Ashmansworth

Ashmansworth

We had some business south of Newbury and looking at the map, I decided that Ashmansworth looked a promising location for a walk. I found this one on a site called John Harris's Walking in Hampshire - in the Andover section. There is also a link to John Harris's Walking in England. Both offer free downloads and other useful information and are a fantastic resource. The walk itself is on the AA website.

The walk starts in the centre of the pretty, spread-out village of Ashmansworth. There are a number of charming thatched cottages, but we especially admired the one in the photo above for its topiary - notably the "snowman" on the right.

You walk up the road back towards Newbury until you reach a crossing path - the Wayfarers' Walk - where you turn left (north-east). This is an immediately inviting path along the ridge of the North Hampshire Downs.



Later, it opens up to offer a long series of views over Berkshire, at their best when the path joins a lane.



A short way along the lane you join a track still heading north-east to reach Pilot Hill, which at 312m is the highest point in Hampshire. Here you leave the Wayfarers' Walk, cross fields and soon join a track meandering across wonderful downland towards the village of Faccombe. Soon there are excellent views ahead and to the right.



And as you are about to enter Faccombe you can look back to see the path you have been following descending from the tree line in the distance.



Faccombe is a small, classic estate village with a Georgian manor house, a late Victorian church and promising-looking pub. You skirt the Manor's grounds and head east down through woodland and then along a track along a valley bottom. Again, there is a wonderful view back as you leave the track to enter a copse.



Further field-edge paths and a copse lead you to the road into Ashmansworth and the end of the walk.

Maps: Explorer 144 (Basingstoke) and 131 (Romsey, Andover and Test Valley)

Distance: 5.5 miles.

Rating: four stars. Constantly climbing or ascending after the Wayfarer's Walk, this walk offers wonderful views throughout.


Reflections

The directions and map are very good, but we went briefly astray near the end. However, we applied a good general principal: if you are lost on this sort of walk (i.e. what you can see around you doesn't match the walk description), stop and return to the last place where the real world and the described world did match. (Or, at least, somewhere where you can see that place.) Now, look at the map (which is why you carry a map, even when you have good directions) and review the directions and work out the right route. This is a version of Denis Healey's famous law of holes: if you are in one, stop digging.


Sightings

The latter part of the was through the Faccombe Estate and we kept seeing these mysterious blue drums mounted on tripods with a sort of spike projecting below.



We also saw large numbers of pheasants and a few partridges. Eventually, we put it together: they are corn feeders for these game birds.

Dorchester and Wittenham Clumps

Dorchester Abbey from Castle Hill

Last night we went to a splendid birthday party and stayed over in a hotel. Apart from avoiding the need to drive home, this set us up for a walk a bit farther from home than usual. This wonderfully varied walk, in a figure of eight, starts at the south end of the pretty village of Dorchester, near the Abbey, of which more later. You go down a lane towards "River (Thames) and Wittenham" and quickly leave the village. Entering a field you see Round Hill and Castle Hill - and the name Wittenham Clumps begins to make sense.



You pass the so-called Dyke Hills, the ramparts of an Iron Age settlement ...



... cross a meadow and reach the banks of the River Thame, just before it joins the Thames. (Why is one pronounced "tame" and the other "tems"?)



You now walk along beside the Thames as far as Little Wittenham Bridge, a footbridge which leads to Little Wittenham church.



Here you enter the Little Wittenham nature reserve and climb a grassy but increasingly steep path to reach Round Hill. Looking back you can see Little Wittenham, the Thames and the gravel pit lakes to the north of Dorchester.



You then walk over to Castle Hill, once the site of an Iron Age hill fort. The walk book describes a route through the trees on the top, but this area is now fenced off and you have to go round the side. At the point where you would have emerged from the woods, a dead beech tree has a poem
which was inscribed on it in 1844-45 by one Joseph Tubbs of Warbrough Green. It is now all but illegible, but happily a tracing was made in 1965 and the text is now displayed on a plaque. It is not a great work, but you can read it here.

You now descend back to Wittenham bridge and walk across meadows and beside the Dyke Hills to return to Dorchester.

From: Chilterns and Thames Valley (Pathfinder Guides).

Distance: 4.5 miles.

Map: Explorer 170 (Abingdon, Wantage and Vale of White Horse).

Rating: four stars.


Sightings

We were thrilled to see what will probably be the last Painted Lady of this wonderful summer of Painted Ladies.



Dorchester Abbey

After the walk we visited Dorchester Abbey and then had an excellent lunch at the wonderful Fleur de Lys pub opposite. There was a Saxon cathedral here from the 7th century and parts of the existing church date from the rebuilding undertaken in the 12th century. There has been much further rebuilding, damage during the dissolution of the monasteries and later restoration and Pevsner describes it as "an unsatisfactory building as a whole". From the outside, the most striking features are the length of the nave plus chancel - making it difficult to photograph - and the tower. The tower dates from 1602, but incorporates a 14th century stair turret at the corner.



