The wind howled and it rained all night. We packed up, said goodbye to our hosts and drove off down the terrifying road to Penzance, where the roads got more and more reasonable until the M5 motorway to Heathrow. Again, all on the wrong side of the road – mostly. Also, southern England is bigger than I remember it.
We are in an Ibis Inn. They are like McDonalds – exactly the same everywhere. We walked down the street to the nearest pub, The Three Magpies, for a last pint and a meal of English fish and chips. It stood alone, an 18th century building in a vacant lot surrounded by Heathrow hotels. They were out of two of their four kinds of beer, and out of fish and chips. You could almost visualize the sign on the door “Soon to be the Site of the new Days Inn”. So back to the Ibis Restaurant for a glass of red and their fish and chips. The fish was okay, but the chips were terrible. Come on Ibis, you may have cheap rooms, but you have to get better chips.
Up early tomorrow to gas up the car (175 pound penalty for not gassing up) and get to our flight on time.
The weather improved, but it was only predicted to hold for the morning so we set off early. The first destination was to be Men-an-Tol, down the road a couple miles and a half mile walk up the hill.
The view from a Cornish footpath can be the same as the view from a French canal boat – a wall of green on each side.
The name means ‘holed stone’ since, of a set of stones in a field, one has a perfectly circular hole about 18 inches across. The group may date from about 2000 BC, but has been much modified in modern times.
Stacey would not pose crawling through the hole. He said it was because he didn’t want to get wet but I think he was worried about getting stuck.
The stone was once known as the Crick Stone, since crawling through it had various healing properties as well as giving you muddy knees. We tried to walk further to see more standing stones and stone circles, but were defeated by the high stone walls and a pool covering the path.
This is in a cow pasture. For those who do not understand the importance of that remark, remember that cows make very large semi liquid deposits. You want to be careful where you kneel to get a better angle on that photo.
Down the road a bit further is the Lanyon Quoit. This is a 9 by 17 foot flat rock resting atop three man sized rock pillars. It is like the dolmens in Ireland and Brittany, which are thought to be neolithic burial tombs – 3 or 4 thousand years old. There are said to be other smaller burial cists nearby. The quoit was at one time resting on four rocks high enough to allow a horse and rider to pass underneath. It fell in 1815, breaking one of the support rocks. The fall was blamed on lightning, but more likely due to amateurs digging. It was re-erected by public subscription.
Back of the dolman was the site of the Ding Dong Mine. The photo is of a pumping engine house. The area around this tin mine has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Across the hillside could be seen a large stone building that is the remains of the Ding Dong mine, a tin mining operation from the 1800s. The map indicates that area is covered with ‘disused mineshafts’, so it is not an area to go crawling through the bracken.
Along the way to Carn Galver we stopped for a view to the ocean. The plan was to walk from the mine sit to the National Trust cliff walk but, alas, the rains arrived and we went to the pub instead.
The small rainstorms that had been going around us all morning now caught us so we drove to the Carn Galver mine near Rosmergy, where you can get a close up look at a similar tin mining ruin. We were going to walk down to the National Trust cliffside trail, but the rain arrived in earnest, so instead we retired to the up-market pub at Treen for lunch. After lunch the rain had settled in for the day so we returned home.
The Hay Loft behind the owner’s cottage. This wie parking area is not for us. We get the narrow one between 2 stone walls. The owner is a retired antique dealer and you can believe that when you see the amount of “interesting stuff” that fills our cottage.
The detailed Ordnance Survey map indicates that this bustling burg of 4 or 5 houses has its own name. It is hard to tell really how many houses as they sort of run together.
Looks wet out there!
The weather was as bad or worse this morning, with a strong wind and continuing rain. It is comforting how three feet of rock wall can insulate you from the weather.
Grocery store in Pendeen. They have everything!
It slowed a bit at noon, enough for us to venture out to drive to Pendeen for lunch and groceries. Pendeen is the nearest town that actually has a store that sells food, and has at least two pubs.
Lunch stop at The North Inn in Pendeen.
We stopped at Morvah on the way back to check out their craft store in the original schoolhose, and the church. The church is a small, stone, much reconstructed, plain building with a small square tower. The interior is equally plain, but it appears to be a functioning church.
Morvah Parish Church.
It was without rain long enough for us to walk around the neighbourhood for some pictures, but we did not venture far. The road is narrow enough that you have to squeeze against the rock wall when a car breezes past, and the walls are really too high to get into the fields.
