Showing posts with label UK-England-Gloucestershire. Show all posts

Sunday 26 July 2015

The Slaughters and the Lords of the Manor

Strikingly Pretty Villages and a Fine Wedding Anniversary Dinner

The Slaughters, Upper and Lower

Gloucestershire

Cotswold District

Like Moreton-in-Marsh, the Slaughters, Upper and Lower, do not have encouraging names, but they are actually a pair of Cotswold gems, stretched out along the little River Eye.

Upper Slaughter previously appeared in this blog in 2012 when we walked through Little Sodbury on the South West Odyssey. Little Sodbury is a ‘Thankful’ or ‘Blessed Village’, phrases coined in the 1930s for settlements that lost no servicemen in the First World War. A 2010 survey established that there were 54 civil parishes in England and Wales which were so ‘blessed’, three of them in Gloucestershire (none in Staffordshire). The only village in Gloucestershire to be ‘doubly blessed’ (i.e. 'blessed' in both World Wars) is Upper Slaughter – suggesting God has a macabre sense of humour.

Lynne in Lower Slaughter, a lovely village on a dire July day

In fact, the name derives not from death, destruction or abattoirs but from the Old English ‘Scolstre’ meaning a wet place or slough. I attended a preparatory school in Slough from 1958 to 1963. That much maligned town has changed a great deal since, but not then, not now, nor at any time in between has it ever remotely resembled the Slaughters.

The Lords of the Manor, Upper Slaughter

Dating from 1649, the building that now houses the Lords of the Manor Hotel in Upper Slaughter, was once much smaller. Unlike Chastleton House, its near contemporary, it has been frequently altered and extended, serving for a time as a rectory and becoming a hotel in 1972. The restaurant was awarded a Michelin star seven years ago and has retained it ever since. [The star was lost in 2019, though The Lords of the Manor still has 3 AA Rosettes. The struggle to win back the star continues but was not successful for 2020]

The Lords of the Manor, Upper Slaughter, The oldest part of the building

Dinner at The Lords of the Manor

Aperitifs and Canapés

We checked in, took a stroll, changed and arrived in the bar for aperitifs and canapés. They make a good dry martini, though not as good as the Sheraton in Hong Kong, though that may be impossible; my memory has enshrined that drink as the Platonic Ideal dry martini of which all others are inferior copies. After the unfortunate ‘drowning of the gin’ at our last wedding anniversary meal, Lynne was pleased that they left her to pour her tonic herself.

Our room, Lords of the Manor, Upper Slaughter

Canapés involved a mini-egg sized ball of smoked fish, which was good, a petite cylinder of paté shot through with hazelnut, surmounted by a little crisp disc and a nut, which was excellent, and a tiny chicken manifestation - I wish I could be more precise - which was spectacular.

The Lords of the Manor, Upper Slaughter, the modest original building has grown into this.
On another day we could have enjoyed our pre-dinner drinks outside, but even July cannot be trusted

We moved through to the restaurant, a newer wing at the back of the building.

Lords of the Manor, Upper Slaughter, the restaurant is in the extension on the left hand corner of the photo

Amuse-Bouche and Crab Starters

A tiny bowl of mushroom soup arrived - there was more to it than that, the well-informed waiter talked us through the details, but his accent was thick and I thought he mentioned peanuts. The mushroom flavour was intense, the texture warm and tongue-coating, and there did seem to be a peanut lurking in the depths, but exactly what it brought to the party was unclear.

Choosing from the five starters (two of which involved duck liver, not maybe as a main ingredient, but surely punching above its weight) we both selected crab. Professional restaurant critics don't do that, but I am only a blogger writing about a meal I paid for myself, and as we both fancied crab, we both had crab.

I last ate crab in a self-styled gastropub on the borders of Lancashire and Cumbria; it was utterly tasteless. The first nibble of the white meat of this Cornish crab was a revelation; it was fresh, it was clean, it was crabby (in a good way) and it tasted of the sea, a flavour echoed in the oyster cream. This was as good as crab gets. The tasty brown meat came in crisp little tubes which might once have been potato. Oscietra caviar sat on blobs of very different potato, a single fish egg on each of the four blobs. Oscietra retails at about £80 for 50 grams, at that price there should be enough on the plate to taste it, this was just wasted.

