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.