Along the Chew Valley: Day 16 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.

Eleven months after Day 15 (this year’s Odyssey is slightly earlier) we reassembled in the same Swineford picnic site. Brian and Hilary had joined Lynne and I in Saltford the previous evening. We had been less than a kilometre away from start as the crow flies but roads are not built with crows in mind. A 7 km drive via Keynsham was required to get round the hill and over the river. On the plus side, we had to pass Keynsham station so we picked up Francis and Alison on the way. We also picked up one of the waifs and strays that Alison sometimes seems to collect; a young man requiring a lift to Bitton station. It was only a couple of kilometres and we drove right past it, so it would have been churlish to refuse. Bitton is on the Avon Valley Railway, three miles of track (all that survives of the former Mangotsfield and Bath branch line) owned and run by steam enthusiasts. Mike was already at Swineford when we arrived.

It was a cool morning with a hint of rain in the air but the forecast promised improvement. After the freezing conditions of late March had carried on into April, recent signs that spring was at last arriving were something of a relief.

Getting ready at Swineford
(L to R) Mike, Francis, Brian, Alison, Hilary and Lynne (with their backs to the camera)

Saying goodbye to Lynne and Hilary, we set off down the lane. Emerging from the picnic site onto the main road we disagreed about which way to turn. Francis said left, everybody else said right. Looking at the map as I write this, Francis is clearly wrong, but on the ground he turned out - as (almost) always - to be right.

Joining the Avon Valley Trail, we strolled along the north bank of the river. The (Bristol) Avon is one of England’s four Avons and the second of this Odyssey - we crossed the (Stratford) Avon back on Day 7.



Along the Gloucestershire bank of the Avon

We soon passed under the Mangotsfield and Bath Railway, though this section is a cycle path rather than a big boys’ train set.

The river here is traditionally the boundary between Gloucestershire and Somerset. Although we had entered the land of BANES (Bath and North East Somerset – a unitary authority carved out of the short lived County of Avon) last year, we found ourselves briefly back in Gloucestershire as we walked westwards along the northern bank for a couple of kilometres of sunshine and showers.

The River Chew joins the Avon just north of Keynsham and our plan was to turn left and walk up the Two Rivers Way beside the tributary. That is exactly what we did but I have no idea how. Reaching the confluence, Francis walked confidently up a spit of land between a weir and lock. Even Francis can’t walk on water (well not in those boots) so having proved he was fallible we turned round, headed for the main road across the Avon, then turned south through side streets, a small housing development and a riverside park. By good luck, or inspired navigating, we ended up walking south beside the Chew.

A sidestream enters the Chew through a mill race
Keynsham

Keynsham is not a big town, but beside the river we hardly knew we were in urban surroundings. Beyond the town we paused for coffee. As we sat down, a thin shower swept across us. When it had passed the sun came out, and stayed out for the rest of this year’s walk.



Francis and Alison take coffee beside the Chew

Compton Dando is a kilometre further south, but we turned west to follow the river just before reaching the village. Somewhere here we crossed the Wansdyke (Woden’s Dyke), a 33 km earthwork fortification dating from the dark days after the Romans withdrew. The eastern Wansdyke is, I am told, quite impressive, but we crossed the western Wansdyke without noticing it.

West of Compton Dando the river takes a swing to the south, but we took the direct route up through Park Copse and over the hill the river goes round. The climb up a woodland path lined with bluebells and wild garlic was short but steep enough to raise the heart rate.



Upwards through Park Copse

We crossed the summit, if a 70 metre high protuberance can have a ‘summit', and made a more gentle descent through the broom to the village of Woollard.



Down to Woollard through the broom

Woollard is little more than a hamlet but it has more than its fair share of listed buildings, including Paradise Row, a line of four estate cottages built in 1782.



Paradise Row, Woollard

This year’s Odyssey was too early for wisteria, but the magnolia was in full blossom and we left Woollard down a magnolia bedecked lane.