We drank the recommended wine, an Alsace Pinot Blanc. A smidgen off dry, with crisp, fragrant fruit, it was a fine partner to the crab. {David seems to have drawn the short straw here. Yes, there was very little caviar, but mine had several fish eggs on the blobs and I gathered them all up to eat together. Excellent, if miniscule. Lynne}

Mains of Pork and Guinea Fowl

Main course menu, Lords of the manor, Upper Slaughter

From the five choices of main course Lynne had guinea fowl, while I selected pork. I was disappointed when the food arrived. The guinea fowl involved sizeable slabs of meat and a little pile of vegetables but beside it my pork looked meagre, small islands of food adrift on a vast dark plate. I was unlikely to go hungry, but the disparity between the two plates struck a discordant note.

The two roundels of pork fillet were tender, with just enough texture and a delicate porky flavour. They sat on the sole vegetable, a couple of leaves of wilted spinach. The single cuboid of belly pork was much more gutsy, something to chew and crunch. The menu promised black pudding but I did not recognize that it in the little frustum of black jelly. The boudin, though, was in a different class, in fact the best thing on the plate; despite looking like a cocktail sausage it had a beguiling porky scent and a flavour which somehow contained the taste and soul of France. The smear of pork jus was just that - if there is going to be a sauce, let's have a sauce. Overall it was a plate with some delights, but disappointments too.

The Old Mill, Lower Slaughter

The recommended Loire Valley Malbec (isn't Malbec known as Côt on the Loire?) was well chosen; a lightish red, but well-built and full of fruit. It was not, though, half as good as the outstanding Austrian St Laurent that accompanied Lynne's guinea fowl. I have only come across this grape once before and that was a long time ago - I wish I had seen more of it.

Lynne had a good slab of breast meat, perfectly cooked and well flavoured, but it was the ‘croustillant of leg’ that was memorable, with a satisfying crunch and a rich confit flavour. Lynne, too, had a leaf of wilted spinach, but she also had some leek, the sort of baby turnips that made you realise why all Baldrick wanted was a little turnip of his own, and girolle mushrooms, the size and shape of the plastic studs used to cover the screws in flat-pack furniture but so full of themselves they demanded to be noticed.

Pre-Dessert, Dessert and Cheese

The pre-dessert was a thick glass bowl with a pleasant panna cotta at the bottom covered with orange-coloured granules. Mango and coconut were mentioned by the waiter, he may have mentioned freeze drying as well, though even after four courses I was no better attuned to his accent.

The strongly flavoured tiny 'micro-coriander' was probably unnecessary, but the sharp, tangy mango lingered on the tongue, and as it faded the flavour of toasted coconut kicked in. Mango and coconut are among my favourite foods and these strong flavours were just what I love. ‘I don't like that,’ said Lynne putting down her spoon. I thought she was referring to the coriander, which she dislikes, but then she said, 'The mango is too sharp for me.' ‘What a shame,’ I said, and ate hers too.

The village defibrillator, Upper Slaughter. Finding a use for a redundant red phone box.

The smallish pork course had the happy by-product of leaving space for cheese. I so often only have room for a dessert that slips down easily, but I had clocked the cheese trolley on the way in and judged it worthy of further examination.

Despite being over-faced last year by the cloying richness of the chocolate option at the Harrow in Little Bedwyn, Lynne backed hope over experience and chose chocolate again. If anything the Lords of the Manor erred in the other direction, but she was well pleased with her generous brick of white chocolate mousse, teamed with blobs of lavender cream, violet jelly and gold sprinkled raspberries.

On closer inspection the cheese trolley was as fine as I had thought, and made better by all the cheeses coming from Britain or Ireland. I have nothing against French cheeses – quite the opposite - but it is pleasing to know that the reborn craft cheese-making of these islands now produces the quality and variety to stock a first rate cheese trolley.

I chose four cheeses, the first two involving more than a nod towards France. Brie is a much abused word; most supermarket Brie is dull, under-ripe, factory produced and unworthy of the name. I avoid ‘Somerset Brie’, because if the manufacturers of France have forgotten how to make it, I doubt a factory in Somerset would be any more successful. I knew at first glance, however, that Simon Weaver's Brie-style cheese was something else. Startlingly white it oozed gently and the rind was cracked like ripe Brie de Meaux (a reliable name amid all the dross). Misshapen and slightly flattened this was no factory cheese - in fact it is made on Kirkham Farm in Lower Slaughter, solely from organic milk produced on the farm. It is also made from unpasteurised milk (and I don't know a really fine cheese that isn't). The French like to use the word ‘onctueux’ to describe such a cheese - it sound so much better than 'unctuous'. This was the most onctueux cheese it had been my privilege to eat for a long time.

