Once again I’d like to thank Louise Powell of Wiltshire Walks for this route. And I have to say it was a heart lifting walk that gave me (almost) no cause to rant or complain. This is another route right on the extremes of the county. It is mostly in Wiltshire apart from a short section in Somerset. We even dipped a toe into Gloucestershire.
Colerne is a place I haven’t visited since I was a lad, and that was a very long time ago. As a spotty youth I was an aircraft nut and used to get my mum to drive me all over the south of England to airfields so that I could jot down the registration numbers of planes in my notebook. I had an aunt and uncle who lived in Batheaston so on one of ours stays my mum drove me out to the RAF base at Colerne. That would have been in the mid- 1960s. I vaguely remember seeing some flimsy looking and ancient transport aircraft there but I’ve no idea now what they were, although Wikipedia suggests that Handley Page Hastings transport aircraft were based there until 1967.
The village occupies a stunning location high in the hills with distant views of Bath. We could even make out the white horse at Bratton far away. Box could be seen across the valley at the foot of a steep road climb. I would strongly suggest you don’t approach by car from this direction. The roads are mostly very steep and single track with few passing places. If you do insist on trying it you’d better know how to reverse for long distances on narrow lanes as no other bugger seems to be able to! The best approach is from the north. I’d imagine the village can be bleak in the winter as it’s very exposed up there. (We like bleak.) But there are two pubs, two shops and a florist so why would you want to leave?
You can forget parking on the High Street or Market Square in Colerne but we easily found a spot a short distance away on Quarry Lane. The route starts from St John the Baptist church between the lovely little Market Square and the Manor House, just a minute’s walk from the car. As always I spent far too long exploring the church. My regular walking buddy Stu and I wondered why a relatively small village would have such a big church. Since it’s in the Cotswolds I assumed this was partly funded by the riches from the wool trade. This view was supported by Wikipedia which states that the local economy was based on wool, cloth and stone quarrying.
St John the Baptist church dates to the early 13th or maybe 12th century. On an interior wall there are fragments of an 8th/9th century Saxon cross which is said to have been erected on the Market Square to commemorate St Aldhelm who died in 709 AD and whose body rested at Colerne on its way to burial at Malmesbury Abbey.
But man’s footprint can be found in the wider area long before that, there being three Neolithic bowl barrows nearby and the very large Iron Hill Fort of Bury Wood Camp dating to 100 BC which I visited some years ago when I did a walk from Castle Combe. And as we will see the Romans were everywhere here! There was a Roman villa on the site of the airfield as well as several others not far away, one of which I also visited on my Castle Combe walk (link below). Also of note in the north-east corner of the churchyard is a square bounded by a low railing with what looks like a mortsafe on one side. And before you go make sure you look up and check out the unusual one-handed clock in the tower.
On leaving the church we passed the former rectory coach-house converted from an 18th-century barn which has pieces of medieval carved stonework in its east wall, or hunky punks as they are otherwise known. They were inserted there during Victorian restoration but I’m not sure whether these were taken from the church. Back at the Market Square we turned left down Vicarage Lane. At the end, where Vicarage Lane becomes Watergates, on the right there is a public footpath through a narrow gap in the walls. The path wends its way between the garden walls of old village houses. This emerges onto a steep and narrow village street which you follow down to the left before forking right and thence to the footpath sign pointing across fields that fall away in the direction of Box in the middle distance.
The sewage works across the field to our left was remarkably odour free! Into a little wooded area we heard the sound of the babbling Lid Brook as it issued from a stone pipe beneath the little road bridge. Turning right we headed steeply up the lane north-west back towards Colerne. I realised we’d driven up it earlier to reach the village and it was at this point I resolved not to drive back this way! Through the hedge on our left we could just make out what appeared to be a cottage garden filled with flowers. But there appeared to be no house here although the OS map does show a small building which I don’t recall seeing. It seemed to have been abandoned and nature had regained its control. Near the top of the lane by stables on the left the footpath sign points south-east again across fields, taking us a full 360 degrees from the Lid Brook.
We continued through fields and over stiles in a south-west direction towards Ditteridge. It’s not always possible to see the next stile as you cross these fields until you’re close to it so this is where a map and compass come in handy, taking a bearing at each stile. Or the OS Maps app on your phone will do the trick. As we crested the hill on the edge of an arable field we could see the church and Cheney Court at Ditteridge below. Here met a guy out walking who was heading back the way we had come towards Colerne. In talking he corrected us on our pronunciation of Colerne. If you want to win friends and influence people here it’s pronounced “Cullerne”.
