Randwick to Coaley Peak (Cotswold Way 9 )

Looking back towards Stroud

We return to the Cotswold Way project with Merv and Pud, picking up the route at Randwick and descending through grassy fields to cross the Frome Valley to the west of Stroud. Sadly, it is again very hazy and so it is pointless to try to take any landscape photographs.

We cross the path of the river Frome, here canalised as the Stroudwater Canal, and at this point have a choice: straight ahead lies the direct route via Middleyard to Pen Hill, to left lies the scenic route via the canal and Selsley. Naturally we take the scenic route.

Initially, the scenic route follows the canal bank towards Stroud. The canal was part of a network which supplied coal to the mills of Stroud and was abandoned in 1914-18. It has now been partially restored and further works could be seen as we walked along.

At the point at which we left the canal, Ebley Mill could be seen ahead. The chimney and tower are by GF Bodley. It is now the headquarters of Stroud District Council.

We left the canal at Oil Mill Bridge. The Oil Mill is on the river, which here flows beside the canal, was built in 1721 to process rape and linseed oil, but this use apparently lasted only a couple of years and it was later used for cloth, corn and animal feed. It  is now the headquarters of Snow Business, suppliers of fake snow for movies and the like.

We crossed the A419 and climbed the steep grassy slope to reach Selsley (the view back to Stroud is shown in the photo at the head of this post).

We passed the imposing gatehouse and then the roofs of Stanley Park. According to Pevsner, the core of the building is Elizabethan, but the majority of what you see today dates from 1850 and 1871. It was the home of the Marling family.

Sir Samuel Stephens Marling owned Ebley Mill and also commissioned Bodley to build the fine church of All Saints which lies next to the big house.

There is a story that Marling insisted that Bodley should copy a church at Marling in the Austrian Tyrol, but Pevsner thinks this is apocryphal and that Bodley was simply deploying the French gothic style he was a master of. It is a very handsome building with a recently slate roof.

Inside, there is wonderful stained glass by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. It was "The Firm's" first major commission and all Morris's gang are represented: Philip Webb, Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown and Morris himself. This is Burne-Jones's Adam and Eve window - Eve looks to be modeled on Janey Morris.

I have read a lot about Morris and have long known about All Saints - but I had it in my mind that the location was Selsey - in West Sussex. So what a delight this was - an unexpected reward for taking the scenic route!

We now walked diagonally across Selsley Common and enjoyed the sight of these terracettes, caused by soil creep as moisture, frost and ice allow gravity to pull the soil down a steep hillside. Sheep and other animals have used the naturally occurring terraces as paths.

We met the direct route at Pen Hill and followed the line of the escarpment around through Stanley Wood to eventually emerge, rather weary now, into the open at Coaley Peak, the site of Nympsfield Long Barrow. It is a burial site of the Neolithic people who farmed the land here 5000 years ago. This barrow dates from 2500 BC. Earlier in the walk we saw the Belas Knap long barrow when we were en route from Cleeve Hill to Seven Springs.

Map: Explorer 168 (Stroud, Tetbury and Malmesbury).

Conditions: mild, cloudy, hazy, but at last dry underfoot.

Distance: 8 miles.

Rating: four stars.

Flower of the day

The goal of Flower of the Day is to drive improvement in my flower identification. This lovely Cuckoo Flower was featured in April last year as we walked from Sandhurst to Farnborough beside the river Blackwater, so obviously it has not been completely successful! It is becoming clear that this a spring flower which thrives by water, as today's was spotted by the Frome.