Simon Weaver Brie

Isle of Avalon, confusingly made in Surrey, is based on the recipe for Port Salut - the favourite French cheese of people who do not like French cheeses. All the rind washing and extra maturing this was subjected to certainly improved it, but it never got far enough away from Port Salut for my taste.

The third cheese, a softish ewe's milk cheese with a slightly crumbly texture, was pleasant without being exciting, but my fourth choice took me back to the heights. Admiral Collingwood is a semi-soft cheese made from unpasteurized milk by Doddington Dairy in Northumberland. It is matured for seven months and the rind is washed in Newcastle Brown Ale. I used to drink Newky Brown in my youth, but gave it up long ago, now I have found the perfect use for it. It is claimed to give the cheese a unique tangy aftertaste - it does and it is wonderful.

Admiral Collingwood, Doddington Dairy, Northumberland

Back in the comfy seats in the bar we had a so-so cup of coffee, petit fours - nicely made sweeties - and an excellent glass of Calvados. And so ended this year's wedding anniversary dinner, and a fine dinner it had been, too. It was expensive, as such meals are, but then this is Michelin starred cooking and the high points were high indeed – as they should be at this level. There were a couple of disappointments too, as we have learnt to expect at one Michelin star level - there are two and even (should I ever be able to afford it) three star levels above this.

27/07/2015

Breakfast

Restaurants do not win Michelin stars for their breakfasts, but it is interesting to see what they do. Cereals are just cereals, but the fruit juices were fresh. Lynne had fried eggs, two of them cooked in a neat and tidy ring in butter, she prefers oil but that is a matter of taste. My scrambled egg was excellent, though not quite up to the standard of the Yorke Arms in Ramsgill (though that is beginning to take on the same mythical stature as the Hong Kong Sheraton martini). The mushroom - (half?!) a large field mushroom this time - had almost as much power as the girolles, and the bacon was of the quality you should expect in such an establishment. I hoped the black pudding would make up for one of yesterday's disappointments but although this time it was a proper slice, it had too much cereal and not enough blood and spice - I suppose that is what you get for eating black pudding this far south.

'Fine Dining' posts

Abergavenny and the Walnut Tree (2010)
Ludlow and La Bécasse (2011) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn)
Ilkley and The Box Tree(2012)
Pateley Bridge and the Yorke Arms (2013) (No longer a restaurant, post renamed Parceval Gardens and Pateley Br)
The Harrow at Little Bedwyn (2014)
The Slaughters and the Lords of the Manor (2015)
Loam, Fine Dining in Galway (2016)
Penarth and Restaurant James Sommerin (2017) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn. JS has a new restaurant in Penarth)
The Checkers, Montgomery (2017) (no longer a restaurant, post withdrawn. Now re-opened under new management)
Tyddyn Llan, Llandrillo, Denbighshire (2018)
Fischer's at Baslow Hall, Derbyshire (2019)
Hambleton Hall, Rutland (2021)
The Olive Tree, Queensberry Hotel, Bath (2022)
Dinner at Pensons near Tenbury Wells (2023) (restaurant closed Dec 2023, post withdrawn)

Moreton-in-Marsh, Chastleton and Adlestrop

A Wedding Anniversary Involving A Cotswold Town, a Jacobean House and Village whose Name Inspired a Poem

Gloucestershire

Cotswold District

Scary Photos

Lynne and I were married on this day in 1975.

It has taken us 40 years to get from this (were these two old enough to know what they were doing?)…

Wedding Day, July 1975

...to this. too late now.

Us in 2015
Is it time we talked about the elephant in the room? It seems to be creeping up on us.

Moreton-in-Marsh

This year our annual wedding anniversary glimpse into the world of fine dining took us south into the Cotswolds.