Leaving Woollard beneath the Magnolia

Following farm land above the river, we passed the hamlet of Publow, then crossed the river and took a direct path to Pensford.



Long Horn cattle near Publow

The existence of the North Somerset Coalfield is a largely forgotten piece of English industrial history. Pensford may not look like anybody’s idea of a pit village, but it was. I was surprised to learn that one colliery had remained in production until 1959.

Acker Bilk (Somerset royalty to rank alongside Adge Cutler and the Wurzels) lives in retirement here [Acker Bilk died in hospital in Bath on 2nd of November 2014 aged 85] in a village blessed by having two functioning pubs. At first we could find only the one that had not been recommended, but a friendly local directed us to the Rising Sun in the old heart of the village across the A37.

Being in cider country we - well Brian mainly, but I offered cautious support - were tempted by the range of ciders on hand-pull and in cask on the bar. Eschewing the more cloudy beverages the locals seemed to enjoy, we had settled for the hand pumped Thatcher’s when we noticed it was a sturdy 6%. A couple of pints of that at lunch time seemed foolhardy, so the experiment was postponed.

Rehydrated with moderate strength beer, we left the village and passed under the Pensford Viaduct. Built in 1874 the viaduct was closed after the 1968 flood, though it had carried no trains for some time and no passenger trains since 1959. The railway has been dismantled but the viaduct is a listed building. If anyone suggested building a huge viaduct across a rural valley there would be serious protests, but after it has been there a hundred years or so people campaign to save it. Strange things, humans.

Under the Pensford Viaduct

Under the viaduct we found ourselves back in the water meadows beside the River Chew. Twenty minutes later we turned south away from the river and through the village of Upper Stanton Drew. Had we passed through Stanton Drew itself (actually a smaller village) we might have caught a glance of the Stanton Drew stone circle, the second largest in England, but we missed it.

 



The River Chew

A further kilometre south and we climbed through Curl’s Wood.....




Approaching Curl's Farm

.....dropped down to one of the Chew’s feeder streams and then climbed up to Moorledge where we had our first view of Chew Valley Lake. The 5 square kilometre lake was formed by damming the River Chew in the early 1950s to provide drinking water for the Bristol area.




First sight of Chew Valley Lake

The gentle descent across farmland from Moreledge to Chew Lake took us past some of the regions newer residents. I have photographed the occasional llama on our walks, not to mention the Penkridge emu, but these were the first alpaca we have seen.



A rare sighting of the North Somerset Alpaca, long thought to be
extinct in the wild

Our path did not quite take us to the lake, but turned south along a lane leading into Bishop Sutton. Like Pensford, Bishop Sutton was also once a mining village, the first shafts being sunk in the early 18th century and the last colliery closing in 1929.

Sheltered from the wind, whose biting edge had stayed with us even after the rain disappeared, we sat in pleasant sunshine on a bench opposite the church. Minutes later Lynne and Hilary arrived to whisk us off to Blagdon where bed and breakfast were booked at the Seymour Arms.



The Seymour Arms, Blagdon

The South West Odyssey (English Branch)

Introduction

Day 1 to 3 (2008);Cardingmill Valley to Great Whitley

Day 4 to 6 (2009) Great Whitely to Upton-on-Severn via the Malvern Ridge

Day 7 to 9 (2010) Upton-on-Severn to Andoversford
Day 10 (2011) Andoversford to Perrott's Brook

Day 11 (2011) Perrott's Brook to the Round Elm Crossroads

Day 12 (2011) Walking Round Stroud

Day 13 (2012) Stroud to North Nibley

Day 14 (2012) North Nibley to Old Sodbury

Day 15 (2012) Old Sodbury to Swineford

Day 16 (2013) Along the Chew Valley

Day 17 (2013) Over the Mendips to Wells

Day 18 (2013) Wells to Glastonbury 'The Mountain Route'

