The Slaughters and Bourton-on-the-Water

Expunge from your mind visions of sheep stealers hanging from giblets or cattle being driven unceremoniously to the local abattoir. 'Slaughter' derives from the Old English word slough, meaning 'wetland'.  When the River Eye is in flood, Upper and Lower Slaughter can doubtless still be wet places but last Monday they were delightful.

We were in the Cotswolds on the hottest day of the year (so far) for one of our favourite 'gentle' 9 mile walks that would take us along the banks of three rivers – the Eye, the Dikler and the Windrush.

This is the Warden's Way footpath, running  beside the gently-flowing River Eye. After about ¾ mile it brought us to the superbly picturesque village of Lower Slaughter where, thankfully on this blisteringly hot day, they sell refreshing 'real' ice-cream cornets. None of that 'Mr Whippy' rubbish!

That's the old mill in the centre, with its undershot water wheel. Tranquil days such as this were clearly all too common in operational days; the tall chimney evidence that they often had to resort to steam power.

Try to remember this scene, with its little bridges and a handful of sightseers enjoying its splendour, as our walk continued.

Just outside Lower Slaughter we turned off Warden's Way to stay on the banks of the Eye, then crossed the Foss Way (A429) and an old railway line to walk beside the River Dikler. This led us down to an area of former gravel pits, now flooded to become the Bourton-on-the-Water lakes.

One disappointment here was that long stretches of lakeside were in private hands and cordoned off with barbed wire (perhaps relics from the days when these were operational gravel pits) so we had little option but to keep our distance. There were compensations, however...

Skirting around the lowest lake, we turned north and made our way into Bourton-on-the-Water. The World and His Wife were there to greet us!

Carefully we threaded our way through throngs of Americans, Japanese and natives as they wandered in and out of pubs, cafes and gift shops. We had but one place in mind – the Londis store, where we could buy food for a picnic lunch.

Rucksacks filled with cheese, crackers and fruit, we briefly rejoined the sightseers, trying hard not to come between their cameras and one of Bourton's bridges or an over-fed duck. Yes, it is a lovely scene but where would you rather be – here or in Lower Slaughter? No contest. Just beyond a motor museum, a snicket between a house and a pub led us out to a broad water meadow.

It was truly surreal. Less than 200 yards away crowds were jostling for their own square foot of pavement. Here... nobody, save the occasional dog walker. Grateful for the solitude and the shade of a tall tree, we laid down our loads and enjoyed a leisurely lunch.

Beyond Bourton the footpath followed the River Windrush for a mile or so, then began the climb back to Upper Slaughter.  In truth it was quite a gentle ascent but in the souring temperatures – by now it must have been 30°+ in the sunshine – it felt a lot steeper.

Our final view of the Windrush

For reasons unknown the Simply Walking app I use to plot my walks threw a wobbly on this one, declaring that we had only walked 2.6 miles in 4½ hours. Perhaps it didn't like sharing computing power with BackCountry Navigator. So here is the route, plotted on an OS map.

 For the record, the final distance was a shade under 9 miles. 2mph in that heat was well up to standard.