Moreton-in-Marsh

We stopped for a light lunch at a cold and rainy Moreton-in-Marsh. The town was called Moreton-in-the-Marsh until 1930 when the ‘the’ was unaccountably removed - though even locals often re-insert it in conversation to make it easier to say. With or without its article, the name suggests a grim sort of place but, of course, it is not. It is a typical Cotswold small town, built entirely of the local stone which is routinely (and a little tediously) described as ‘honey-coloured’ and ‘mellow’; there is even a house called 'Mellow Stone Cottage'.

Curfew Tower, Moreton-in-Marsh

It is full of square Georgian buildings occupied by banks, younger and older buildings (it is not always easy to tell) housing antique shops, cutesy tea houses, artisan butchers, serious cheese shops and solid-looking, dependable pubs, the sort that have been there for years and are not likely to close down any time soon.

Tea House, Moreton-in-Marsh

We had a half pint of Hobgoblin Gold and shared a ham baguette in one such pub, the Redesdale Arms, built in 1650 of ‘mellow Cotswold Stone’ (I quote their website).

The Redesdale Arms, Moreton-in-Marsh

The 2nd Baron Redesdale, of Redesdale in the County of Northumberland, forsook the frozen north for the gentler climes of the Cotswolds where he brought up his son and six daughters. Each of the daughters achieved a measure of fame, eminence or notoriety under the family name of Mitford. The Mitford sisters are all dead now. Diana, the last of them, died in 2014 and was the only one who did what the daughters of aristocrats are supposed to - marry another aristocrat. As the Duchess of Devonshire she lived at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire (where else?).

Chastleton House

Oxfordshire

Vale of the White Horse

Just far enough away to be buried in the Cotswolds countryside is Chastleton House. Walter Jones came from a family of prosperous Welsh wool merchants but made his pile in the law. In 1604 he bought the Chastleton estate from Robert Catesby, shortly to become the leading conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot, demolished Catesby’s house and built the present Chastleton House. Walter Jones had every hope that he, or his descendants, would become at least baronets, but building the house turned out to be the high point of the family's fortunes.

Chastleton House

Their finances took a serious hit when Arthur Jones, Walter’s grandson backed the wrong side in the civil war. He escaped with his life, due to the quick thinking of his wife when parliamentarian soldiers came to arrest him after the battle of Worcester, and went into exile. He was able to return only after payment of a substantial fine and when the restored monarchy failed to show its gratitude by refunding the money, the descent into penury amid grand surroundings began. It was slow, inexorable and extraordinarily long drawn out, the family finally relinquishing ownership to the National Trust in 1991.

The Great Parlour, Chastleton House

As they never had the money to extend or remodel the house, or even afford much in the way of new furniture, the National Trust inherited a time capsule of Jacobean life. They decided not to attempt to restore the house to a former glory it never had but to conserve it as it was. It is thus a somewhat down-at-heal time capsule (insofar as a capsule can wear out footwear).

The Long Gallery, Chastleton House, At 22m the longest barrel vaulted room in England

Photography is permitted inside, though flash is not, so taking pictures in focus required a steady hand.

The Fettiplace Room, high status bedroom, Chastleton House

The distance from the basement kitchen to the dining room on the far side of the house is striking - they could never have eaten hot food. The large high-ceilinged rooms must have made it almost impossible to heat the house never mind the food, and with oak panelling round so many of the walls, winters must have been cold and dark.

Kitchen, Chastleton House

Outside in the stable yard is a second hand bookshop with a somewhat cursory Wolf Hall exhibition. I have read the book but not seen the television series in which Chastleton played the title role, as well as Thomas Cromwell’s childhood home in Putney. Hilary Mantel’s historical research was meticulous but the television producers were more cavalier as the house was not built until 65 years after Thomas Cromwell was executed.

Stableyard, Chastleton House

Adlestrop

Gloucestershire

Cotswold District

It is only a few minutes drive from Chastleton to Adlestrop.

I do not know when I first encountered Edward Thomas's poem, but it was longer ago than I care to remember. It probably stuck in my memory because of the name, Adlestrop which, at first I believed to be made up. It took me longer to appreciate the poem as more than a piece of pastoral fluff, but I have gradually come to see the point - except for that clunky last line. Adlestrop is right on the boundary of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire (and Warwickshire for that matter) but did he have to crowbar in this geographical factoid?

