Old Woman of Lydney conquers Old Man of Coniston

I sought advice and the advisers were unanimous; "If your going to climb The Old Man of Coniston, take the footpath from Little Arrow. The other route is boring."

Little Arrow sounded rather like Indian Country to me, but turned out to be a hamlet 2 miles from Coniston, with friendly natives and a nice little AirBnB cottage which I promptly booked.

The path climbs gently away from the main road, then follows Torver Beck. Soon we had our first clear view of The Old Man. It's the peak on the left; the one on the right looks high from this angle but it's only a baby at 870 feet high and isn't even named on my OS map.

Almost level walking now.  Oh, this is easy!  To add to my joy, the sky was getting more blue by the minute, promising fabulous views from the summit.

Here's where Torver Beck flows into an old quarry. Again, it's not named on the OS maps but a photo on Google Earth declares it to Banishead Falls, so presumably this is Banishead Quarry.

A short, steep clamber over rocks brought us to Goat's Water – a good place to sit on a rock, have a thirst-quenching drink and contemplate the next part of the walk, straight up to the ridge at the far side of the Water.

Up... up... up... At times like these I realise that I'm not as young, nor probably as fit, as I once was. I was about half way up when I took this photo, looking back to Goat's Water and in need of a short rest.

At we approached the summit, billows of low cloud rolled in from the north, threatening to blot out the views. Thankfully they began to clear as quickly as they had arrived, though were still lying low when I took this photo, looking towards Coniston Water. Windermere is just visible in the distance. The popular ('boring') route to the summit can be seen in the centre of this photo.

Some people calmly approach the summit, whilst others feel the need to show off a bit. I make no apology; this was literally the 'high point' of the holiday.

Without doubt, the best thing to do at the top of a Lakeland mountain is simply to sit, eat lunch and admire the magnificent view. On a clear day it's possible to see the Isle of Man and Blackpool Tower from here, though sadly not on this occasion.

By the time we tore ourselves away from the summit, the misty clouds had gone, the sun was shining and Windermere was now clearly visible beyond Coniston. The sheep, however, seemed unimpressed. They'd seen it all before.

In hindsight, I think we should have taken the popular path down. There's a highly acclaimed longer one via Swirl How, but your scatty bloggist had spotted another path, half way along the ridgeway at Levers Hawse, that would take us straight down to Levers Water.  "Can we try that one, please?"
"O, all right then."

It wasn't long before my choice lost its appeal. The map contours were very close together but the steepness was hard to fully appreciate until we were too far down to change our minds. To add to the fun, much of the path was covered in scree (loose stones). I've marked our descent to the water's edge in red.

Thankfully, spirits soon rose as the path became a gentle descent, and I was forgiven for not wanting to take that Swirl Edge path. It was time to head back to Little Arrow and leave the mountainside to the sheep.

Tarn Hows

I've recently returned from a short break in the Lake District; three days in an AirB&B establishment near Coniston, followed by a few days with a relative in a nearby town.

I was determined to climb at least one 'Wainwright' (a Lakeland peak of at least 1000ft) but our first day was overcast, with low-lying cloud obscuring the hilltops, so we chose a low-level walk from Coniston to Tarn Hows.

Tarn Hows has long been a favourite of ours, ever since we went there on rainy day in 1969, before we were married. Here's a photo from 2010, when a pre-Slimming World Angie was to be seen enjoying the sunshine.  You'll notice that I wasn't dressed for hiking; we parked in the National Trust car park.

This was a relatively simple trek  – a nice 'warm up' for the following day's mountain climbing.

Just outside Coniston we came to this odd-looking structure, built in mock-Gothic style by the wealthy Victorian landowner of Monk Coniston to house his fox hounds.  An information board inside explains, "Picturesque ruins were considered a desirable landscape feature in Victorian times; if you didn't have an old castle in the right place, you simply built one."

The mist still lay low over the Grizedale Forest hills as we trekked along the Cumbria Way. After about 3 miles and a climb of 500ft we passed the NT car park, and I confess to feeling somewhat smug as I surveyed those lesser mortals who had taken the easy way up.  Fellow fell walkers will doubtless recognise the feeling, but oh Angie, you big-head!  On every other visit I too had been driven to that car park.

Once upon a time there were just three very small tarns here, but in 1862 James Marshall MP (he of the Gothic dog house) gained possession of the land, dammed the stream and created this beauty spot.

