white_hart (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
white_hart) wrote2019-07-03 07:50 pm
white_hart) wrote2019-07-03 07:50 pm
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Walking: three days in the Cotswolds
We're off to Scotland again at the end of August, heading back to Fort William to pick up where we left off at the end of the West Highland Way and walk the Great Glen Way to Inverness. In preparation for this (and also because we enjoy it anyway) we've been upping our walking distances, and a few weeks ago we also started talking about the possibility of doing a two-day walk with a night in a B&B to help us get back into the habit of doing long walks on consecutive days. At first the plan was to do a two-day walk, getting the train to Moreton-in-Marsh and walking to Charlbury via an overnight stop in Bourton-on-the-Water, but then we looked more closely at the map and measured distances with a bit of string and realised that it would be perfectly possible to walk home from Charlbury in a day via the Oxfordshire Way and the Oxford Canal towpath, so we extended it to a three-day walk. Unlike our normal multi-day walks, for this one we carried everything with us, but it's not as if three days of walking in high summer require that much in the way of luggage (pyjamas, two spare tops, two pairs of pants, two pairs of socks, deodorant, toothbrush) and although I'm still wondering if my new 30l daypack is slightly too big for a day's walking it was the perfect size for a three-day walk, with enough space to add in my walking sandals so I didn't have to spend the evenings in boots.
We started early on Sunday, heading to Oxford station where we had to get a rail replacement bus to Hanborough at 10:15 to catch the 11 o'clock train to Moreton-in-Marsh. This was a bit annoying, given that Hanborough station is actually closer to our house than Oxford station, but it's basically inaccessible by public transport other than the trains and taxis cost ridiculous amounts of money, and we didn't want to wait until the next train which wouldn't have involved the replacement bus as that wouldn't have got us to Moreton-in-Marsh until 12:30 which seemed rather late to start, even though this leg was about 5 miles shorter than the other two. Having studied the map before setting off, we decided to follow the Monarch's Way, a long-distance path approximating to Charles I's escape route after the Battle of Worcester, which goes from Moreton-in-Marsh to Bourton-on-the-Water via Stow-on-the-Wold, which seemed like a good place to stop for a lateish lunch (and, as it transpired, to visit a branch of Mountain Warehouse and buy a new hat, as I took mine off on the bus into town and put it on my lap, and only realised when I went to do the same thing on the rail replacement bus that I had clearly forgotten to put it back on again when I was getting off the bus). The Monarch's Way turned out to be well-maintained and well enough signposted that I only had to refer to my map for confirmation and not to find the way; the Moreton-in-Marsh to Stow-on-the-Wold section was pleasant enough if not particularly exciting, climbing gently through fields to the village of Longborough where it briefly joined the Heart of England Way before the two paths diverged, the Heart of England way heading for the villages of Upper and Lower Swell (which I think would have been pretty, if we hadn't been aiming for Stow) and the Monarch's Way climbing through woods to the village of Donnington then descending slightly to cross the Fosse Way (A429) and pass through Broadwell before the final climb up to Stow-on-the-Wold. This started with a rather dull road climb but then veered off down a green lane before climbing up the side of a valley past the wells which used to provide the town's water supply.
After lunch in one of Stow-on-the-Wold's many teashops, we set off on the second leg of the walk, which turned out to be much the nicer part of it; after descending Stow Hill we crossed the River Dikler to walk through wildflower meadows and fields to the picturesque Lower Slaughter, then climbed one last hill before descending into Bourton-on-the-Water. We arrived there just before 5pm, when it was still full of visitors, but a couple of hours later, once we'd checked in to our B&B, showered and headed out again in search of dinner it was much quieter and we had a pleasant stroll by the river before picking a restaurant with outdoor seating overlooking the water.
Monday's walk took us from Bourton-on-the-Water to Charlbury, following the Oxfordshire Way (which, despite its name, starts 6 miles over the border in Gloucestershire). After leaving the town we walked through more lovely water meadows around the River Eye to reach the pretty village of Wyck Rissington, then climbed steeply to the top of a ridge before descending past the buildings of the Gawcombe estate and across more meadows to cross the Westcombe Brook and climb gently through fields to the village of Bledington. Bledington is only a mile from Kingham station, and we'd done the section from here to Charlbury (the last 11 miles or so of a 17.2-mile walk) last summer, so for most of the rest of the day we didn't even need to look at the walk directions (which I'd printed from the county council website making use of the printer's booklet functionality, which worked very well even if I did have to fold the pages over to get them far enough into the stapler to staple the middle), much less the maps. Given that this section was at the joins between three different OS maps, and on both sides of one of those, this was not a bad thing.