Adlestrop

Yes. I remember Adlestrop
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat, the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire

Edward Thomas

Adlestrop, pop 120, is real enough - a line of Cotswold stone cottages, all beautifully kept with cottage gardens and hanging baskets full of flowers - but the station, a victim of the Beeching axe in the 1960s, no longer exists. The station sign and one of the benches were saved and now sit in a bus shelter on the edge of the village.

Adlestrop station sign. The plaque by my left elbow is a copy of the poem

Thomas’ train stopped in Adlestrop on June the 24th 1914. The date the poem was written is unknown, but it was published in 1917, the year Edward Thomas was killed in action in the Battle of Arras. The contrast between the rural idyll of Adlestrop and the hell of northern France is extraordinarily poignant.

Edward Thomas was there on a very different day from us. His sunshine was our rain, on a day which was colder than any July day I can remember.

We drove on through Stow-on-the-Wold and towards Bourton-on-the-Water, turning off towards Lower and then Upper Slaughter, two more Cotswold gems, the latter the home of the Lords of the Manor Hotel and Restaurant, our destination for the wedding anniversary meal, and the subject of the next post.

Thursday 2 May 2013

Cirencester: Capital of the Cotswolds

A Cotswold Gem that was Roman Britain's Second City

Gloucestershire

Cotswold District

In 2011 we spent the nights of Day 10 and Day 11 of the South West Odyssey in Cirencester, but I was busy walking and had time only to note that it was a place worth revisiting. With the 2013 installment about to start from Swineford, just outside Bath, Lynne and I took the opportunity to visit both Cirencester and Bath before walking commenced.

Cirencester: Introduction

A handsome old town that became wealthy on the wool trade, Cirencester styles itself ‘capital of the Cotswolds’. The mellow local stone is used throughout the central area, and almost everywhere you look the prospect pleases, whether one is looking at 15th century streets….

Cirencester

...19th century town houses….

Cirencester

….. or the unusually sympathetic insertion of well-known names.

Not bad as W H Smith goes
Cirencester

Although newer buildings use the same stone, the design does not always harmonise – the courthouse being a case in point. Actually I prefer there to be some faults. When all is perfection it means the town is no longer living and has become merely a tourist attraction - Qingyan in China and Hoi An in Vietnam are two such places featuring in this blog. Cirencester, I am happy to report, is a living, thriving town. It may attract tourists, but it does not exist just for them.

St John the Baptist, Cirencester

The church of St John the Baptist dominates the central market square. In 1117 Henry I founded an abbey (of which nothing remains) and started the construction of St John the Baptist to replace an earlier Saxon church.

The church of St John the Baptist
Cirencester

The tower, built between 1400 and 1420, was financed by Henry IV to thank the town’s citizens for their support during the Epiphany Rising of 1399. Constructed on marshy ground, flying buttresses are required to keep the tower upright. The wool trade brought wealth to the region and in 1520 the church was remodelled and enlarged to such an extent it became known as the cathedral of the Cotswolds.

Inside the church of St John the Baptist
Cirencester

Taller and wider, the new building filled in much of the space between the tower and the buttresses, but it still cannot disguise their basic ugliness.

The tower of St John the Baptist
Cirencester

Inside, the 14th century ‘wine glass’ pulpit is one of the few to survive the Reformation. Possibly its lack of overt religious symbolism saved it from the reformer’s zealous iconoclasm.

'Wine glass' pulpit
St John the Baptist, Cirencester

The Corinium Museum

The late medieval period, though, was Cirencester’s second flowering. The Romans established a fort at Corinium around AD 44 and over the next twenty years a grid pattern was laid down and stone buildings constructed. Development continued until the 4th century when the city was the second largest in Roman Britain with a population that may have reached 20,000 (modern Cirencester has some 19,000 inhabitants).

When the Romans left, the city went into decline and many of the buildings became ruins.

The Corinium Museum, a short walk from the church (and an even shorter walk from the pub where we had lunch), covers most of Cirencester’s history but the major feature of the award winning museum is their outstanding collection of Roman artefacts.

Under the auspices of the genius loci…

The genius loci - the spirit of the place
though precisely which place is no longer known - Corinium Museum, Cirencester

…they show all that was required for civilised Roman living, including mosaics for the floor…

The Hunting Dogs mosaic,
Corinium Museum, Cirencester

…and a reconstructed Roman Garden. The Romano-British seemed as keen as the stay-at-home Romans on building houses with an atrium, though the design seems better suited to Mediterranean warmth than to Gloucestershire’s fitful sunshine.