The views towards Bath from up here were magnificent. The landscape in this part of Wiltshire is so different from further south where I live. The valleys are steep and enclosed so when you emerge onto a hill everything opens up before you. Ditteridge is a tiny village. The beautiful little church of St Chistopher, which dates from 1097, the perfect place to stop and rest for a while. Pulling up a bench in the churchyard we enjoyed a coffee in the tranquillity of the this little gem of a place. Cheney Court a little way along the road is a 17th century manor house where P G Wodehouse spent some of his childhood in the late 19th century. Latterly it was used as a language school. But frankly we were so enamoured with the church we admired what little we could see of the house from the church.
St Christopher’s sits low in the landscape, it’s small bellcote with a single bell perfectly fitting for this little building. But there is so much to see inside and in its structure. Whilst what you see today is a Norman church it has Saxon origins. The windows of the original Norman church would all have been high narrow slits like the one that remains to the east (right) of the main door. The porch contains carved graffiti from the 17th century as well as witches’ and masons’ marks. The imposts either side of the inner door have a winged dragon and a horse carved in stone along with two men's heads facing inwards, apparently rare in Norman churches. The arch has lyre-shaped leaf motifs and the blank tympanum has a shallow niche, perhaps for a statue. Once inside you are met with a colourful full sized Victorian reproduction of a huge wall painting of St Chistopher found in the church during restoration, the original now lost.
There is so much to see in St Christopher’s. I could write a whole blog dedicated to it and the little village of Ditteridge. But it would only be a pale imitation of this article from Box People and Places Box People and Places. So I’ll just leave you with some of the many photographs I took of the church. But before leaving I thought this quote from the article summed up St Christopher’s perfectly. “What you see is not a museum: it is a living, active house of prayer.”
When we eventually tore ourselves away from the church we walked down to the end of the little track leading to it where, opposite the ubiquitous red phone box library, we found a remarkable house simply called The Bungalow. This looked for all the world like a colonial villa. Something you might find in the hills of India from the days of the Raj. To the left of the house was a footpath sign pointing the way across the fields to our next objective – Middlehill. From the path to our right we caught a glimpse of Cheney Court but the ugly overhead lines in front of it spoiled the view.
As we approached Middlehill we entered a field of sheep off to our left in the corner by an old dry stone wall. To our right, under some trees, I could make out a shape and before long we realised it was a sheep on its own by a fence and a long way from the flock. Stu and I undertook an animal welfare training course as part of our volunteering for Natural England. So we knew that when an animal takes itself off it’s normally a sign that all is not well. We approached and realised the sheep was caught in the fence, trapped tight with its head through the stock netting. It had clearly been there some time as it barely moved despite the look of terror in its eyes. There was no sign of a farmer so we walked to the hamlet of Middlehill just a few metres away. Again no one in sight. Just as we were wondering what to do next a woman pulled into the hamlet in her car. Thinking that she lived there we asked if she had any wire cutters. She turned out to be a gardener who had come to work on a client’s garden in Middlehill. Fortunately she had a pair of loppers in the back of the car. The three of us returned to the sheep and Stu carefully cut away two of the strands of wire releasing the sheep from its shackles. This was the first time it wriggled. Having released it the sheep shot across the field to rejoin the flock, seemingly none the worse for its ordeal. We thought it was very trusting of the woman we had met to follow two ugly old blokes on her own into a field when there was nobody else around. It’s heartening that not everyone sees the worst in their fellow man.
Reverting to our walk we had a brief look at Middlehill which really consists of just a few pretty cottages. In the 18th century an attempt was made to develop the area as a spa. Its proximity to the main stage coach route between Bath and London and the local natural springs made it the ideal location and the spa was based around Spa House. Later the railway came to Box meaning it could be reached within 10 minutes from Bath. The substantial Middlehill House was built nearby in the 18th century located there for its proximity to convenient water supply. Curiously Middlehill House is not named on the OS Map although we caught glimpses of its chimneys on and off from a distance as we walked.
Leaving the cottages at Middlehill, and ignoring the footpath sign that leads down into the wood on our left (a pointless diversion) we followed the short track down to the road, the noise from the nearby A4 ever present. At the junction we saw a number of teenagers emerge from the road down from Box and pass through the gate opposite the junction. They were headed our way, which was to follow a path along the banks of the River By Brook, a tributary of the Avon. This was to become another heart lifting moment. For around a mile we were able to follow the course of the river unhindered by fences and “Private” signs. The teenagers disappeared through a gap in the hedge. Curious we went to see where they were going. They were making for a perfect bathing pool in the river. This was the sort of the thing we thought nothing of during our childhood in the 1960s but nowadays it’s a rare sight as landowners fence off rivers. It was a joy to see. We beat a hasty retreat when they started to strip down to their swimming costumes but we found other equally delightful bathing pools as we continued along the path.
