-age hill fort of Sodbury, Grid Reference ST7606 8260. The guide book claims that this is one of the most impressive on the Cotswold Way. The ramparts were in good condition and the site would have commanded great views and protected quite a population of people and animals. These days the site is grazed by many sheep, a considerable number of them being of a black variety.

The path dropped down the scarp slope into the hamlet of Little Sodbury. As we have probably remarked before gaining altitude and then losing it shortly afterwards is the nature of the Cotswold Way.

St Adeline's church, Little Sodbury

Little Sodbury has a church with an interesting name, St Adeline (ST7574 8324). P who had been reading the guidebook in advance of today’s walk said that William Tyndale was chaplain here in 1521. Tyndale translated Erasmus’s writings and published the first English version of the Bible. More about him when we get to the Tyndale Monument next year (with any luck). Back to St Adeline, she was a great granddaughter of William the Conqueror and an Abbess of the Benedictine order who died in 1125. Apparently this is the only church in the United Kingdom named after St. Adeline.

It was time for lunch so we agreed to stop at the next convenient bench or sitting place. We found some old tree trunks near Horton reservoir (ST7606 8374) and had our various lunchtime snacks looking up a dry valley towards an "improved" farmhouse.

A grand prospect?

Discussions turned to the ever present, “Elephant in the Room”, topic of Brexit. In keeping with our rule “what is said on the walk stays on the walk” it would be remiss of your correspondent to report who said what etc. However, we agreed to only talk about Brexit in the future on uphill sections when the exertion would limit our ability to say much between gasps for breath!

Horton Fort

Up another steep hill (thankfully short) to the village of Horton and then a climb again past a restored dovecote (folly), (ST7645 8428). Our book comments that this restoration was a millennium project to encourage swallows and barn owls. At the top of the hill was another fort though this one was less impressive that the one earlier in the day.

Still great views out to the west. Guess what as we entered the woods above Horton Court (National Trust) we dropped down the slope and then had to slowly climb up through the woods again to the 200m contour.

Horton millennium folly

It was then an easy path towards Hawkesbury Upton passing the horse riders we had heard setting out from Horton earlier.

We reached the bus stop and decided to amble up to the Somerset monument (ST7723 8765) and have a look. This was erected in the memory of General Lord Somerset who served with Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo. It is here because his ancestral lands are at Badminton about 5 miles away.

Somerset monument

Back to the bus stop (ST7751 8735) and time to finish our lunchtime snacks and have a nip of Sloe Gin. Bus arrived just about on time and got us back to Yate station with a change at the bus station in time for the convenient train back home.

Splendid view towards Wales

 

Well that was another pleasant walk with some great views. Even shorter today at just 5.5 miles (8.8 km). We are now 24 miles from Bath. That wraps it up for 2018. We will look at local walks around Oxford and leave the Cotswold Way until the Spring when longer days return. 

Cotswold Way : Stage 3

Dunsdown Farm to Old Sodbury – 5 November 2018

Stand by, we have a change. Not the “usual” train from Didcot to Bath Spa but a slightly later train to Bristol Parkway and then to Yate. P & T were interested (excited?) to, at last, travel the line between Swindon to Bristol Parkway. Great pity that the station at Badminton had closed years ago as that would be an ideal destination. Never mind we got to see the delights of Yate. This apparently growing, South Gloucestershire, town is an interesting contrast to the neighbouring Chipping Sodbury.

Electric view

Our journey out was an opportunity to catch up on news. T had been away, up in the Yorkshire Dales, and P had finally been to see a Reading Between the Lines production – in this case the excellent Henry II, the third of their historical plays. We discussed the last post of Walking Middle England and decided that the Royal Oak, Bath had been under marked. T was charged with making the revision and give it an extra point, to 5/6 out of 10.

Not the usual pylon

On arrival in Yate we phoned for a taxi and after a short wait in the sunny carpark were heading off to the start of today's walk at Dunsmore farm. N noticed the Whirlpool factory in Yate and the taxi driver told us that it used to be an armaments factory during the Second World War and was bombed with some fatalities. The driver was a mine of information and later on as we reached the top of the Cotswolds she pointed out the inn that the Queen had to stay in one snow-bound night many years ago (Queen Elizabeth II stayed here!) and the entrance to Dodington Park estate, now owned by James Dyson. We would be walking back through the estate later in the day.