In the distance, and still shrouded in cloud, stands Coniston Old Man, our objective for the following day. For this day, though, all that remained was a rewarding ice cream at the aforementioned car park, then a pleasant 3 mile ramble back to Coniston.

Chedworth Foundations

Courtesy of the Ukes uv Azzard, I have a new walk book. A few months ago they sang and played their ukuleles at Taurus Crafts in Lydney and were rewarded with a couple of shopping vouchers. How do you divide two vouchers between a dozen-or-so members?  Names in the hat, of course, and draw a couple. I won one of them.

NB. I write 'they sang and played' as I couldn't make it to the Taurus gig, but was still very happy to win the voucher!

With my new-found wealth I bought this book – 40 town and country walks in the Cotswolds. Last week I used it for the first time, chosing an 11km walk entitled Chedworth Foundations. 11km? My brain still works in Imperial for distances, so how does it go?... Ah yes, multiply by 6 and divide by 10, so about 6½ miles.  That would do fine.

We parked our car in front of Chedworth Church (sadly locked) and made our way down to the strung-out village of Chedworth.

This is the picturesque Seven Tuns pub, which has achieved great reviews in The Good Pub Guide, on TripAdvisor and from the Campaign for Real Ale.  It would have been lovely to have lunch there, but my weight's been rising lately and S- decreed Ryvita, cottage cheese and an apple for lunch. Sigh...

Dominic North, the author of the walk book, has a poetic streak, describing this stretch of the path as arcing gracefully around a bend of the valley. Later we find ourselves swinging right at a field to reach the roaring A429.  Ah, so much nicer than the bland directions in so many books.  Thank you, Dominic; I'm even moved to forgive your use of those kilo-thingies.

After the roaring A429 it was time to eat my fugal lunch. I'm not at all sure, though, whether I should thank S-- for this unflattering shot. I was still bemoaning the lack of a pub lunch and feeling a bit sleepy after a steep climb through a field near Fossebridge.

At the top of the hill stands Camp Wood.  How old the name is, I know not, but there was a sort-of camp here at the end of World War Two. The evidence was easy to see. This had once been the site of an American Forces hospital, but after hostilities ceased it was turned into a boarding school for Polish refugees.

At last we came to the place that gave this walk its title – Chedworth Roman Villa. According to Dominic North, a local gamekeeper stumbled upon fragments of paving in 1864, and thus the magnificent long-forgotten villa was discovered. One of my books –The Midland & South Western Junction Railway (more of that later)  – says it was discovered by rabbits who brought bits of tessellated pavement to the surface. I conclude that the gamekeeper must have been trying to shoot rabbits.

Many years ago I was privileged to visit the Roman fortress of Masada, on the shore of the Dead Sea. So much of its architecture was the same as here at Chedworth – the hypocaust under-floor heating; the luxurious baths with their caldarium (hot), tepidarium (cooler) and frigidarium (brrr!). Well, if you've got a design that works (and slaves to run it), why change?

The Romans had a taste for Helix Pomatia – snails to you and me. Our native snails weren't good enough for their refined palates, so they imported their own.  Amazingly, their descendants are still there.  I tried l'escargot once.  Once was enough.

I last visited Chedworth Villa in 2013, when this team of archaeologists were busy uncovering more Roman remains. Today, you'd never know that they'd been there and sadly I could find no record of what they unearthed.

I do know, though, that their 'star find' of the dig was this fragment of coloured glass, now proudly displayed in the villa's museum. Painstaking research has revealed it to be part of a fish-shaped bottle, originating from the Crimea and possibly used to hold perfume. Nothing like it has ever been discovered in Britain before. 

From the Roman villa our footpath passed beneath this old railway bridge. By now we were almost back to our starting point but I couldn't pass the chance to climb up onto the track bed, which now forms part of a nature reserve.

The history of the railway here has long fascinated me and I wrote a blog post about part of it back in 2015 – A Day in Cirencester. This was once the grandly named Midland and South Western Junction Railway, whose bright red trains plied between Cheltenham and Southampton Docks and were a constant drain upon the resources of its hapless investors. 

In 1923 the MSWJR was swept into the hands of its fierce rival, the mighty Great Western and in 1961 the Beeching Axe all but obliterated it. A couple of miles of preserved line survive near Swindon, but I can guarantee that you won't see an engine or coaches like these.  They puffed their way into history a long, long time ago.