Day 19 (2014) Glastonbury to Langport

 Day 20 (2014) Along the Parrett and over the Tone

 Day 21 (2014) Into the Quantocks

Day 22 (2015) From the Quantocks to the Sea

Day 23 (2015) Watchet, Dunster and Dunkery Hill

Day 24 (2015) Dunkery Beacon to Withypool
Day 25 (2016) Entering Devon and Leaving Exmoor
Day 26 (2016) Knowstone to Black Dog on the Two Moors Way
Day 27 (2016) Morchard Bishop to Copplestone
Day 28 (2017) Down St Mary to Drewsteignton
Day 29 (2017) Drewsteignton to Bennett's Cross
Day 30 (2017) Bennett's Cross to Lustleigh
Day 31 (2018) Southwest Across the Moor from Lustleigh
Day 32 (2018): South to Ugborough
Day 33 (2018): Ugborough to Ringmore
Day 34 (2019): Around the Avon Estuary to Hope Cove
Day 35 (2019): Hope Cove to Prawle Point
Day 36 (2019): Prawle Point to Start Bay: The End
+
The Last Post

That's All Folks - The Odyssey is over

Bath

A Perfect Georgian City (and the Roman Parts are Good Too)

Somerset

Bath

Parking in Bath can be difficult so we took the bus, it was almost a door to door service from our Saltford B & B - and we used our newly minted bus passes (how did we get so old we could have bus passes?).

We alighted at Kingsmead Square. Bath is a small city, the centre neatly crooked in a bend in the River Avon, and from here we could easily walk everywhere we wanted to go.

John Wood (The Elder) Queen Square to The Circus

We strolled north to Queen Square. Born in Bath in 1704, John Wood (the elder) was an architect and entrepreneur who set out to restore his home town to ‘its former ancient glory’ and Queen Square was his first project. Renting the land from Robert Gay, a doctor and Bath MP, he designed the frontages and then sublet the plots behind to individual builders. His plan was firstly to provide a place for ‘polite society’ to parade and secondly to get rich. He succeeded on both counts. Wood chose to live on the south side of the square, which he believed gave the best possible view of both the square and the central obelisk, erected by Beau Nash in 1738 in honour of the Prince of Wales.

Queen Square, Bath

We walked up Gay Street towards The Circus. Gay Street, the next part of Wood’s plan, was started in 1735. We passed Jane Austin’s house (No. 25) and No. 40 which is now the Jane Austin Centre, before reaching The Circus which Wood designed in 1750.

Doorway, Queen Square, Bath

When John Wood died in 1754 building had hardly started and the Circus, a circle of elegant town houses surrounding a green space, was completed by his son John Wood (the younger). Circular roads, as I discovered at Connaught Place in New Delhi, are difficult to photograph satisfactorily.

The Circus, Bath

Wood was a mason. He decorated many of his buildings with masonic symbols and designed the whole development of The Circus, Gay Street and Queen Square in the shape a masonic key.

Street map showing the 'key' shape of Queen Square, Gay Street and The Circus, Bath

John Wood (The Younger), The Royal Crescent and the Assembly Rooms

Bath’s most instantly recognisable set of buildings, The Royal Crescent, starts just a 100m west of The Circus. Faithful to his father’s vision, John Wood (the younger) constructed what is often described as the finest piece of Georgian architecture in the country – and who am I to disagree? The Royal Crescent Hotel occupies the central section, and nowhere can there be so discreet a five star hotel. There is no sign, just an open door and a menu to tell you it is there.

Lynne and the Royal Crescent, Bath

We wandered the length of the crescent and photographed it from every angle but never quite managed to do it justice. The pictures above and below are the best we could do.

Royal Crescent, Bath

The museum of Georgian life at No 1 closed in April. It will reopen on the 21st of June as a newer, bigger, grander museum, and will probably be well worth visiting.

Austinland

Returning to The Circus and crossing it to Bennett Street, we arrived at the Assembly Rooms.

