Uley to Wotton-Under-Edge

Ta-Da!! 14 miles today, and the weather was great. Partly cloudy, a little cool, and a little windy. But don’t think that we’re complaining.  It was nice enough that at a point in the route today where we had the option of taking an additional two mile route looping around a golf course, we did that.

The first big uphill today took us up onto Cam Long Down. That sounds like a Vietnamese name, but in reality, it’s a big long ridge with terrific 360 degree views. I’ll put some of these pictures in a separate post. Then, a long downhill into Dursley. We had a couple of great dog encounters that will also be a separate post.

Speaking of dogs…. In the first couple of hours walking this morning we probably passed a couple of dozen people out for a Saturday morning walk. And with one exception, they all had their dog (or dogs) with them. It’s really true that the British are a dog loving nation. Every day, even in terrible weather, we’ve seen people taking their dogs out for a run. On the other hand, we’ve seen only one family out with their children. It also should be noted that all the dogs we’ve seen have been really well trained. Does anyone besides me remember the TV show from years ago that featured the kind of dowdy British lady who trained dogs so well? This was way before the Dog Whisperer. Can’t remember the name of the lady, or the show.

Marty said he read someplace that when they banned smoking in pubs it wounded the pubs, but if Britain ever banned dogs from pubs it would be the death of them. One of the locals at the pub we ate in last night had his dog with him. The dog laid quietly on the floor next to him for the most part, only occasionally walking around the room introducing himself to everyone.

This was market day in Dursley, the downtown was busy, there was a little market in the square, and there was a small group playing Celtic music by the market. Really felt neat.

Another uphill from Dursley onto Stinchcombe Hill. This was where we decided to take the long way, which took us two miles around Stinchcombe Hill golf course, but around a ridge with some terrific views. Busy day on the golf course, but not a sign of an electric cart - other than some battery push carts. Marty kept wandering off the path into the rough trying to find a golf ball even though we were still way off the fairway. He found one, and the owner had put their mark on it to distinguish it from others’. The mark was a little heart. It was all I could do to keep Marty from looking for the golfer to return it. (Just kidding).

Stopped and talked to a runner who was taking a short break. He’s practicing for the Cotswold Way Relays coming up in a couple of weeks. Teams sign up to race the whole 102 miles in 10 sections, starting in Chipping Campden at 7 in the morning and ending in Bath late that evening. Every runner does 8 to 12 miles along the Cotswold Way. Kind of like what we’re doing, only a little faster.  This particular runner had missed a sign and had wound up doing the extra two miles we had just done. He was concerned that this was going to make him late getting to Wotton under Edge where his stage will end and his wife will be waiting. But not so concerned he didn’t want to stop and talk for a while. It’s probably best he gets this sign thing worked out before the relay itself.

For us, it was down into the village of Nibley, then up (of course) onto the ridge outside Nibley and past the Tyndale monument. The monument to Sir William Tyndale was built in 1866 in memory of the man who in 1536, defying authorities, proceeded to translate the New Testament into English. For this, he was burnt at the stake. And got a really nice monument sometime later.

The trail up to the monument goes up 118 steps, and there are terrific views from the ridge. There are another 121 steps inside the monument that take you up to the top of the tower, and supposedly even more terrific views. I offered to wait while Marty went to the top, but ultimately, we both passed.

From there, it was an easy three miles along the ridge, then down into the village of Wotton under Edge, where we’re staying tonight.

Great day.

Painswick to Uley

A 13 mile day today, but it seemed longer. We started out in a light rain, but rain turned out not to be the problem with the weather today. It was the wind. The 50-60 mph winds that were forecast really happened.

A couple of times today the route followed long open areas on top of the ridge open to the southwest, where the winds were coming from. Blowing hard enough to make it an effort to walk into it.  In the wooded areas we walked through, the path was typically And in the wooded areas we walked through, the path was typically littered with leaves, branches and small limbs, with more limbs cracking in the trees overhead.

But there were some great views.

Got into Uley at the Old Crown late in the afternoon. This place feels like a local pub, which it is. The pub was filled this evening (Friday night), while I had beef and Uley ale pie and Guinness, while Marty had lasagna (a pub food staple) and worked his way through the local ales.

Dog Story

Just outside of Stroud today, the trail took us through a field where we saw a border collie hard at work. That is, he was resting in the field next to his equine herd that he was pretty obviously watching out for. I stopped and got the picture below. The collie wasn’t aggressive or anything, but he didn’t  take his eyes off us for the whole time we were there.