Inside, the most dramatic and inspiring feature is the 14th century choir, which contains an extraordinary window combining tracery, stained glass and statuary in a way which is "without parallel on this scale not only in England but in Europe" (Pevsner again). It depicts a family tree showing Christ's descent from Jesse.

Fontainebleau to Barbizon

Barbizon

Yesterday we walked around Fontainebleau. Today's plan is to walk through the Forest of Fontainebleau to the artists' village of Barbizon, the focus of the Barbizon School of mid-nineteenth century painters: Theodore Rousseau, Daubigny and Corot among them. In preparation, we have read seemingly the only book available in English: Steven Adams's excellent The Barbizon School and the origins of impressionism. The Barbizon painters pioneered, at least in France, painting nature in situ - and paved the way for Monet and co.

The walk, downloadable from the Fontainebleau Office de Tourisme site, begins at the Office de Tourisme, just near the main gate of the chateau. You walk out of town on the Rue Royale, cross the main N7 road and pass by Fontainebleau's other claim to fame, the INSEAD business school. We just loved the sign to the "Executive Learning Space" - what might once have been called a library perhaps.

Very soon the road gives way to a track and you are in the forest, albeit that the trees are thinly spread.



We soon came on the first of the extensive and frequent FB (Fontainebleau-Barbizon) waymarks.



Rather to our surprise, the route turned out to be metalled the whole way, and subsequent waymarks were in the centre of the road. It was flat and to be honest a bit disappointing at first.



However, the route then climbed onto a plateau and after the half way point we entered an area of older trees which we could imagine had inspired Corot.



Then a sign on the right indicated a view point over the Gorges d'Apremont. We left our route and walk a short distance across a rocky area with trees which surely could have been the work of Corot.


The path, such as it was, ended at the rocky viewpoint. The gorges could not be seen directly, but after an hour or more in the trees the open view was a delight.



From here on, the forest became much more interesting, with massive rocks scattered among the trees, which were now on slopes leading down to the track. We could see now why the Barbizon painters based themselves there and not in Fontainebleau.



We came on a classic tree of the kind favoured by the painters. This one was helpfully labelled chene de Sully, the Sully Oak.


All throughout the route there had been many side tracks, often with helpful signs giving their names. We especially liked this one: the route de solitude.



Finally we came to a quiet road into Barbizon and followed it for a kilometre to reach the long narrow main street, seemingly full of hotels and gourmet restaurants.

The museums were unfortunately shut, as we had known they would be, but we did at least photograph the house of Theodore Rousseau before having the requisite gourmet lunch.


We got a taxi back.

Distance: about five miles.

Rating: four stars.

Fontainebleau

The cour d'honneur

We are in France on a short break specifically to see Fontainebleau and Barbizon. The first thing we have learned is that we did't know how to pronounce it: not fon-tan-bleu, but fon-tan-blow. The story has it that the name derives from a contraction of the fontaine de belle-eau in the grounds. The Palace was rebuilt by Francois I who came to the throne in 1515 and represents the arrival of the Renaissance in France. Later construction was the work of Henri II and Henri IV. Much later, Napoleon made his mark on the interior, and famously bid his adieus before going off to exile in Elba.

I found this lovely walk around the gardens and the park on the website of the Fontainebleau Office de Tourisme. We started the circuit facing the chateau in the Cour d'honneur and turned right through an archway towards the Jardin Anglais. You approach this through a smaller arch, through which can be glimpsed a statue.


The garden is a green area surrounded by trees and shrubs. Not what we would think of as an English garden, although certainly the kind of thing you might find in the park of a country house.

From here we passed the fontaine de belle-eau and saw some beautiful autumn colours on the trees.


Emerging from a long formal avenue you suddenly come on the Etang des Carpes, with what we supposed must be the model for MPs' duck houses in its centre. It is apparently known simply as La Pavilion.



At the right side of the lake is the Avenue de Maintenon, named after Madame de Maintenon, the mistress and later wife of Louis XIV, with the Porte Doree at its end.



A bit further on, through some woods, you come on a marvelous vista of the whole chateau from front to back, with elaborate water features in the foreground and beyond them the Grand Parterre. The circular lake is known as La Romulus.


Completing a loop around this area, you come to a long, wide artificial canal which ultimately drains into the Seine.



You walk up the right hand side of the canal under tress, swing round to the left at the top and follow the outer edge of the park in an anti-clockwise direction. The route zigs zags back towards the chateau and is memorable for several splendid tree-lined avenues.




You return to the Grand Parterre with its formally structured, but very pretty, planting.



You pass the Porte Doree, go through into the Cour Ovale and pass through the Cour d'Honneur to complete the walk in the Jardin de Diana, with its ornamental peacocks.

Distance: about 5 miles.

Rating: four stars.

Port Sunlight

Port Sunlight: Park Road

In Liverpool on a family visit, we took the opportunity to fulfill a small ambition and visit Port Sunlight. I found the directions for this walk on the Guardian website. You could just wander around, but this very well-structured route makes the most of the village.

