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SOUTHBOUND

Chipping Campden to Bath

Stanton Reservoir (Stage 1)

INTRODUCTION

The official start or finish of the Cotswold Way on Chipping Campden High Street (photo: Lesley Williams)

To walk south along the Cotswold Way is to make a pilgrimage with Bath, its Regency splendour and the glory of its abbey, beckoning from afar. Although you may well have the prevailing wind in your face, this should be adequately compensated for by long views and sunshine on your brow. The southbound route is a little less strenuous than walking northward, where there’s rather more up than down, and – this is important – when you begin in Chipping Campden the essential harmony of the Cotswolds is with you from the very start.

Before setting out, time should be allowed to explore the town. There’s much to see and admire, to absorb and file away in memory and recall in other towns and villages along the way. Almost as soon as Campden is left behind there are long views to soak in, and the first of many walks along the escarpment, this time to Broadway Tower, then down to Broadway and up again before you reach Stanton and Stanway.

The escarpment is gained and lost countless times on the way to Bath, the first day or two offering a particular abundance of fresh excuses to descend to the plain and then climb up again. There are field paths, woodland trails, old drove-roads and saltways, green lanes and minor roads winding between hedgerows lively with sparrows and wrens, fragrant with honeysuckle in spring and early summer, and with huge panoramas across the plains.

From Stanway there’s an up-and-down stretch to the ruins of Hailes Abbey and across undulating farmland to Winchcombe, with its pretty cottages, village stocks and gargoyles round the church. After Winchcombe there’s Belas Knap (worth half an hour of anyone’s time), then on to the highest part of the whole route on Cleeve Common.

Cleeve Common leads to Leckhampton Hill, another lofty belvedere overlooking Cheltenham, with the eye-catching digit of the Devil’s Chimney jutting from a lower scarp terrace. South of Leckhampton is Crickley Hill, where history, in the form of a hill fort, lies partly exposed, and an observation platform provides an opportunity to look back a thousand years and more.

Between Crickley Hill and Cooper’s Hill the way crosses just below Birdlip, which sits astride the Roman route of the Fosse Way. Woods conceal the broadest views, but the approach to Cooper’s Hill still allows plenty to gaze at, with a soft light flooding through the trees. More woods stretch along the escarpment, but the way emerges onto Painswick Beacon, open and green, splashed with silver birch and birdsong. Down then to the whitest of all Cotswold towns. Painswick has a churchyard known far and wide for its table tombs and exquisite yews – but there’s much more besides.

From Painswick a climb leads onto Scottsquar Hill and to what many consider the finest vantage point of the whole walk, Haresfield Beacon. This is indeed a tremendous knoll from which to gaze out over the Vale of Gloucester, the River Severn and the Forest of Dean. After absorbing all you can from here it’s back to woodland for a downhill stretch into an industrial valley overlooked by Stroud.

From cloth mills on the River Frome to woodlands hanging from the steep scarp slope takes only an hour or so. Peace and serenity are restored as you regain the escarpment, where huge views look out to a pair of outliers, which soon have to be crossed. Near Hetty Pegler’s Tump the Cotswold Way plunges down the scarp, then climbs up and over Cam Long Down before swooping down once more – this time into Dursley.

Flat-topped Cam Long Down captures your attention when seen from the Coaley Peak picnic site (photo: Lesley Williams)

Dursley leads to Stinchcombe Hill, and from there to North Nibley, Nibley Knoll and Wotton-under-Edge. (What names there are to conjure with in the Cotswolds!) Wotton has its millstreams, and the stage beyond Wotton explores a narrow valley lit by a lively little stream that once powered several mills, one of which is passed on the way to Hawkesbury Upton.

Out of Hawkesbury you follow the old trading route of Bath Lane. Tiny Horton is next, closely followed by Little Sodbury and Old Sodbury, through Dodington Park and up to Tormarton, sitting pretty on the edge of a motorway hell. Dyrham seems all but forgotten in its leafy dell. Cold Ashton smiles out to the south and, as you leave it along Greenways Lane, so a luxurious bowl of countryside draws you on.

It’s not far then to Bath. Over the Battlefields, along the escarpment once more, round a golf course and across an Iron Age hill fort and you come to Prospect Stile, with the first view of Bath lying in its hollow. Best of all is the view onto Kelston Round Hill, one of the finest of all hills seen since leaving Chipping Campden. The onward route leads round its shoulder and down to Regency Bath, along a maze of elegant streets until at last you come face to face with that gem of an abbey. That sight alone is worth walking the Cotswold Way for.