Shortly after leaving Bledington the path met the River Evenlode, which it more or less followed for the rest of the day, following the river valley across fields (where we saw two roe deer) and through woods to the Bruern Abbey estate, across the estate and through the fields to Shipton-under-Wychwood, then crossing to follow the other side of the valley to Ascott-under-Wychwood, over the river twice and then through quiet fields to Charlbury. We stopped for lunch at a pub in Shipton-on-Cherwell (where I suspect that the speed at which I drank my cranberry juice and ordered another one may have given the staff the erroneous impression that I was suffering from cystitis and not just the effects of walking 10 miles in the heat) although either the richness of my lunch (the pub version of a "fish finger" sandwich, ie fish gougons in tartare sauce rather than actual fish fingers) or the unaccustomed cooked breakfast I'd eaten at our B&B (which I hadn't really wanted, but hadn't been quick enough to decline when checking in on Sunday afternoon) was clearly a bit much for my digestive system and I spent quite a lot of the afternoon's walk with stomachache; still, there were some lovely views across the fields (I particularly liked the one I photographed, across a field of ripening barley with the light somehow just right) and, as an added bonus, I now know that I am capable of having a pee out of doors without peeing on my trousers which will be a useful thing to know on long days in the Highlands.
As Charlbury is only 12 miles and a 20-minute drive from our house, and we often start walks from there, it felt very strange to be staying the night there; a strangeness which was only exacerbated by bumping into a former colleague as I walked up the road to to Co-op shortly after we'd checked in. We stayed at the Bull Inn, which was very nice, although its location on the main street of the village meant that it wasn't as quiet as the B&B in Bourton-on-the-Water and we were woken up by the traffic early in the morning; we also had a very nice dinner there.
After breakfast at the Bull (£10 per person on top of the room cost, which I think worked out as a bargain despite neither of us wanting cereal in addition to the French toast advertised at £7 to non-residents, given that we did also have tea and rather a lot of orange juice) we headed out of Charlbury in the direction of Stonesfield. We walked along a tree-lined bridleway for what felt like much more than the "half a mile" indicated in the directions (my trusty string later suggested that it was more like 0.8 miles) and then across fields before climbing up the hill Stonesfield sits on and back down the other side to the ford and bridge over the Evenlode, where instead of crossing we headed slightly north of east along a path following the course of the Roman Akeman Street. After a couple of miles the path crossed into the Blenheim Palace estate and carried on across the parkland (with a view towards the distant palace where it crossed the main driveway) to reach the A44. Crossing the A44, there was a section of road, still following Akeman Street down to a bridge over the River Glyme and then up again, and then across more fields, crossing the ancient drove road Dornford Lane, and through a small copse to the A4260. We stopped at the Sturdy's Castle Inn for lunch, which turned out to be a bizarrely popular place given that while the sandwiches we had were basically adequate (it's quite hard to fuck up a tuna sandwich), describing the salad garnish as 'tired' would be generous and, most unsettlingly, one of my chips had ketchup on the end (I don't even want to think about how that can have got there).
Crossing the A4260, the final descent to the Cherwell valley took us across several fields with glorious wild verges full of bees and butterflies enjoying the flowers, through a small patch of woodland and under the railway line before crossing several streams of the Cherwell to reach Pigeon's Lock on the Oxford Canal. We left the Oxfordshire Way here (although we have plans to come back and walk the rest of the path in sections over the summer) to head back to Kidlington down the canal towpath, passing from the stretch between Pigeon's Lock and Enslow that we'd only visited before many years ago when we did the whole canal by narrowboat, to the section between Enslow and Shipton-on-Cherwell where the canal and the Cherwell run together which we have walked before although not often (and we should walk it more often, as it's a particularly lovely bit), to Shipton and Thrupp and the bit of towpath we walk regularly, and finally back home to shower and order a takeaway and flop in front of an old episode of Great Canal Journeys in the exhausted manner of people who have walked just under 45 miles in the last three days.