All the lovely green hedgerows are filled with rocks like this. And the roads seem to be 1.5 cars wide and two ways. Makes for interesting driving.
There are some ancient standing stones in the area, some a few hundred yards away, but impossible to get to under these conditions. There is a National Trust walking path along the cliffs, again only a few hundred yards away. I checked out one of the connecing paths and it appears somebody had made an effort to clear a way through the bracken, but gave up when they hit a swamp.
A U turn. Remember the content of those hedges in front and behind the brand new hire car!
The rain continues tonight, but there are hopes for a clear interval tomorrow. Meanwhile it is an evening of sitting in front of the fire with wine and cheese.
Today was (is) Vic’s 75th birthday. What an accomplishment!
In the middle of the night last night, to the accompaniment of rain and thunder, we could be heard giving thanks for having nine days of walking without rain. There was a break this morning while we rolled our luggage to the train station to get to Oxford.
Our rental car was upgraded considerably to a hybrid Corolla. Thus equipped we were off in the rain for the 300 mile drive to the tip of Cornwall. Because the car is hybrid electric it has all manner of bells and whistles. The gas consumption is indicated at 60 mi/gal (imperial), which is pretty good. It took us about 5 hours, and we did it all on the wrong side of the road. Mostly anyway.
Cornwall gets a bit of ‘end of the world’ sort of at this point. The four lane divided gives way to two, then less and less to eventually one extremely winding lane between stone walls with this brand new so far unscratched rented Corolla. The terrain is barren, windswept bracken, and the road is an old cowpath.
This is the road we drove down. One of us would have had to back up if we had met.
We arrived at our destination, the town (?) of Morvah (look it up – better use Google Earth or Maps, and a magnifying glass) and a phone call got us to our accomodation. It is a stone cottage attached to a couple other similar cottages a half km from Morvah.
Standing at our front door looking to where our car is parked between 2 stone walls. And we need to go to Penzance for groceries. I’m afraid to try to move that car!
It is quaint beyond belief. The landlord had built a fire in the stove to warm the place for us. When we indicated we were unlikely to drive the two km to, and back from, the pub in the dark after a supper, he gave us the remains of his fried rice meal so we wouldn’t have to drive. He is really nice. This is going to be a very interesting three days. There are several walks in the area that involve historical standing stones.
Taken out the bedroom window towards the beginnings of sunset. That horizon is the Atlantic Ocean
A straw rooster on a thatched roof in Broad Campden.
The first pause out of Chipping Campden this morning was at Broad Campden, a tiny village a couple miles away. It had a lovely small country church, (another of the St. Michael’s and All Angels churches, to counteract the presence of the archeological Norman Chapel) which appeared to have services every Sunday, something some of the bigger churches didn’t have. We also passed the Quaker Meeting House dated 1663, making it the oldest one still in use.
A dovecot in a farm building near Broad Campdon.
We passed a disused quarry that was filled with three gigantic tent like structures, said to be a biogas plant. Each was as big as a football field.
We arrived at Blockley in time for lunch. The Blockley church seemed to be in the middle of some kind of community celebration. It happens to be the church where the British TV series Father Brown is filmed, so they are used to tourists.
A display of local produce in the Blockley church.
Today was a longer walk (12.5 km plus some big hills) so we did not arrive back in Moreton-on-Marsh until after three, however it is the end of our walking days. After some refreshments we searched out the railway station in preparation for tomorrow’s departure.
Came across a party of dogs and beaters gearing up to move some grouse down the hill to hunters waiting in the valley. Could hear the guns a little while later.This is what a 75 year old looks like after 8 days walking in the Cotswolds. It was great!
We are now in a different posh hotel, down the street from the first. Again an upper floor room, but here they did not move the suitcases for us. We have lots of room with two big king sized beds with headboards big and plush enough to sleep on if they were horizontal. The beds have a fine mink fur throw on them. Well maybe it is not real mink, but it is plush and furry.
Incidentally Vic says this trip has been a four blister walk, but one of them is small.
The Broadway Tower sits alone on a high hill south east of Broadway. It is a 3 storey crenellated folly, built in 1798 for the Earl of Coventry. For much of its later life it was actually used as a residence. That is remarkable considering it has only three rooms, each 12 feet across, located one above the other connected by narrow spiral staircases, and had no electricity or heat (no fireplaces) and no neighbours. One of the inhabitants for a number of years was the designer William Morris and his family.
We started climbing at 9am from down in those houses.
