Cotswold Way Sunday 12/4/2015 – 14 miles

Day 1 | Introduction | Day 3

The Vine was quite an experience and the breakfast well above expectations; a huge choice of food served in an elegantly furnished dining room by really friendly, helpful people. We did a swift lap of the village to get a few photos that we hadn’t got in the failing light the previous evening then re-joined the footpath.

On leaving the village we were instantly back in farmland although it did have a distinctly parkland-ish sort of a feel, particularly as we got closer to Stanway.

There’s a small scattering of Cotswold style houses at Stanway but the main event is Stanway House, a country manor house with a fountain and gardens. We only really caught a brief glimpse of it as we passed by on the road but we got a good look at the church with its nice carved bosses along the roof (see insets in the pic above) and the very impressive gatehouse.

Wood Stanway was the next tiny settlement about half a mile further on, followed by a long steady uphill plod for just under a mile to a bench around 400ft higher near Stumps Cross. We lingered a few minutes to catch our breath and enjoy the huge views back over Stanton and beyond on our second beautiful spring morning.

From the viewpoint it was easy level walking along a lane for a little while to the escarpment-edge site of Beckbury Camp (an iron age hill fort) where the wind was so strong it was almost impossible to walk a straight line! It was then all the way back downhill again though fields and woodlands.

We passed through Hailes with its ruined Cistercian Abbey and then continued via easy grassy footpaths over wide fields towards Winchcombe.

The Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Steam Railway put on a brief show for us but it was the view of Winchcombe straight ahead that spurred us on with the promise of a lunch break and a chance to get some supplies for the following day.

Winchcombe is a small town with a well preserved historic centre and mixed old and new suburbs but all very definitely in the Cotswolds style. There is a fair range of shops although as we were there on an out of season Sunday most of them were closed. We had a nice sit-down lunch in the Food Fanatics deli and coffee shop then stocked up with sandwiches at the Co-op for the next day. We weren’t expecting to pass any shops or pubs on day 3.

The town has its fair share of very attractive buildings, such as these alms houses in Dents Terrace.

It also has a large ‘wool’ church (built during the prosperous Cotswold wool trade era) with superb gargoyles/grotesques, some of which are said to be caricatures of local dignitaries of the time.

After the town came a long, increasingly steep climb through open fields with great views back over Winchcombe & Sudeley Castle. Then following a short section though a flower laden wood and a further plod up a long grassy slope we arrived at Belas Knap.

It’s an impressive Neolithic chambered long barrow, complete with false entrances and side chambers to explore. It gave us an excuse to pause for a while and recover from the long climb! From there though it was an easy stroll along level fields and a lane to a pretty wood with the curious name of Breakheart Plantation.

Further minor ups and downs ensued though fields and woods, mostly following the contours around the hills past Postlip Hall and round Cleeve Hill with a final gradual climb of the day to the golf club near the top. At this point we diverted from the route and headed steeply downhill to our overnight stop at the Rising Sun hotel.

Our rooms both had wide views over the tops of nearby Bishops Cleeve and Woodmancote and right across Tewkesbury and the River Severn to the Malvern Hills around 15 miles away. The second day of a long distance walk often feels harder than it should but we’d got through it reasonably well. We were certainly all ready for a decent meal and a good night’s rest though and the Rising Sun provided that very nicely.

Day 1 | Introduction | Day 3