The Assembly Rooms, Bath

Also the work of John Wood (the younger), the Assembly rooms are where the glitterati of Georgian Bath hung out. The ballroom alone could accommodate several hundred. With an orchestra at one end, tiered seating along the side and four substantial fireplaces, it would not pass a modern fire inspection. Characters from Northanger Abbey and Persuasion danced here, as did many real people who also used the Octagon room, the Card Room and the Tearoom (now a National Trust café).

The Ballroom, The Assembly Rooms, Bath

As National Trust members, a look around cost us nothing. We could have paid for the fashion museum downstairs, but as fashion and I are hardly on nodding terms – in this or any other era – we did not bother.

Assembly Room ceiling, Bath

Lansdown Road and Pulteney Bridge

From the Assembly Rooms we walked down Lansdown Road to Broad Street and paused for a morning cappuccino - with our bus passes and National Trust Membership, it was the first time we had to put our hands in our pockets. The sun shone and we sat in the courtyard outside the café enjoying the unaccustomed warmth.

Lansdown Road, Bath

Passing the Victoria Art Gallery we reached Pulteney Bridge. It has shops across the full span on both sides (one of only four such bridges in the world according to Wikipedia) and we were half way across before we realised we were on it. At the far side is the Bath Rugby Club shop and as it has been worrying me for some time that my grandson has reached the age of two without ever seeing a rugby ball, I popped in and bought a suitably sized ball. [I am happy to report that it has subsequently proved popular].

Pulteney Bridge, Bath

Completed in 1774 to a design by Robert Adams, the bridge has seen many changes. It was widened in 1792, partly rebuilt after the floods of 1799 and 1800 and then the shops were enlarged and cantilevered out over the river. Attempts were made in the 1950s to return it to something like its original appearance.

The best view is from the Grand Parade. The weir system which controls flooding dates only from 1972, and it was here that Tom Hooper filmed the suicide of Javert in the 2012 film of Les Misérables (so I am told – I have not seen the film).

Pulteney Bridge, Bath

Bath Abbey

Having reached the city centre after our wander through Georgian Bath we jumped backwards in history by visiting the abbey. Bath Abbey has had a chequered history since it was founded in the 7th century and saw the crowning of Edgar as the first king of the English in 973.

John of Tours became Bishop of Wells and Abbot of Bath about 1090. More interested in wealthy Bath than poverty stricken Wells, he set about rebuilding the abbey as a new cathedral. It was finished in 1156, long after John of Tours was dead.

Bath Abbey

Subsequent bishops concentrated on Wells and by 1499 Bath was in poor repair, if not a ruin. Bishop Oliver King set about the work of restoration, which was completed just in time for the dissolution of the monasteries. The church was stripped of lead, iron and glass and left to decay. However, a city the size of Bath needed a cathedral and it was restored between 1580 and 1620. Further restoration was carried out by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1860.

Inside Bath Abbey

The large clerestory windows - glass occupies 80% of the wall area – allow in much more light than in most Perpendicular Gothic churches and permit a clear view of the fan vaulting, part of Bishop Oliver King’s restoration.

Oliver King's vaulting as restored by Sir George Gilbert Scott, Bath Abbey

The abbey was hosting an art exhibition. Damien Hirst’s St Bartholemew, Exquisite Pain was unsettling – I am unsure if that means I liked it – but sadly I found the other installations rather forgettable.

Sally Lunn's Bath Buns

We ate lunch at Sally Lunn’s, reputedly the oldest inhabited house in Bath and the home of the Bath Bun, or at least the Sally Lunn. Solange Luyon, a Huguenot refugee, brought her recipe for a large enriched yeast bun to Bath in 1680. It is claimed (by the owners of Sally Lunn’s) to be the original Bath Bun, though the name is also used for a sweet roll with currants and sugar crusting. No less an authority than Elizabeth David is wheeled out in support of the Sally Lunn. The other version which she describes as an ‘amorphous, artificially coloured, synthetically flavoured and over-sugared confections’ was developed for the Great Exhibition of 1851 and should, she claims, be called a London Bath Bun.

