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Gloucestershire & WinchcombeshireWalk Details:
The Walk: |
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We were looking forward to this, our first thousand-footer since our South Wales jaunt over five months previously. Unfortunately, the fog that had plagued us at the Warwickshire top still lingered; at times sunshine was breaking through but in a distinctly uncertain way. Our print from streetmap.co.uk showed public parking at the end of a little road that ascended to a golf course. We drove up the road only to find that it ended in a cattle grid with a "no motorised vehicles" sign just the other side. We turned tail, and tried to park in the golf club, but the car park there was full. We drove back down the little road, and eventually managed to park in a dusty potholed lay-by near the main road. There would normally be good views from here, but the mist still stopped us seeing more than half a mile or so. We walked back up the little road, feeling a certain sense of déjà vu. Tottering carefully across the cattle grid in our hiking boots we found that we could have parked beyond it after all - the road bore left before the "no motorised vehicles" sign and led to a public car park in a rocky cleft. We, however, hiked onwards up the "no motorised vehicles" track which cut a trench into the hillside in front of us. We were looking to bear off to the left on the Cotswold Way so that we could complete a circular walk around the hill. We saw a Cotswold Way sign pointing to the right, and scrambled up the bank to take a look. It was only then that we saw the sign pointing to the left on top of the other bank of the track, and had to double back on ourselves, scrambling down into the trackway before re-ascending the other bank. We must have looked foolish to some walkers behind us, for they actually asked us if we needed any help finding our way - a chastening experience for dedicated baggers such as ourselves! Now going in the correct direction, we followed a series of posts marking the way across a golf course. It was certainly a popular area - as well as groups of golfers there were hordes of walkers around. These were not your average Sunday afternoon walkers - all were wearing serious hiking boots and carrying at the very least daypacks. It was clear that the new Cotswold Way was proving a hit in the hiking fraternity. Crossing the top of a small hill, we lost the trail of posts - we're fairly sure there was one missing. We wandered through a bizarre bit of the golf course - there were big holes in the ground between all the fairways, presumably from old stone quarrying. It must make this a tricky course - we saw one chap taking a couple of attempts to chip his ball out of one such depression. It wasn't long before we met the posts of the Cotswold Way again - the first one we saw had a bemused looking chap standing by it, fully rucksacked up consulting at some length a Cotswold Way leaflet in his hand. Given that the next post was clearly visible about a hundred yards away, we couldn't understand the cause of his consternation. As soon as we passed he started to hopefully follow us as the trail led down off the eastern flanks of Cleeve Hill. Here on the eastern side of the hill the fog was much worse; it cast a gloom over our walk as we descended to the woods near Postlip Hall and then turned right to re-ascend onto Cleeve Common (this dip was necessary to make a decent round walk). As we left the Cotswold Way, the chap with the map who had been following us once more stopped by a Cotswold Way post and looked lost and confused. The way up onto Cleeve Common wound steeply between more old stone workings, leaving me well out of breath. It was worth it though, for when we reached the top we were well away from all the other walkers, surrounded by low scrub and with wispy strands of fog around us. It felt like we were on some remote stretch of moorland, a bit like a scene from Lorna Doone (but without the brigands and searing romance, of course!). The path continued to ascend gently until it reached a meeting of five paths. Here, according to the map, we needed to bear left towards radio masts to reach the county top. Unfortunately, we couldn't see the masts due to the fog, and as I had left my GPS at my Mum & Dad's, we had to just strike out in what we thought was the correct direction (ie the path which went uphill!). After a little while, the radio masts loomed unexpectedly out of the fog, much closer than we had expected. Suddenly there were lots of walkers around again - evidence of the car park next to the radio masts (perhaps the local walkers weren't as hardy as we'd imagined!). The vegetation changed too, reverting to short grass rather than the moor-esque area we'd just crossed. The trig point marking the summit was at the field edge, just a few hundred metres from the radio masts. I ascended the trig point, but it didn't give me any great feeling of being atop a thousand-footer. It was merely the highest point on a slightly mounded grass field. Perhaps on a clear day there might be good views, but with these obscured by mist you were left with a vista no more impressive than some of the East Anglian tops! We retraced our steps past the radio masts and headed for the Cotswold Way on the west side of the hill (the Cotswold Way makes almost a complete loop around the top of the hill, which must be pretty aggravating for through-hikers!). We would follow the Cotswold Way back to the car. Almost immediately the landscape became more exciting. The west side of Cleeve Hill and Common is known as Cleeve Cloud - I'm not sure where the name came from, but the hill falls away here towards the Severn Estuary in a steep and rocky escarpment. Even in the misty conditions we could see the suburbs of Cheltenham far below us; on a clear day I could imagine a vista stretching for miles, with the sinuous River Severn glistening in the middle distance. The defensive properties of this steep slope were once utilised by an Iron Age fort; the low banks that remain are not particularly impressive, but the Cotswold Way skirts nervously around the edge of both them and a particularly impressive cliff - no doubt caused by further quarrying. Re-entering the bounds of the golf course we once again missed a trail marker and headed off in the wrong direction - fortunately our wrong turn enabled us to see the next marker, and we were soon back on route. The path made a short ascent to Cleeve Hill. Despite being lower than Cleeve Common, Cleeve Hill has a far more distinct summit, which no doubt explains why it received the more impressive "Hill" suffix. It has also ensured that it gained one of those directional view markers, donated by the local Rotary Club to mark their jubilee. This showed that our suspicion that we were missing out on glorious views because of the mist were well justified - apparently it was possibly to see the black mountains 77 miles away. We should also have been able to see our next county top, Worcestershire Beacon, from here. Instead we were merely able to get glimpses of the village of Woodmancote far below through the mist - what a disappointment. From Cleeve Hill it was a short walk back to where we had first joined
the Cotswold Way, and from there on down the road to the car. It had been
lovely walking through the swirling mists on Cleeve Common, but I felt
that in living up to its name Cleeve Cloud had denied us full enjoyment
of this top.
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