Christopher Somerville works from home as a writer and journalist, looking out across a wide and stunning view that takes in much of north-east Bristol and over to the hills near Bath. So although he lives in and enjoys the city there’s always a view to the hills and the landscape which provides the inspiration for his many books and newspaper articles.
He says, “Bristol is an excellent place for a walker to live – 40 minutes travel in any direction takes you to a diversity of countryside; from Somerset Levels to the Welsh Hills, and from the greatest light show on earth (yes, the sunset over the Bristol Channel) to the pretty villages and valleys of the Cotswolds.”
Here is the first in a series of walks he will be compiling for Stanfords’ readers to follow in the Southwest each month.
The houses of Southstoke, built of the same pale silver and cream oolitic limestone as their Big Brother city of Bath just over the hill, were lightly dusted with powder snow on this cold winter’s morning. Over the porch of the Church of St James the Great, a Millennium carving of the much-travelled Apostle showed him staring with seer’s eyes from the shelter of a pilgrim’s scallop shell. With one shoulder bare and a crust of last night’s snow for a collar, the hero of Santiago looked a little under-dressed for the weather. Not so the two young girls busy making snow pancakes outside the Packhorse Inn – they were kitted out like crimson-cheeked polar explorers.
From the ridge beyond Southstoke a wonderful vista opened out southwards over deeply cut valleys frosted to lemon yellow and ice green. A smoky grey sky hung low, telling of more snow on the way. I pushed my hands deeper into my pockets and went crunching down the slopes of Horsecombe Vale. The cattle in the fields moved gingerly, sensing the ankle-breaking hollows concealed below the ice lids over their own hoofpocks. Warmed by their sweet, cloudy breath, I skittered down through the woods to Tucking Mill.
The tree-knotted trackbed of the former Somerset & Dorset Railway led south to Midford. The clanking steam engines of the S&D had carried me to school in the long ago, and I used to look out as we passed over Midford Viaduct to see the abandoned tracks of the Somerset Coal Canal and the Cam Valley Railway snaking away below. Although the canal was killed off when the railway opened before the First World War, it is the graceful structures of the old waterway that claim attention as one walks the Cam Valley today – a packhorse bridge isolated in a field, and three long, narrow lock basins of beautiful silvery Bath stone, empty and ivy-strangled along a hedge. The bigger, blunter instrument of the abandoned railway eventually came striding in on a tall embankment, shouldering the canal aside into the woods and hurrying me on to Combe Hay.
A proper old lane, stony and tree-lined, led up behind the Wheatsheaf Inn to the crest of the ridge and the field path back to Southstoke. I looked out over whitened fields and blackened woods, a Breughelian scene already half obscured by newly falling snow.
Route map
~Due to licensing restrictions in place on Ordnance Survey mapping the mapping extract must be removed prior to printing, or all printing must be limited to 10 paper copies or less and used for personal use only.~
Chris’s map annotations:
1 – Pack Horse PH
2 – Church of St James the Great
3 – Southstoke House
4 – Tucking Mill Viaduct
5 – Tucking Mill Reservoir
6 – Midford Station Platform
7 – Hope & Anchor PH
8 – Wheatsheaf Inn
Route profile
Use this GPX file: [FILE:131] for importing the route into digital mapping products, such as Memory Map and Anquet or drop it straight onto your GPS unit. Check the instructions for your particular model to see how this is done.
Use this KML file: [FILE:132] to see the route in Google Maps (under My maps) and Google Earth.
Start & finish
Pack Horse Inn, Southstoke, Bath BA2 7DU (OS ref ST 747612). NB Very limited parking at Pack Horse Inn; please park considerately elsewhere.
Getting there
Southstoke is signed from B3110 between Combe Down and Midford
Walk
5½ miles, moderate grade, OS Explorer 155From Pack Horse, uphill for 50 yards; right along road. Just past Southstoke House, left through kissing gate (fingerpost) across field. Cross B3110. Descend fields of Horsecombe Vale (yellow arrows/YA); cross brook; follow path to Wessex Water plant. Right; just beyond Tucking Mill viaduct, right up steps (fingerpost); follow old railway to Midford station. Right to road; left through viaduct; cross B3110 (take care!); descend steps opposite Hope & Anchor PH (fingerpost); right along Cam Valley old railway and canal path for 2 miles to Wheatsheaf Inn, Combe Hay. Right beside inn, up lane for 3/4 of a mile to road; right on path (fingerpost) to Southstoke.
Lunch: Pack Horse Inn, Southstoke (01225 832 060; www.packhorseinn.com) – sheer rural delight.
More info: Bath Tourist Information Centre tel: 0906 711 2000 (50p/min); www.visitbath.co.uk.
See books by Christopher Somerville.
More walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk. Author: Christopher Somerville