Generally, this was a really nice walk along well-maintained and well-signposted paths. It was a great way to relax and unwind after another busy term at work, and it was fun to go away with such minimal luggage and not have to make any decisions at all about what to wear. It also demonstrated that, lovely as Scotland is, it's not always necessary to travel a long way to find adventure or get away from things; Moreton-in-Marsh is only a couple of hours away by public transport, even with the rail replacement bus, and only 20 miles from us by road, and yet we managed a fabulous three days of meandering gently back home and might have been hundreds of miles away for all the thought we gave to home, work and normal life.
We started early on Sunday, heading to Oxford station where we had to get a rail replacement bus to Hanborough at 10:15 to catch the 11 o'clock train to Moreton-in-Marsh. This was a bit annoying, given that Hanborough station is actually closer to our house than Oxford station, but it's basically inaccessible by public transport other than the trains and taxis cost ridiculous amounts of money, and we didn't want to wait until the next train which wouldn't have involved the replacement bus as that wouldn't have got us to Moreton-in-Marsh until 12:30 which seemed rather late to start, even though this leg was about 5 miles shorter than the other two. Having studied the map before setting off, we decided to follow the Monarch's Way, a long-distance path approximating to Charles I's escape route after the Battle of Worcester, which goes from Moreton-in-Marsh to Bourton-on-the-Water via Stow-on-the-Wold, which seemed like a good place to stop for a lateish lunch (and, as it transpired, to visit a branch of Mountain Warehouse and buy a new hat, as I took mine off on the bus into town and put it on my lap, and only realised when I went to do the same thing on the rail replacement bus that I had clearly forgotten to put it back on again when I was getting off the bus). The Monarch's Way turned out to be well-maintained and well enough signposted that I only had to refer to my map for confirmation and not to find the way; the Moreton-in-Marsh to Stow-on-the-Wold section was pleasant enough if not particularly exciting, climbing gently through fields to the village of Longborough where it briefly joined the Heart of England Way before the two paths diverged, the Heart of England way heading for the villages of Upper and Lower Swell (which I think would have been pretty, if we hadn't been aiming for Stow) and the Monarch's Way climbing through woods to the village of Donnington then descending slightly to cross the Fosse Way (A429) and pass through Broadwell before the final climb up to Stow-on-the-Wold. This started with a rather dull road climb but then veered off down a green lane before climbing up the side of a valley past the wells which used to provide the town's water supply.
After lunch in one of Stow-on-the-Wold's many teashops, we set off on the second leg of the walk, which turned out to be much the nicer part of it; after descending Stow Hill we crossed the River Dikler to walk through wildflower meadows and fields to the picturesque Lower Slaughter, then climbed one last hill before descending into Bourton-on-the-Water. We arrived there just before 5pm, when it was still full of visitors, but a couple of hours later, once we'd checked in to our B&B, showered and headed out again in search of dinner it was much quieter and we had a pleasant stroll by the river before picking a restaurant with outdoor seating overlooking the water.
Monday's walk took us from Bourton-on-the-Water to Charlbury, following the Oxfordshire Way (which, despite its name, starts 6 miles over the border in Gloucestershire). After leaving the town we walked through more lovely water meadows around the River Eye to reach the pretty village of Wyck Rissington, then climbed steeply to the top of a ridge before descending past the buildings of the Gawcombe estate and across more meadows to cross the Westcombe Brook and climb gently through fields to the village of Bledington. Bledington is only a mile from Kingham station, and we'd done the section from here to Charlbury (the last 11 miles or so of a 17.2-mile walk) last summer, so for most of the rest of the day we didn't even need to look at the walk directions (which I'd printed from the county council website making use of the printer's booklet functionality, which worked very well even if I did have to fold the pages over to get them far enough into the stapler to staple the middle), much less the maps. Given that this section was at the joins between three different OS maps, and on both sides of one of those, this was not a bad thing.