Lynne in the Roman Garden
Corinium Museum, Cirencester

Roman Amphitheatre, Cirencester

On the edge of the town, just over the ring road, is the site of the Roman amphitheatre. Although today nothing remains except a substantial earthwork, in its time it accommodated 8,000 spectators. By comparison, the modern Corinium Stadium, home of Cirencester Town FC, has a capacity of 4,500 - though in the Southern League South-Western division 200 paying spectators is considered a good crowd.

The Roman Amphitheatre, Cirencester

The Museum owns many artefacts from the amphitheatre site, but they are probably all belongings dropped by spectators. There is, as yet, no clue to what sort of entertainments might have been on offer.

Many other earthworks surround the amphitheatre, and from the highest point there is a good view back to the tower of St John the Baptist.

St John the Baptist from the amphitheatre, Cirencester

With this view still in our minds we headed south towards Bath.

Saturday 9 June 2012

Old Sodbury to Swineford: Day15 of the South West Odyssey (English Branch)

The South West Odyssey was a long distance walk.

Five like-minded people started in 2008 from the Cardingmill Valley in Shropshire and by walking three days a year finished at Start Bay on the South Devon Coast in May 2019.

Saturday promised to be a much better day; the rain had gone, the wind had dropped and there was even a patch of blue in the sky.

Brian, Mike & Francis prepare to leave the Dog Inn
Old Sodbury

After another hearty breakfast and with Alison duly re-fetched from Yate station we set off southwards across the fields towards the hamlet of Coomb's End.

Nearing Coomb's End

From here we crossed the Dodington Estate with its sweeping vistas of sheep bespattered parkland dotted with clumps of trees for raising pheasants. The park was laid out by Capability Brown in 1764 when the estate was owned by the Codrington family, who made their fortune from sugar plantations in the West Indies. It is now the home – or one of the homes - of James Dyson who bought the estate in 2003 after making his fortune rather more ethically from bagless vacuum cleaners and air-blades rather than by exploiting several hundred slaves.

Dodington Park

A few deer would have made the view perfect, but we had to settle for a large metal sculpture of a stag watching us motionlessly from a distant bank.

Plenty of sheep but no deer,
Dodington Park

The park provides a painless way of slipping back onto the Cotswold scarp. At its highest point we could look back over the valley and see the pylons of the Severn Bridge in the distance.

Crossing the park took some time, crossing the A46 was quicker, much less pleasant and considerably more dangerous. Having survived that it was only a short step to the village of Tormarton where we were meeting Heather, Francis and Alison’s daughter, who last walked with us on Day 11 (Perrott’s Brook).

Tormarton

Heather walked out of Tormarton on the path she had expected us to arrive on and saw us across the fields on another path, though we did not see her. Even after this early sighting we had considerable difficulty finding each other. Several phone calls simply added to the confusion.

Tormarton is not large, so we eventually we succeeded and together left the village via the bridge over the M4.

Over the M4

On the southern side we crossed fields of barley, the first cereal crop we had seen since Bredon Hill in 2010.

A lone poppy in a field of barley

The Cotswold Way took us west along Beacon Lane and back towards the motorway. Brian was very proud of his new walking poles which he had bought for the princely sum of 100 Hong Kong dollars (£8) in Stanley Market. They had been unveiled on Thursday and bent on Friday so they no longer telescoped properly and Brian was walking with a lightning conductor sticking up above his head. It is a wonderful place, Stanley Market, sometimes you get a bargain, sometimes you get what you pay for.

Brian carries his periscope along Beacon Lane

We re-crossed the A46 and visited the adjacent picnic site for coffee. With a car park and vehicle inspection centre it is not the most scenic spot, but looks fine if you point the camera in the right direction.

A sedge of Cranes at the feeding table

The Cotswold Way runs briefly parallel to the M4 giving an interesting view of the motorway climbing the hill opposite.

An unusual view of the M4

We turned south and followed the boundary of another cereal field for the next kilometre. Yesterday’s rain had smeared the compacted soil with a slick of wet clay, making it difficult walking; at times it was a struggle to keep upright.

I was glad to reach the end of this field and we soon found ourselves traversing the edge of a small valley below the wall of Dyrham Park. The valley side was covered with strip lynchets, banks of earth built up on the downslope of the field by generations of ploughing. Lynchets usually indicate Celtic farming and although they appear regularly on maps they are not always so easy to see on the ground.

