The Cotswold Way. Kev Reynolds

4 Hawkesbury Upton to Wotton-under-Edge 8 (12.5) 3½–4hr 5 Wotton-under-Edge to Dursley 7 (11) 3–3½hr 6 Dursley to Middleyard (King’s Stanley) 6½ (10.5) 3–3½hr 7 Middleyard (King’s Stanley) to Painswick 9½ (15) 4–5hr 8 Painswick to Birdlip 7 (11) 3–3½hr 9 Birdlip to Dowdeswell (A40) 9½ (15) 4–5hr 10 Dowdeswell (A40) to Cleeve Hill 6 (10.5) 2½–3hr 11 Cleeve Hill to Winchcombe 6½ (10.5) 2½–3hr 12 Winchcombe to Stanton 8 (12.5) 3½–4hr 13 Stanton to Chipping Campden 10 (16) 4–5hr 102 (163)

      The lofty Broadway Tower was built as a landmark folly for the Earl of Coventry. Standing high above Broadway it commands an impressive view (Stage 1, Southbound; Stage 13, Northbound)

INTRODUCTION

      Dodington Park, a series of graceful meadows between Tormarton and Old Sodbury (Stage 11, Southbound; Stage 3, Northbound)

      Views were lost in a grey mist of rain that had not let up since breakfast, but needing a hot drink I sank onto a cushion of heather, settled back against a silver birch and dug my flask out of the rucksack. The tea was welcome; the rain and lack of views had not affected my spirits and I was aware of being immensely happy. It was a privilege to be there, to be walking this land of timeless beauty, absorbing its past and present, gleaning experience for tomorrow’s patchwork of memory. And as I wiped the steam from my glasses I noticed, among the swamps of nodding cowslips that crowded the hillside, early purple orchids standing sentry-like here and there, their helmets tossing minute cascades of spray as raindrops fell upon them…

      The soft light of a June evening pushed shadows out of a stand of beech trees. From a pathside bank I watched the patch of darkness spread down the knoll as silvered galleon clouds drifted overhead and a blackbird piped his own last post from a hawthorn bush nearby. At the foot of the slope a roe deer slipped out of the woodland shaw and sprang across the long grass, as though leaping waves. Reluctant to break the spell I delayed my onward walk and sat, content to absorb the moment…

      These are just two of the vignettes that spill unbidden from a host of memories gathered along the Cotswold Way, but each time I’ve walked the route end to end – and others when I’ve snatched isolated sections for the sheer pleasure of being there – I’ve been seduced by the region’s special attractions. There are the curving bays and spurs of the escarpment, the beech-crowned heights, open breezy commons, deeply cut dry valleys, mile upon mile of drystone walling from which anxious wrens dart and where snails cling limpet-like to the verticals.

      Painswick, the ‘white town’ of the Cotswolds (Stage 6, Southbound; Stage 8, Northbound) (photo: Lesley Williams)

      I think of honey-coloured cottages, roses wild and nurtured, carpets of bluebells, ramsons and wood anemones, kestrels hovering head-down above the cropped turf, larks warbling from dawn to dusk, a cumulus of sheep on the brow of a distant hill. I remember old churches, Civil War battlefields, and the even older burial mounds and hill forts that pepper the route. I recall beams of sunlight shafting onto the River Severn, clouds rolling over the Black Mountains far away. And the peace. Not silence, but peace. The peace of a countryside comfortable with itself.

      A walker’s landscape is both a powerful stimulant and an inspiration. Certainly that is true where memories and dreams intertwine in a complex of pleasures on completion of the Cotswold Way.

The Cotswold Way

      The Cotswold Way measures 102 miles (163km) on its journey from Chipping Campden to Bath, and it’s a devious route – a switchback, stuttering, to-ing and fro-ing, climbing and falling walk. For newcomers to long-distance walking, it may come as a surprise to find how demanding it can be. One moment you’re wandering along the scarp edge, with toy-sized farms and villages scattered across the plains far below, the next you’re heading down to them – to explore a magical village, or a small market town with age in its streets, whose cottages are ‘faintly warm and luminous, as if they knew the trick of keeping the lost sunlight of centuries glimmering about them’. Then you head up again, zigzagging back and forth in order to capture the best the wolds can offer.

      Although it’s not the most challenging of National Trails, the amount of effort involved in the ascent and descent of so many steep slopes should not be underestimated – especially following periods of wet weather when the paths can be sticky with mud.

      The history of the Trail

      The Cotswold Way was developed by Gloucestershire County Council as a recreational route following a suggestion made by the district committee of the Ramblers’ Association as long ago as the early 1950s. As one of the county council’s major initiatives to mark European Conservation Year, the route was eventually launched in May 1970 during National Footpath Week. Five years later its full length was treated to a concentrated effort of waymarking, mainly by volunteers from the Ramblers and the Cotswold Voluntary Warden Service, and it subsequently became one of the most effectively waymarked long-distance walks in Britain.

      In May 2007 the Cotswold Way became recognised as a National Trail, and with that recognition came financial backing which enabled the whole route to be re-signed and waymarked with the acorn symbol. In addition, countless stiles were replaced by kissing gates, and a few sections of footpath surfaced where before they were either eroded or boggy. Any further improvements will no doubt be posted on the national trail website (www.nationaltrail.co.uk/cotswold-way) and described in subsequent editions of this guidebook.

      This is a route, like a number of others, that best repays an unhurried approach. There are so many places of interest nearby that no walker ought to resist the temptation to stray here and there in order to broaden his or her overall view of the region. ‘Intently haphazard’ is a term which admirably suits this attitude to walking the Cotswold Way.

      Chipping Campden makes a worthy beginning, Bath a worthy end. Between the two the way follows a meandering course through woodlands, along the western rim of the escarpment for mile after mile, down into secretive coombes, along the banks of millstreams, over sunny belvederes, exploring one glorious village after another, and always seeking to reveal the very essence of the Cotswolds, the spirit of the region. And it works. It works supremely well.