Shortly after leaving Bledington the path met the River Evenlode, which it more or less followed for the rest of the day, following the river valley across fields (where we saw two roe deer) and through woods to the Bruern Abbey estate, across the estate and through the fields to Shipton-under-Wychwood, then crossing to follow the other side of the valley to Ascott-under-Wychwood, over the river twice and then through quiet fields to Charlbury. We stopped for lunch at a pub in Shipton-on-Cherwell (where I suspect that the speed at which I drank my cranberry juice and ordered another one may have given the staff the erroneous impression that I was suffering from cystitis and not just the effects of walking 10 miles in the heat) although either the richness of my lunch (the pub version of a "fish finger" sandwich, ie fish gougons in tartare sauce rather than actual fish fingers) or the unaccustomed cooked breakfast I'd eaten at our B&B (which I hadn't really wanted, but hadn't been quick enough to decline when checking in on Sunday afternoon) was clearly a bit much for my digestive system and I spent quite a lot of the afternoon's walk with stomachache; still, there were some lovely views across the fields (I particularly liked the one I photographed, across a field of ripening barley with the light somehow just right) and, as an added bonus, I now know that I am capable of having a pee out of doors without peeing on my trousers which will be a useful thing to know on long days in the Highlands.
As Charlbury is only 12 miles and a 20-minute drive from our house, and we often start walks from there, it felt very strange to be staying the night there; a strangeness which was only exacerbated by bumping into a former colleague as I walked up the road to to Co-op shortly after we'd checked in. We stayed at the Bull Inn, which was very nice, although its location on the main street of the village meant that it wasn't as quiet as the B&B in Bourton-on-the-Water and we were woken up by the traffic early in the morning; we also had a very nice dinner there.
After breakfast at the Bull (£10 per person on top of the room cost, which I think worked out as a bargain despite neither of us wanting cereal in addition to the French toast advertised at £7 to non-residents, given that we did also have tea and rather a lot of orange juice) we headed out of Charlbury in the direction of Stonesfield. We walked along a tree-lined bridleway for what felt like much more than the "half a mile" indicated in the directions (my trusty string later suggested that it was more like 0.8 miles) and then across fields before climbing up the hill Stonesfield sits on and back down the other side to the ford and bridge over the Evenlode, where instead of crossing we headed slightly north of east along a path following the course of the Roman Akeman Street. After a couple of miles the path crossed into the Blenheim Palace estate and carried on across the parkland (with a view towards the distant palace where it crossed the main driveway) to reach the A44. Crossing the A44, there was a section of road, still following Akeman Street down to a bridge over the River Glyme and then up again, and then across more fields, crossing the ancient drove road Dornford Lane, and through a small copse to the A4260. We stopped at the Sturdy's Castle Inn for lunch, which turned out to be a bizarrely popular place given that while the sandwiches we had were basically adequate (it's quite hard to fuck up a tuna sandwich), describing the salad garnish as 'tired' would be generous and, most unsettlingly, one of my chips had ketchup on the end (I don't even want to think about how that can have got there).
Crossing the A4260, the final descent to the Cherwell valley took us across several fields with glorious wild verges full of bees and butterflies enjoying the flowers, through a small patch of woodland and under the railway line before crossing several streams of the Cherwell to reach Pigeon's Lock on the Oxford Canal. We left the Oxfordshire Way here (although we have plans to come back and walk the rest of the path in sections over the summer) to head back to Kidlington down the canal towpath, passing from the stretch between Pigeon's Lock and Enslow that we'd only visited before many years ago when we did the whole canal by narrowboat, to the section between Enslow and Shipton-on-Cherwell where the canal and the Cherwell run together which we have walked before although not often (and we should walk it more often, as it's a particularly lovely bit), to Shipton and Thrupp and the bit of towpath we walk regularly, and finally back home to shower and order a takeaway and flop in front of an old episode of Great Canal Journeys in the exhausted manner of people who have walked just under 45 miles in the last three days.
Generally, this was a really nice walk along well-maintained and well-signposted paths. It was a great way to relax and unwind after another busy term at work, and it was fun to go away with such minimal luggage and not have to make any decisions at all about what to wear. It also demonstrated that, lovely as Scotland is, it's not always necessary to travel a long way to find adventure or get away from things; Moreton-in-Marsh is only a couple of hours away by public transport, even with the rail replacement bus, and only 20 miles from us by road, and yet we managed a fabulous three days of meandering gently back home and might have been hundreds of miles away for all the thought we gave to home, work and normal life.
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