We trudged up to the tower right off. There is nothing like a 700 foot steep climb first thing in the morning to get your heart going. After that the day’s walk was the normal fields and pastures. We follow traditional footpaths. These are enshrined in history and law – walkers have the right to use them, even if they cut diagonally across a field of crops, as they often do.
Of we go diagonally across some poor farmer’s field.
Again it was a short walk today, some 10 km, so we arrived in Chipping Camden in early afternoon, with time to take in the sights of the village after lunch. The high street runs along the side of a hill, so one side is higher than the other – elegantly terraced, they say. In the center is the old Market Hall from 1627.
Floor is paved with random stones of varying sizes with no regular pattern.
We gravitated to St. James church at the far end of town. It is one of the ‘wool churches’, i.e., financed by the wealthy merchants. Although the structure was started about 1260, it did not reach its present form until the large rectangular tower was added in 1500.
The large gate to the right of the church is to Campten House, belonging to the Hicks family.
The items of interest in the church are well documented. There are medieval fabrics of note on display behind curtains and glass to protect them. The south east chapel is devoted to a remarkable monument to Sir Baptist Hicks and his family. The monument has marble columns supporting a canopy over marble effigies of himself and his wife.
Those riffs around the neck must have been uncomfortable.
He seems to have funded many things in the town, including a dozen alms houses and the aforementioned Market Hall. His manor house next door to the church was burned at the time of the civil war and little remains.
Then it was time for a walk to the other end of town to the Catholic Church. This is the first Catholic church of significant size that we have seen. I suppose it must be remembered that when these large old churches were being built they were ALL Catholic, and only ceased being so at the Reformation with Henry’s actions. It was only after 1827 when Catholicism became fully legal in England again that Catholic churches could be considered. This particular one, St. Catherine’s, was finished in 1891. It is comparatively dark inside, with relatively small windows in the aisles, and the clerestory windows not providing much more light. It has a particularly fine square tower with stone tracery around the bells, and a gable roof.
Our hotel is The Lygons Arms, part of the row of old buildings on the High Street. Probably has been an inn since the middle ages. Our room has raw stone walls and open timbered beams. Otherwise quite modern.
Back in Stanton this moning, the first order of business was to check out the village church. The most noteable feature of the architecture is a very tall slender spire. The original 12th century building had a large central tower that collapsed, taking much of the building with it. It must have taken some courage to rebuild with such a high steeple, although putting it safely on the west end. Much of the internal decoration is modern, WW I era.
This portion of the window behind the altar is thought to be saved from Hailes Abby after it was destroyed by Henry VIII.
There are a couple windows of unusual stained glass, possibly from Hailes Abbey.
I didn’t know they had fire weed in the UK. Known here as rosebay willowherb.
The walk today was short and we were back in Broadway by noon for lunch.
At the pub, ordering lunch.
The church in Broadway is not of note, the first stone being laid in 1846, so it is essentially modern. It is yet another church dedicated to St Michael and All Angels, the third in the last couple days. St. Michael was the archangel and “leader of the army of God against the forces of evil”, and was often depicted killing a symbolic dragon (earlier a snake) representing evil, not to be confused with St. George who is usually depicted killing an actual dragon. There was a note somewhere that St Michael and All Angels was often chosen as the name of a church in a reference to earlier, pre-Christian buildings on the site, where St. Michael’s protection was needed.
One immense wisteria along the whole front of that building here in Broadway.
We spent the afternoon lazing about eating ice cream under a shady tree on the village green. Tomorrow’s walk is harder.
First thing this morning, as is our wont, we headed for the major church in Winchcombe, St. Peter’s. It is a large church with a square tower, built about 1460 by the masons left over from the building of Sudeley Castle.
And he is grotesque, isn’t he?
Its most remarkable feature is the more than 40 grotesques sticking out of every corner of the exterior. I have photographs of them all. Time and aging have left them no less grotesque.
Well, across the fields and over the stiles.
Then it was hi!-ho! and off across the fields we go! (again!). The first major stop was at Hailes where there are the ruins of Hailes Abbey. It was very rich and drew the attention of Henry VIII’s reformers, resulting in its destruction. We did not have the time to do it justice but turned our attention to the tiny Hailes Church, adjacent.
The basic fabric dates from 1175,and has been little modified since. It was just a parish church, not associated with the Abbey, and so escaped Henry’s Dissolution. It’s stucco walls still have 12th century paintings, however very faded after some 800 years.
