| The Warwickshire Centenary Way | |
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Day 7 Day 7, so good he walked it twice ....
This was my second attempt at section seven of the Centenary Way. The previous weekend I had attempted it and, through a combination of wrong turns, navigational confusion, taxi failures, and a near-total absence of mobile signal, arrived back at my car several hours late, in darkness, with most of my family firmly convinced that I had fallen into a ditch and failed to resurface. They had, to their credit, refrained from calling the police — but it had been, as I understand it, a close thing. The upshot was that I had recorded almost no video and a handful of photographs that could most charitably be described as sporadic. A revisit was unavoidable.
This time, however, I had two advantages. First, I knew the route. Second, my brother Colin happened to be visiting, which meant a second car was available and the logistics of getting lost at least had a practical solution built in.
This journal is drawn entirely from the second attempt. The photographs are a mixture of both visits. The screw-ups are all our own work.
A key mistake ....
The forecast promised light rain and temperatures of the Icelandic variety, so I packed the car accordingly — thermos mugs, ice packs, milk, and coffee, because there would be nothing finer on our return than a mug of strong hot coffee after a cold day's walking. Some plans are so sound they barely merit questioning.
Colin arrived in the dim light of early morning, slightly late and faintly sheepish, having spent the better part of twenty minutes watching a stopped clock while taking a leisurely breakfast. We were still on course for an early finish. No cause for concern.
An hour later we stood on the crest of the Burton Dasset Hills — my fourth visit to the place during this walk across Warwickshire — in a keen wind with drowsing sheep for company. We wrapped ourselves in scarves, hats, gloves, and — on my recommendation — gaiters. Colin had always maintained a certain gaiter-aversion, on the grounds that they looked silly, but had today agreed to what he described, with some ceremony, as popping his gaiter cherry. I pointed out that, given the hats we were currently wearing, gaiters were the least of our concerns. Colin's headgear made him look like the world's least convincing ninja. My own faithful grey woolly suggested a man with a more than passing acquaintance with village idiocy.
We made a fine pair.
We checked we had everything.
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The Burton Dasset Hills |
Across the fields to our left a handsome Georgian house sat on a hillside, painted a cool and elegant buttery yellow, its clean lines composed against the grey sky. We fell briefly into imagining Christmas there — candlelit windows, assorted family members making merry with the sherry, the whole thing arranged with Victorian decorative abundance. It was a pleasant enough reverie, if somewhat at odds with our present circumstances.
The cloud sat low, just grazing the higher hill tops, and suggested rain somewhere above us in a vague and uncommitted way — never quite delivering, never quite retreating. We warmed as we walked and packed away the scarves, then the gloves, adjusting our layers against the changing logic of the morning.
We strolled into the village of Avon Dasset, turning to follow its winding main street. past cottages of the limestone that begins to appear in this part of Warwickshire as the land tilts toward the Cotswolds — Oolitic limestone, which mellows with the centuries to a warm honey brown.
I was filming as we walked when a cyclist shot past at a speed quite inappropriate to the geography, missing me by a margin that I found buttock-clenchingly small. He doesn't appear in the footage. What does appear is a brief rattle of wheels and my voice exclaiming *"You bloody hooligan!"* in mock outrage.
One of the last cottages before the village ended produced a small white terrier of cheerful disposition, who had greeted me with wagging tail the previous week and saw no reason to modify her position on the second visit. We stopped to make a proper fuss of her.
On Edge ....
Leaving Avon Dasset we crossed the M40 and followed a quiet lane into Arlescote, — a village that appears to have dispensed with the usual village apparatus entirely. No shop, no pub, no discernible high street. Just a single track road winding through a small scatter of cottages and houses, each set back behind a broad swathe of grass, and a silence so complete it felt almost considered. It had been equally deserted the week before. Arlescote gives the impression of a village that is getting on with something private and would rather not be disturbed.
Light rain began as we left — never quite enough to force the waterproofs on, but sufficient to prompt the consideration every few minutes. We climbed out of the lane into higher ground, crossing the first of many recently ploughed fields — and here the day introduced us to its dominant theme. The soil in this part of Warwickshire runs to a reddish-brown clay that, once saturated, develops strong opinions about footwear. It clung to our boots with each step, accumulating steadily, so that by the time we reached the far side of the first field our feet had grown to improbable dimensions and weighed, at a conservative estimate, half a stone each.
This established a ritual that repeated itself across every ploughed field for the remainder of the morning: cross the field, locate a patch of damp vegetation, and scrape the boots through it with an exaggerated, high-stepping gait. Colin took to this procedure with a natural fluency but I never mastered the technique and I probably left a trail of muddy bootprints all the way to Whatcote.
