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.