St. Catherine
There are monumental stones set in the floor from the early 1600s. There are headstones in the yard that you can read into family stories.
Walked through the Stanway Estate. The meadows had huge oak trees and other huge trees as yet to be identified. We have some nuts from one of the trees that we will try to identified.
The trail continued, passing the imposing gatehouse of Stanway House, a magnificent Jacobean manor owned for the last 500 years by the Earls of Wemyss. The large church adjacent was locked as it is essentially the private chapel of the Earl.
In Stanton.
Our walking destination for the day was Stanton. We were due to be picked up at the pub at the local inn at four to be transferred to our accomodation in Broadway. The pub turned out to be not only at the far end of Stanton, but a long way up a steep hill. It also turned out that it closed at three, and we just got there in time to get a drink. Who closes a pub at three in the afternoon? And it is the only establishment in Stanton. I bet that town is a riot on Saturday night. So we sat on the patio of a vacant inn until our ride showed up, accompanied only by the inn’s cat.
In Stanton, interesting features the thatched roof.
Here we are in Broadway at another b&b – our room adjacent to the front door in what I’m sure was the parlour in the original design, judging by our bow window.
The weather was back to fine today with a bright blue sky when the taxi came take us to Guiting Power. It also brought the American couple we had seen previously who are with the same tour operator, but staying at different places.
Post Office at Guiting Power
Guiting Power is a tiny town consisting only of a post office and a few houses.
An English robin spotted on our walk to the church.
We eventually located the village church on the far edge of town. It had two ladies seated in it, one of whom turned out to be the vicar of the five churches in the area, including the one at Lower Slaughter, seen yesterday. The church has Norman origins, but with many changes over the centuries. It has a peal of five bells from 1869 that I would love to hear.
St. M8chael and All Angel’s Church, Guiting Power.
The walk today took us around the edge of Guiting Wood, a very well maintained, large woodlot. It also seemed to be the breeding area for pheasants – they became thicker until we ran across the game keeper feeding them. There were so many we eventually stopped taking pictures.
One of about 20 pheasant photos.
We stopped to chat with two stone masons building a drystone wall. There are a lot of old such walls in the area and it is good to see that they are still being built in the old fashion.
Learned a bit about dry stone wall construction during a chat with this bloke.
The trail eventually brought us through the Sudley Estates to the rear of Sudley Castle. A visit to the castle had been highly recommended, but it was too late in the day to take it in. The view of the castle from the rear is quite good; the view from the front car park is obscured by trees. Queen Katherine Parr lived, died, and is buried here; the only private castle in England to have a queen buried in it. It is also infamous because last week thieves smashed their way in and stole jewelry given by Edward VII to his mistress, Alice Keppel.
Sudeley Castle in the foreground with Winchcombe in the background.As close as we got to the castle.
Our hotel here in Winchcombe is The White Hart Inn Est.1554, and it is everything that The White Hart Inn Est.1554 should be – post and beam, creaky floorboards, rabbit warren hallways, uneven floors and unusually high ceilings. Our bedroom is well decorated, clean and comfortable. The inn, and the part of Winchcombe that we have seen, is a walkers retreat. The hotel entry is full of delivered suitcases and the streets are full of people with walking poles, day packs and Tilly hats.
Dawn this morning revealed a cloudy sky and a weather prediction of a significant chance of rain. The tour organizer, as a result of accomodation booking problems, has organized a ten mile loop walk returning back here, instead of progressing on the Cotswold loop. The opportunity to walk ten miles in the rain to go nowhere in particular was not found appealing, so we opted to freelance it.
Before we left town we spotted a very Stacey-like creation. Just look at the detail in that tree stump.
As we left through Bourton-on-the-Water a bakery called and we had morning tea and scones by the stream.
And it was delicious!
We headed out upstream along the river for a couple miles, then cut across country to Lower Slaughter and home again. This made a 5 mile walk that accomplished the same goals as their ten.
The hedgerows along this portion of the walk were taller than Stacey. Not much of a view.These sheep live just outside our bedroom window.
The weather held off all day without any recognizable rain. Back in Bourton-on-the-Water, we decided to round out the day with an Afternoon Tea. We found that the chosen tea shop required 24 hours notice (to make sandwiches and put out cakes?), so it was back to last night’s resturant which did not need the notice. However their Afternoon Tea For Two was £20 per person, which after negotiation became Afternoon Tea For Two For One With One Added Tea for £22.65. It’s the idea, not the food value anyway. Even at £40, it still would be cheaper than the Empress.
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