Port Sunlight is a model village built by William Hesketh Lever, later Lord Lever, for workers at his soap factory. Sunlight Soap was the company's flagship product. The houses are the work of nearly 30 architects and are in a variety of styles, but all the early ones at least have an Arts and Crafts feel to them. The overall feel is of a garden city: wide streets and lots of open space. The houses all have unified front gardens, which creates a very ordered effect.

The walk starts at the railway station, close to the factory, which is still in production, now part of Unilever. This is where building began in 1891. An immediate detour reveals the rather quaint Fire Station.



Turning away from the factory, you are presented with this fine block in a Dutch gabled style.



Round the corner you come on the sprawling picturesque Lyceum of 1896, originally the village school and church, but now used in part as the Social Club (the remainder houses Unilever's archives).



A little further on you reach the bowling green, faced by another splendidly extravagant block.



Passing to the left of the 1901 Hulme Hall, you reach an impressive arch, through which can be seen gardens, the war memorial and in the distance, the Lady Lever Gallery.



The Gallery can be seen much more clearly once you have reached the memorial.



The Gallery was in fact our other reason for visiting Port Sunlight. Its crowing jewel is a fine collection, all in one large room, of 19th century painting: Pre-Raphaelites such as Millais, Holman Hunt, Burne-Jones and Rossetti and classicists such as Leighton and Alma-Tadema.

I was staggered to find that this is the home of Holman Hunt's wonderful "The Scapegoat". Even more wonderful in a way, the gallery also houses the well known painting by Millais called "Bubbles". Leaving aside any artistic judgement, it is amusing to find it here, given that it was used to advertise Pears soap, presumably Sunlight Soap's bitterest rival.

To return, you swing round behind the gallery, walk along Church Road, passing the school with its cupolas.



A loop along Bolton Street and into The Gunnel brings you to the pretty small park known as The Dell, from which you emerge opposite the station.




Rating: Four stars. Wonderfully interesting. Some lovely houses, richly individual and most with beautiful detailing in wood, plaster and terracotta. One can also see aspects of town planning which are still honoured today, albeit at much higher densities.

It is unusual perhaps to include an art gallery on a walk, but it is an absolute delight, thoroughly enriching the experience.

The walk description was very detailed and helpful but would have benefited from giving more street names and being linked to a proper street map. I downloaded one from the Liverpool Museums website.

Chester

Along the walls

There is something very special about walking around a full set of city walls. We have done this a few times: Lucca, Aigues Mortes, St Malo, Xi'an, Dubrovnik. And also the partial walls of Rhodes and Gerona. Locally, there are the vestiges of the walls at Roman Calleva, modern-day Silchester, the only wall walk I have blogged. And then there is Carcassone, although there you walk around the outside of the walls rather than on the top, so it doesn't really count. I see this as a long-term project and I have a list of other walled towns to investigate.

However, today it was the turn of Chester. The original walls of Roman Deva were built of earth around AD70, and rebuilt in stone a few years later. They were extended in Norman times, when the castle was built and repaired, and reinforced during the Civil War when Chester was besieged by the Parliamentarians. The current promenade dates from the 18th century. Chester City Council provide a helpful leaflet describing the Walls Heritage Trail.

The walk starts at the Eastgate, crowned by its splendid late Victorian clock, celebrating Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1897.



We followed the trail anti-clockwise to pass behind the Cathedral and were struck by the bulk of the modern bell tower (seen below from the Cathedral gardens, looking towards the wall). The Chester Tourist website reveals that it was designed by George Pace and completed in 1974. It was the first free-standing bell tower to be built for 500 years. It is no match for an Italian campanile!



At the northeast corner you come to the King Charles tower, from which the king surveyed the civil war siege.



The north section provides a typical view of the wall as you walk along, with north Wales on the horizon.



You then turn the north west corner and walk along the long west side, overlooking Chester race course, until you reach the remains of the Norman castle.



Just beyond the castle, at the south west corner, you meet the wide River Dee and after the 1930s County Hall, once the site of the gaol, which interrupts the continuity of the path, you come to the Old Dee Bridge.



Soon after this, you reach the south east corner, pass the roman garden and amphitheatre and reach the end of the trail. The final section of the wall is closed for rebuilding and the diversion takes you through the Grosvenor Mall shopping precinct - a truly horrendous culture shock after the calm and historical contemplation of the walk around the walls.

After a nice lunch we completed our visit to Chester by wandering round the Rows, the unique two-storey shopping area, with shops linked by a first floor walkway.



Then we went around the magnificent cathedral. We were surprised by the £5 entry fee, but the audio guide which came with it was excellent. There is a great deal to admire, but for me the highlight was the tall, airy nave.



I thought the statue in the cloister was rather wonderful with its Beardsley-like figures. It dates from 1994 and is called The Water of Life. It depicts the story of Jesus and the woman of Samaria. It is the work of Stephen Broadbent, a specialist in public art works.



Distance: 2 miles around the walls.

Rating: four stars.