As we were going through the stile at the end of the field,  a lady was entering with her two dachsunds. We surprised the dogs and one of them gave us a couple of barks. The lady said, “Never mind him, he thinks he owns this field.” I replied that
It looked to me like the collie up ahead owns this field. She looked ahead, saw the collie, laughed and said “You’re right, that one does own this field.”

Marty and I watched as the lady crossed the collie’s territory. Sure enough, he got up and met the dachsunds where the trail crossed near his horses. He sniffed the intruders, as they moved on. No drama. But the dachsunds never strayed one step off the trail.  

Cheltenham to Painswick

The forecast for this part of England today was for “disruptive” weather (great description). “Disruptive” weather means steady, heavy, rain, and strong winds, up to 60 mph inland, 70 mph on the coast.

With that forecast in mind, we left Cheltenham this morning on our 14 mile leg to Painswick with our foul weather gear already on, in a steady rain and a steady breeze.

Our hike began on a track that was also a bridle path (there are a lot of these), and after a ways we passed a couple on horses, one of whom smiled at us from her saddle, with the rain pouring down, and said “Aren’t we keen?” Marty and I discussed how this phrase might translate and we figure that it has one of two meanings:

The first possible meaning is that the phrase is intended to show irony.

The other possible meaning is that in Britain, the term “keen” means “dumbasses”.

A little further on, the path passed a golf course. And in 50 degree weather, a steady wind, and a heavy rain, there was a group of golfers out there. No carts, electric or otherwise.   But in deference to the weather, it needs to be said that: there were only three of them, one of them had a small umbrella, one had a small hat. Yes, this means the third had neither a hat nor an umbrella. But I’m guessing he had a pretty good round going.

Even further on, as we went through a county park, there were several folks out taking there dogs for a run. Apparently “disruptive” weather in England doesn’t disrupt golf, horseback riding, or walking your dog. Or American walkers.

The trail today pretty much followed the escarpment, a lot of it through wooded area. We passed Cooper‘s Hill, where the annual cheese roll was held just this past Monday. If you’re wondering, a cheese roll is an event where someone rolls a large round of cheese from the top of a steep hill and dozens of keen individuals chase it. Ambulances are lined up at the bottom of the hill to take away the remains. Apparently there were as many as 18 “casualties” a few years ago.  Think there‘s some warm beer involved in this as well?

So, today‘s walk was pretty much a grind. But we made great time and got to the Falcon Inn in Painswick in early afternoon.  Things got a whole lot better after that. Hot shower, dry clothes, a nap, a walk around Painswick (great little village), Guinness, Warm Beer, steak dinner, and Jameson’s rounded out the day pretty good.

Not many pictures today. Couldn’t really take the camera out until after we got to  Painswick. So I’m throwing in a picture I stole of the cheese rolling. And we just missed it by a couple of days. Maybe next year.

BTW - the picture of Marty is not our B&B. The Falcon Inn is a great old inn. Marty has an interest in old doorways that have lower doors than those today. Likes to have his picture taken standing next to them.  

Winchcombe to Cheltenham

On the map, it’s a short drive (8 miles) from Winchcombe to Cheltenham. But our route for the day was 16 miles (actually longer, but more than that in a minute). Cheltenham is one of the larger towns in the Cotswolds, around 11000 in population. So, much of our day today was going from Winchcombe to the northeast of Cheltenham, to Leckhampton Hill on the Southwest side, most of it along the top of the Cotswold escarpment. Kind of like hiking from UNC-Charlotte to Pineville with a couple of differences. First, Cheltenham isn’t quite as large as Charlotte, so the circle is smaller. Second, the route is along the escarpment (ridge) 500 feet above the town below, so there are views of the city and the land beyond for much of the way. And it’s a lot more rural than the route between UNC-Charlotte and Pineville.

The Cotswold Way roughly follows this same escarpment the whole way from Chipping Campden to Bath, and the towns and villages tend to be in the valley below this ridge. So, one of the patterns of this walk is that we start the day with an uphill from a village onto the ridge, follow the ridge up and down generally south, long downhills into villages, then back up onto the ridge.

Accordingly, we left the White Hart Inn after a big breakfast and with threatening clouds. We  headed out of town a short ways, then turned uphill.  Part way up, it started raining and blowing, so we put on rain gear. At the top, the trail crossed a large empty field and turned into the woods, paralleling the field. I was walking along with my hood up and head down when something moved off to my right and I looked up. It was a sheep. Then I noticed that the woods were completely full of sheep, standing there, watching us, avoiding the wind and rain in the field beyond. Pretty smart. Actually smarter than us, because pretty soon the trail turned back out into the open.

At the point where the trail turned back into the open, we passed Belas Knap. Belas Knap is a 180 foot long, 18 foot high grassy mound that is an ancient long barrow. That is, it is a burial site, used for centuries, beginning around 2500 BC.