Just above the M4

We reached our start point roughly where we finished up last time and carefully crossed the busy A46 and set of on the Cotswold Way. The clouds slowly broke up and the sun came out on what proved to be a mild day for early November.

There was a reasonable view obstructed by pylons climbing up the scarp face of the Cotswolds. Interesting design of pylon, was this the new design or something that had been modified to make less (?) of an impact on the Cotswolds? We passed several other walkers heading towards Bath and then we crossed the A46 again heading towards Tormarton.

New stone wall

There were some impressive new stone walls around the fields. This was quite an investment and got us talking about how long it would take to build these and at what cost. Presumably, in the past, stone walls were built as there was readily available stone and this was a way to remove stones from the fields. These new walls were built from well-dressed stone that had been transported from a quarry somewhere in the Cotswolds but not necessarily local, (Grid Reference ST7612 7803).The picture below shows the profile on the walls. Well done to whoever had commissioned and built these walls.

M4 looking east

We crossed the M4 (ST7709 7822) and headed into the village of Tormarton. Despite being a mile or so from the Motorway there was a low rumble of traffic all the time. We guess if you live there you get used to it. We found some benches in the children's soft play area and had our packed lunches, ST7704 7866. We then headed off and followed the waymarked route that takes a tour of the village by way of the church. The churchyard had a notice saying that it contained some Commonwealth War Graves.

The route took us around the village and eventually across the A46 again and into Dodington Park. This was certainly a contrast to the hinterland of the busy main road. The park is situated on the edge of the Cotswolds and has the air of a grand, well-managed parkland. Attractive copses of trees, starting to turn into autumn colours. The hand of Capability Brown was clearly evident. The well signed path crossed the juvenile river Frome (ST7612 7917) and continued across the park and eventually came out at the hamlet of Coomb's End.

In Dodington Park

It was difficult to see Dodington House (perhaps that is the plan). P did some research later and discovered that the original house was built in 1795 and was one of the largest houses in the Cotswolds. The house was built on the profits from the slave trade by the Codrington family who also owned estates in Barbados, Antigua and the whole island of Barbuda. They owned it until 1980 and then James Dyson bought it in 2003. Apparently it cost £20 million, roughly £390,000 per bedroom. 

Oak tree - Dodington Park

Talk of the man lead us onto discussing vacuum cleaners (as you do). A wondered why we as a nation seem to distrust successful business people/inventors. Is it a flaw in our national make-up? Is it envy? Is it based on experience, think back to folk such as Maxwell, Sinclair, etc? No firm conclusion but it made for an interesting debate.

Passed some ladies out walking excitable small dogs, several Yorkshire Terriers. Question for our resident Yorkshireman. Why does such a big tough county like Yorkshire give its name to a small noisy silly toy dog?

Pretty non-native tree

Crossed the course of the Sodbury Tunnel and found the Dog Inn pub in Old Sodbury, ST7533 8152. What do we do carry on for a bit or stop now, have some refreshment and catch the bus back to Yate station? It was 15:15 and there would be only another hour and half of day-light at best. So we stopped and had a couple of drinks. Agreed that we rate this as a 4 out of 10 especially as we had rerated the Royal Inn as 5.5.

Bus was on time and took us around Chipping Sodbury (it was a service serving the local secondary school) and some speedy work by A & N at Yate Bus Station meant we caught the connecting bus to Yate station with no delay.

Cotswold scarp - Dodington Park

We managed to catch a slightly earlier train back to Bristol Parkway and then our connection back to Didcot, etc. Weather permitting we agreed to meet up again on Monday 26 November 2018.

 

Rather a short stage, just 5.8 miles (9.4km). We've made progress though, now north of the M4, and moved from OS Explorer map 155 to 167! A pleasant autumn walk with interesting contrasting places.