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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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?
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| Pretty non-native tree |
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.
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| 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.