Somewhere along here the rain stopped,  but based on the skies and the forecast we kept the pack covers and rain gear on.   The weather for the rest of the day took two forms: it was either raining, or it was about to rain.

The traill opened up then, following fields and farm roads across rolling country. It was somewhere along here that I missed a couple of turns that turned the 16 mile day into a 19 mile day. My excuse for missing the first turn is that the map wasn’t clear at a particular intersection which route was the current route of the Cotswold Way, and which was an earlier route. Then we missed a second intersection, probably  because we had our hoods up and heads down in the wind and rain. In any case, by the time we sorted it out we had to backtrack a ways and probably added three miles to an already long, cold, rainy day.

One of our sources of help in sorting out directions was a golfer, playing the golf course on Cleeve Hill, a large open moor. We could tell it was a golf course when we saw the small green and flag. We were a little surprised because the large grassy moor the course was set in also had sheep. All over the fairways. We didn’t ask the golfer (an elderly gentleman) playing by himself in the rain and wind, no cart, electric or otherwise) how he avoided the sheep or the inevitable things they leave behind. But he was ultimately helpful in pointing us the right way.
Finally, our long day ended at Leckhampton Hill, where we picked up the taxi who took us down into Cheltenham.

Our hotel in Cheltenham is the Butler’s Hotel. It’s a nice place. Built in 1835 as a “gentlemen’s residence”, the décor is a lot of antique prints, and antique butler stuff.

By the time we got off the trail and into the Hotel, the weather had turned for the better - go figure. So for dinner, we walked a short ways into the center of  town and had a great Thai meal. Tom Yum soup, a great grilled chicken and curry dish, and a few cold Thai Beers.

Broadway to Winchcombe

11 miles today, from Broadway to Winchcombe. We left Broadway a little after 9:00, and it was pretty quiet. Just outside the village we turned off  across some fields.  A ways in front of us we watched an older gentleman  who’d been walking his two Labs take their leashes off an turn them loose to race around the field . One of the Labs had taken the cue and was running in broad random patterns across a couple of acres. The other Lab, obviously older,  just walked around his master. As we went past, the dog owner, referring to his running dog, said “Now his day is complete.”

In the next field we saw pretty much a repeat of the same thing.  An elderly gentleman crossed a stile and let his border collie through a little door next to the stile especially for dog entry, and turned him loose.   Fergus (the collie’s name, although his owner also looked like a Fergus)  raced around the field. According to his owner, Fergus was desperately trying to find a stick to show us.

After this field, there was a long climb onto the ridge outside Broadway, down the ridge for a couple of miles, then off the ridge into Stanton.

Calling Stanton a storybook English village wouldn’t be doing justice to it. It looks like the subject of a Thomas Kinkade painting.  To make the picture complete, as we rounded one corner, three horses and riders in perfect Englilsh riding gear trotted down the street.

From Stanton, it was cross country through the villages of Stanway and Wood Stanway, another climb onto the ridge, and past the ruins of  Hailes Abbey. Hailes Abbey dates from the 13th century. It was once a wealthy  abbey that many worshippers would pilgrimage to because it held a relic of a vial of Holy Blood. Later, the abbot confessed that the vial actually contained duck blood, although the duck blood was regularly renewed. It was pretty much downhill for the Abbey (and the abbot) after that.

We got into Winchcombe in the middle afternoon, settled in at the White Hart Inn, dried off, warmed up, and later on had decent dinner and some nice warm beers.

Yes, we dried off and warmed up. It rained off and on throughout the day. We wound up leaving our rain gear on in between showers. High was in the low fifties and breezy. Great walking weather for those who like being cold and damp.

Lady Coventry's Folly

Broadway Tower stands on top of a hill just outside of the village of the same name, and architecturally is called a folly. The term folly refers to a structure whose appearance is primary decorative, and for which function  is secondary. Many follies were built in England in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In America we adapted the notion of follies to our own purposes. We also built structures that turned out to be largely decorative, with not a whole lot of useful purpose. We named one such structure the Bobcats Arena.

Lady Coventry sponsored the building of the Broadway Tower in 1799. It’s designed to look like a castle tower, but the real purpose of the Tower was so Lady Coventry could see if she could see a “beacon” (i.e. fire) lit on top of the Tower from her home 22 miles away across the valley. She could, so the Tower was considered a huge success.

The Tower is still in private hands today, is part of a popular county park, and can be toured for a fee, Although a sign out front said the nuclear bunker was open today, Marty and I decided not to tour. Nuclear bunker?  Sounds like Lady Coventry was way ahead of her time.