As we progressed along the riverbank we crossed the border into Somerset, marked by a new wooden farm gate and a muddy ditch! No checkpoint here.
Up to our right a substantial country mansion appeared. This turned out to be Shockerwick House, now a BUPA care home. It was built around 1750 having been commissioned from architect John Wood by the Wiltshire family (in Somerset!) in 1740. Thomas Gainsborough was a frequent visitor. In 1961 it was bought by Henry Pelham-Clinton-Hope, 9th Duke of Newcastle. We were to hear some tales about him later on our walk which I absolutely cannot repeat here! He sold it to the tobacco company W D and H O Wills of Bristol in 1970 who used it as a training centre. It’s been a nursing home since 1983.
Reaching a lane by an old stone bridge we tuned right and headed steeply uphill towards the Shockerwicks (Farm, Lower and Upper). As we came to the farm there were a couple of what we assumed were barns on our left but they had crosses on the roof like a chapel. They are listed by Historic England as a barn and granary from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Opposite was the farm house, Lower Shockerwick Farmhouse, with its curious barrel shaped roof. It dates from the mid 17th century. A little further up the lane we met a guy working on a house. He was owner of the splendidly named Roman Rod, a drainage company. Now retired he had bought the house on which he was now working. He explained that the widow of the farmer who once farmed the area had sold all the land and the buildings we had just seen and had moved into the care home at Shockerwick House. He had bought the house, which he described as the ugliest house in Somerset (it wasn’t), to retire to. The views across the valley to Box and beyond were spectacular. After a long enjoyable chat we continued our climb up the lane, reaching Upper Shockerwick where the houses had recently been bought by a UFL (Up From Londoner) for a fortune and who was developing a vineyard in the area. Here we turned right onto the track signposted Keeper’s Cottage for the second encounter with a local of the day, and one of those truly memorable chats that shows what a small world we live in.
The track, a byway, is very steep and rocky. It was hard going. But as Keeper’s Cottage came into view at the edge of the woods we realised it was someone’s driveway. I remarked to Stu that there’s no way you’d get a Ford Focus up there! The views up here were even more stunning.
We soon heard sounds from the trees to the left of the track and realised someone was in there sawing at a branch. This proved to be the wonderful Reg Burnard. What followed was a delightful half hour’s chat with one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. Reg and his wife Jo bought the house in front of which we were standing over 50 years ago. It had no electricity or mains water then. Over the years they’ve done a huge amount of work to it. Reg has had many careers, all the time commuting from the cottage on this precipitous rocky track to Bath or Bristol.
He’s been in public relations, in agriculture, a professional photographer, a musician and motoring correspondent. It transpired he worked for Showerings which became an entity of Allied Lyons, Allied Domecq and then Pernod Ricard. Now in my previous life as a young insurance broker I looked after the insurance programme for Showerings and then Allied Lyons. I knew some of the members of the Showering family so Reg and I swapped stories as Stu was left to contemplate the fact that we had missed lunch!
Sadly we said goodbye to Reg but not before taking his portrait. And not before he told us that the track we were on may have been a tributary of the Fosse Way where we were headed next. Roman arrowheads have been found on the track and it would have served as a useful link from the Fosse Way to the By Brook river. The track leading up to the Fosse Way is even steeper and rockier so I’ve no idea how Reg gets his vehicle up there! But we were soon on the ridge where the track joins the Fosse Way and once again were greeted by views that stretched forever into Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset and Wiltshire to the south.
We turned right and headed east along the road at this point. A warning – this is a fast road and whilst there was not much traffic on it the drivers seemed incapable of slowing down as they passed us. It is possible to step up onto the grass verge as vehicles speed past but I won’t pretend this was a pleasant experience. Mercifully we weren’t in the road for long - about a kilometre. As you would expect being a Roman road it is plumb straight. This was one of the most important roads to the Romans. For the first few decades after the Roman invasion of Britain in 43 AD, the Fosse Way marked the western frontier of Roman rule in Iron Age Britain. It connected Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter) in the southwest and Lindum Colonia (Lincoln) to the northeast, via Lindinis (Ilchester), Aquae Sulis (Bath), Corinium (Cirencester), and Ratae Corieltauvorum (Leicester). It had junctions with Akeman Street and Ermin Way at Cirencester, crossed Watling Street at Venonis (High Cross) south of Leicester, and joined Ermine Street at Lincoln. The sheer number of Roman settlements and artefacts in the area are an indicator of its importance. But today, along this stretch, it seemed little more than a drag strip. It certainly was for the Lamborghini that shot past us.