Sally Lunn's, Bath

Sally Lunn’s was crowded but they found us a table on the first floor. The menu is complicated but I had done my homework online and knew what we wanted, which was more than can be said for the elderly Texan couple on the next table. Tables at Sally Lunn’s are close together and the chances of having a conversation with complete strangers are high.

The large buns are served in halves, the bases being used for savouries, the tops for sweets. We had one of each and shared. With a pot of oolong tea it provided a pleasing light lunch at a reasonable price. The buns are a superior version of their kind but, despite the hype, they are still just buns, and who would make a pilgrimage to Bath just for a bun? The base covered with melted cheese was good enough but the cinnamon butter top, which they consider a speciality, was spectacular; not too sweet, not too cinnamon-y and with the underlying richness of good butter. It alone was worth the trip from Staffordshire, though perhaps not all the way from south Texas.

The Roman Baths

After lunch we stepped further back in time at Bath’s major tourist attraction, the Roman Baths which welcomes over a million visitors every year.

Water falling on the Mendip Hills takes about 10,000 years to percolate down into the depths of the earth before rising under pressure and reappearing in Bath – over a million litres a day at 46ºC.

The Romans arrived to find there was already a shrine here to the goddess Sulis. They called the place Aquae Sulis, quickly conflated the Celtic goddess with Minerva and built a temple and a baths complex. After the Romans withdrew the baths fell into disrepair and silted up. John de Tours (the rebuilder of the abbey) built a bath of sorts but it was not until the 18th century craze for taking the waters that the Bath returned to its former glory. It will be no surprise that the Georgian entrance and the Pump Room are the work of John Wood (the elder).

Remains of the temple portico, Roman Baths, Bath

The Roman bath is still there, though everything in this picture above water level is 19th century. The bath still has its original lead lining, but the green colouration is due to algae that were not present in Roman times as they grow in sunlight and the bath was then covered. Sadly, unpleasant micro-organisms (and the lead plumbing system) mean the bath can no longer be used, though there is a modern bath complex nearby using clean water from new boreholes.

The Roman Bath, Bath

The baths and temples make up a huge archaeological site, much of it hidden under existing buildings, but the museum makes the best of what it is there, with a comprehensive (and multi-lingual) audio guide to the baths, the temple and the many well displayed finds. In fact, the guide is so comprehensive that I doubt that many visitors listen to every word.

Roman gravestone later incorporated into the city's medieval fortifications

Pride of place goes to the gilt bronze head of Sulis Minerva that was discovered in 1727 during the digging of a new sewer system. She does look scarily like Margaret Thatcher.

Gilt bronze head of Minerva, Roman Baths, Bath

I also liked the collection of curse tablets. Curses were written out and lobbed into the holy spring so the goddess could take the appropriate action. Many curses relate to thefts of clothing while the victim was bathing and one contains the only surviving words written in the Brythonic language used by the general populace.

Overflow water streams through Roman brickwork

Eventually we emerged in the Pump Room where the water gushes from a clean modern tap. Warm and tasting strongly of iron the flavour is not actively unpleasant, but I cannot imagine anyone choosing to drink it unless they believed it was doing them good.

At £12.75 (more in July and August) visiting the baths is not cheap, but much effort has been taken to display everything as clearly as possible and to explain what you are seeing. It certainly occupied most of the afternoon and at the end I felt it was money well spent. There was nothing left to do afterwards except to make a few purchases and find the bus back to Saltford.

Almost every building in Bath, regardless of its age, is built of mellow Bath stone. It does not matter whether you are looking at the Regency Royal Crescent, the Victorian Art Gallery or even the relatively modern Bus Station, they all belong together and form part of a harmonious whole. Bath is not one of the world’s great cities, it is not a Rome or a Shanghai and with only 85,000 inhabitants it is far too small to play in that league, but such essential unity is impossible in a huge city. Bath has its star attractions, but it is the high quality of the buildings that are not part of those attractions that set it apart and makes it so memorable. Bath is a gem and well worth a day of anybody’s life.

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.