Christopher Somerville Blog

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window The River Hamps is a winterbourne, only flowing after winter rains, and on this warm cloudy summer’s day it was a bushy green channel of butterbur leaves smothering the dry stones of its bed. Setting off from humpbacked Weag’s Bridge, I followed the Manifold Way’s cycle path past the looming cliff of Beeston Tor, its grey limestone face seamed with cracks and caves.

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window The Nottinghamshire countryside east of Retford lies low and rolling, a mosaic of isolated farmhouses and fields connected by a very extensive network of old green lanes. Wide and rutted between ancient hedgerows full of wildlife, these grassy lanes are a rare survival, a reminder of what all back-country roads were like before the advent of tarmac and the motor car.

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window This walk starts along one of the most beautiful waterside paths in the Yorkshire Dales, a cornucopia of waterfalls, limpid pools, wild flowers and birds of the uplands.

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window A sunlit late spring day in Leicestershire, the lush grass shin high in the pastures, enough dandelion clocks in the uncut meadows to teach the time to every child in Peatling Parva. Young cattle blew and sighed as they followed us timidly among floods of buttercups. There were kingcups in the little trickling slip of a brook, and campion as pink as nail polish in the field margins.

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window The three neighbouring counties of Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Warwickshire butt up against one another near Mickleton, and today’s walk would be shared between the latter two. The houses of Mickleton stood in beautiful Cotswold stone, more cream than gold in colour. In the high wall of the manor house a line of musketry loopholes bore witness to the invasion fears of 1940.

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window At a cattle-grid just outside Barningham we were scratching our heads over which way to go when the farmer pulled up on his quad. While his border collie watched us with deep suspicion from the passenger seat, he not only pointed out the way over Barningham Moor, but gave us chapter and verse on local lore – ancient mounds in the fields, solstice alignments, old trackways, drove roads.

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window The two renovators were busy lime-washing the chancel of Benington’s Church of St Peter, but they courteously moved their buckets and twitched back their plastic sheeting to let us wander around.

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window A hazy, breezy day on the Glamorgan Coast, and a Sunday buzz in the car park at Candleston Castle. Merthyr-Mawr National Nature Reserve lies at the mouth of the Ogmore River. It boasts the tallest dunes in Wales, a great spread of sandhills that covers 840 acres of coast. The dunes sit on top of a shelf of limestone, hence their great height and also their remarkable fertility.

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window A cloudy, murky morning over Cranborne Chase. The views from Win Green were all melted into muted greys. The topograph on the saddle of high ground hinted at the prospect: fifteen miles northeast to Salisbury, twice that to the Isle of Wight down in the southeast. Children skipped and tumbled down the steep slope towards the wooded Ashcombe valley.

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window Bikers were out for a burn-up on the bendy road to Stokesley. We soon left them behind as we climbed to Carr Ridge up the Cleveland Way. This long-distance path, paved and pitched with stone, loops round the outlying hills of the North York Moors with grandstand views all the way. Up on top it was cold and cloudy over the moors.