Soon we reached the Wiltshire Welcomes You sign where we could breathe a sigh of relief being back on home turf. But we were looking for something else. In a field to our left, in Somerset, some people were setting up a huge marquee in a large field that was mown so close that it could have been a bowling green. Stu said it looked like they were setting up for a polo match. There were no goal posts so I’m not sure. But that isn’t what we were looking for either. A little further up the road, again on the left, was the beginning of a dry stone wall so characteristic of the Cotswolds. This was the spot. Tucked into a gap in the hedge row on the roadside and hard by the wall was what looked like a dolmen, not dissimilar to the Devil’s Den on Fyfield Down near Marlborough. But this was no Neolithic burial chamber. This was the Three Shires Stone which marks the meeting point of the counties of Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire.
According to The Modern Antiquarian the original megalith was positioned here in the early 18th century reusing stones from some ruined chambered tomb in the district. The Modern Antiquarian goes on to say “There are three small dressed stones inside, each dated 1736 and with the initial of one of the three counties”. Wish I’d known that at the time as I didn’t notice the inscriptions but the small stones looked like a miniature version of their host. However, documents from the Victorian era state that a new monument was erected over the original stones using new stones quarried for the purpose. This work was completed in February 1859 and reports added that in the hole excavated for the upright stone on the Gloucestershire side three skeletons and a coin of James II (d. 1701) were found. A quick Google search revealed that there are a total of 10 Three Shire Stones across England so these are not unique. But another word of warning. There is no parking by the stones so if you want to drive there you will have to find somewhere safe to park some distance away and walk.
On leaving the stones we continued along the Fosse Way for a short distance and passed the drive to two large houses. But looking at the map this was clearly once the entrance to a large country estate. Beyond the houses can be seen a long avenue of trees which once led to a large country house known as The Rocks. This was demolished in 1957 and only the outbuildings remain. Passing a turning to the right and just after the road sign indicating the junction of the roads to The Shoe, and to Ford and Colerne there is a footpath sign pointing across the fields on the right. This path wiggles its way across fields and through a wood until it reaches Westwood House and the scene of another very pleasant encounter.
Westwood House is a striking looking place. We’d seen it from afar earlier on the walk sitting high on the hill. It dominates the landscape. We thought it was a Georgian mansion but up close we could see it was modern. It sits in an immaculately maintained estate criss-crossed by footpaths. Refreshingly all the paths had been mown and kept clear, kissing gates installed in the newly painted wrought iron fencing and not a single “Private” sign anywhere.
As we passed through a kissing gate by a cattle grid on the drive a vehicle approached and a smiling face beamed out at us. This was Dave. I guess you would call Dave the estate manager. A thoroughly nice bloke passionate about his job. We chatted to him for an age as he told us the story behind the house. It was built around 17 years ago by a local businessman. I’ll leave you to find out who if you need to know. But he fell in love with the location which in those days was wild and untamed and set about making his mark here. Dave has worked tirelessly on the estate doing most of the grounds maintenance himself. He explained that they were keen to do the right thing by keeping rights of way open and maintaining the estate in an environmentally sensitive way. They positively encourage people to come and see what they’ve achieved. Dave explained that they want to make a lake in the valley between the house and Colerne, which was once again visible on the opposite hill. Whilst it was frustrating for them there are a host of regulations with which they must comply in such an endeavour but they are determined to do so.
So reluctantly we took our leave of Dave, who urged us to visit again soon, but not before taking his photograph standing proudly in front of the house. We crossed the lawns to our left, went through another kissing gate and dropped down into the valley where Dave wants to put to the lake.
A tranquil haven where we could hear little but the sound of a babbling brook and a buzzard overhead. The brook will presumably feed the lake. Following the driveway into Breach Wood we followed the public footpath signs steeply upwards towards Sydney Farm and Colerne.
Joining the road into Colerne and passing quaint country cottages as we went, we soon came upon a welcome sight. The Fox and Hounds. We may have stopped for a pint!
This really was a delightful walk. Once again Stu put the dampener on the weather and we had cloud, and even a bit of unforecast rain, all day. But the countryside in this part of Wiltshire is superb and despite a stretch where we could hear the A4 through Box it was peaceful. In all the walk was 11kms/6.82 miles. There are a lot of steep climbs so a degree of fitness would help. But we’re fat and old and managed it just fine. It was dry the day we walked but I imagine some of the low lying stretches could be boggy at wetter times of year. Thanks again to Louise Powell for this fantastic route. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
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