Strip lynchets on the far side of the valley

We descended to the hamlet of Dyrham, passing the western frontage of Dyrham Park, built in 1694. The eastern front, the work of a different architect, was built a few years later. The house, constructed for William Blathwayt, Secretary of War to William III, is now owned by the National Trust. It featured in the films Remains of the Day (1993) and Baz Luhrmann’s Australia (2008) as well as a 2010 episode of Doctor Who.

The western front of Dyrham Park

Beyond the village we found ourselves in the flattest land we had encountered since crossing the Severn Valley at the end of 2009 and start of 2010.

Approaching Doynton

The signed paths did not match up with those on the map so we arrived in Doynton unsure as to exactly where we were. Lynne waited patiently outside the pub while we indulged in a lengthy and misguided circumnavigation of the village before joining her. The Cross House was doing good business on a Saturday lunchtime, and the weather had improved so much that we chose to drink our lunch in the garden – though Lynne did not think it was warm enough to remove her fleece.

A glass of lunch in the garden of the Cross House
Doynton

As we left we passed a cricket match – what did we expect in an English village on a sunny Saturday afternoon? I merely took the picture and moved on, it was only later that I wondered what the fielding captain was doing. Why had he left so much space on the leg side? Why is the batsman not already shaping to work the ball that way? What is going on here?

Doynton cricket club - questionable tactics

With these questions still unasked we headed up Toghill Lane, climbing the Cotswold scarp for the seventh time in three days. Over the A420 we continued along the top of the hill to join Freezinghill Lane, a B road which was narrow and very busy. It was warmer than its name suggests, but the traffic made it an uncomfortable place to be and we were stuck with it for some 500m. We found what should have been our exit but the footpath sign had been reclaimed by the hedge and there was no way through.

The wooden footpath sign had been reclaimed by the hedge
Freezinghill Lane

We backtracked to a gateway, and improvised our own route through the long grass.......

through the long grass

.....and down Freezing Hill.

Down Freezing Hill

Once we had descended there was nothing for it but to start our eighth and final ascent. The Cotswolds may not be the largest of hills, and the scarp may be higher in some places than others, but climbing up and down it nine times in three days is hard work. Hanging Hill is a grassy slope, the path zig-zagging upwards through a herd of cows. Reaching the top, we arrived at the site of the Battle of Lansdown.

Hanging Hill, site of the Battle of Lansdown in 1643

The battle, on July the 5th 1643, was not one of the major confrontations of the Civil War, but it did involve some 10 000 men and resulted in the deaths of 300 of them, mostly Royalists. It was a Royalist victory, in that they pushed the Parliamentarian army from their hilltop stronghold, but they lost so many men they were unable to complete their strategic aim of taking Bath.

From the top we had views over the outskirts of Bristol, the rest of the city stretching away into the distance.

Bristol from the top of Hanging Hill

Tracking along the top of the hill, we failed to find the remains of the Roman villa marked on the map, but Lansdown Golf Course was easier to locate. The golf club had signed a route outside the course, but Francis was adamant that we should take the slightly shorter right-of-way round top of the scarp. This involved walking along the edge of a couple of fairways and we were fortunate that no shouts of ‘fore’ came our way.

The long descent started down the golf course access road towards the hamlet of North Stoke. Somewhere along this path we entered Somerset having taken 8 days to cross Gloucestershire (though hardly in a straight line). We finished the descent on yet another sunken lane which deposited us at a picnic site in Swineford near the banks of the ‘Bristol’ Avon, not to be confused with the ‘Warwickshire’ Avon which we crossed (in Worcestershire!) in 2010, nor any of the Avons in Hampshire, Devon or Strathspey.

Down to North Stoke

We had survived a day of rain and a day of wind and enjoyed a day of sunshine. Perhaps it will be sunshine all the way when (all being well) we meet here in 2013 for the next instalment; and perhaps it won't. All that remained was to return various people to their cars and then to drive home. For us that meant a trip from Swineford (near North Stoke) to Swynnerton (near Stoke-on-Trent) - from a place where pigs can cross a river, to a homestead where pigs are kept; a feeble effort from a region that can offer such nominal splendours as Pucklechurch, Mangotsfield and Wickwar.