Two more ploughed fields followed in immediate succession before we emerged between farm buildings onto the road leading down to Ratley. I knew Ratley well from years of walking the area, and told Colin it was a beautiful old village — an ancient church pressed up against an equally ancient pub, thatched cottages winding uphill, the whole arrangement put together with the unstudied charm of somewhere that has simply been there long enough to know what it's doing.
The Centenary Way took us in the opposite direction.
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The Castle Inn |
We carried on down into the forest discovering, at the bottom, a natural hollow in the woodland and then we climbed immediately back up again on a rock strewn track with the kind of footing that makes you dwell on the prospect of catastrophic knee trauma should a slip occur.
At the top, the crenelated tower of the Castle Inn, announced itself above the trees — a pub built in 1742 by Sanderson Miller on the centenary of the Battle of Edge Hill, on the spot where, it is said, King Charles raised his standard before the two sides finally stopped eyeing each other up and got on with it. The tower was designed to replicate Guy's Tower at nearby Warwick Castle, became a public house in 1822, and has been in the hands of Hook Norton Brewery since 1922. It is also, for those keeping score, reputedly one of England's most haunted pubs — the Edgehill ghosts being the only British phantoms officially recognised by the Public Record Office, though I doubt the recognition comes with any financial advantage.
The pub was not yet open. The rich smell of Sunday lunch drifting from the kitchen doors provided comfort of a sort, and we pressed on.
The walk continued along the high ground of Edge Hill through light woodland, the land falling away sharply to our right, occasional glimpses of the patchwork plain far below appearing between the branches. We met four walkers coming the other way, each offering their meteorological reading of the day as they passed: *the sun might come out later; cold isn't it; the rain's holding off; better than they forecast.* Four separate weather bulletins from four separate strangers, all delivered with the ease of people exercising a perfectly understood social convention. There is something deeply reliable about the British and weather as an ice-breaker. It functions like a genetic password.
A not so civil war ....
We were walking through history now, and the guidebook made several references to the first conflict of the English Civil War that took place nearby.
The Battle of Edge Hill took place on Sunday the 23rd of October 1642 — the first pitched battle of the English Civil War, arrived at almost by accident when the opposing forces found themselves in the same part of Warwickshire and concluded they had better draw weapons. Roughly six thousand Royalists were arrayed along the ridge; six thousand Parliamentarians on the plain below. It was, by all accounts, a lovely autumn day, and there was a notable reluctance on both sides to begin. From dawn until late afternoon the two armies conducted what amounted to the world's largest and most consequential staring contest, until King Charles rode out to encourage his men and the Roundheads took this as their cue. What followed was a somewhat shambolic engagement, with inexperienced troops on both sides displaying a healthy instinct for self-preservation over military glory. Prince Rupert of the Rhine proved himself the bravest man with the soppiest name on the Royalist side, while a Parliamentarian officer called Faithful Fortescue distinguished himself primarily by defecting almost immediately. Several noblemen never came home. The result was a ragged draw, several thousand casualties, and — providentially for some — a bitterly cold night that froze wounds and prevented deaths that would otherwise certainly have occurred.
We took a wide driveway past Sunrising House to reach a T-junction alongside a riding school where a magnificent chestnut horse was being ridden back to the stables. As he drew level with us he began to get agitated, he stopped and then began to prance about and toss his head. I assumed it was our sudden appearance that had spooked him so I asked the girl riding the horse if we should walk away.
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Sunrising Hill |
“I think he wants to go back to the paddock,” she decided calmly, and wheeled the feisty horse about to disappear around a corner.
We stood for a few seconds.
Colin spoke.
“I've decided that horses are not for me. They're just too big.”
And I wholeheartedly agreed.
We wandered down along a woodland path, passing a small fenced area where horse jumps were arranged in a circuit. The young rider was taking the feisty horse around it, speaking to it sternly whenever it tried to dance about. It was a battle of wills and my money was on the girl who, despite having to control a wilful 1,000lb beast, seemed totally in command. I was full of admiration.
We ate our lunch on a fallen tree at the summit of Sunrising Hill, looking out over the plain where the famous battle had unfolded three hundred and seventy years before. The view stretched for miles even on this dour afternoon — fields and farms patterned below us, wisps of bonfire smoke turning lazily upward, a blue-grey line of hills to the south that were probably the northernmost Cotswolds, and on the farthest western horizon the faintest suggestion of Welsh mountains. We speculated on whether the noise of the battle would have carried this far. Not the sight of it — the battlefield lay around the other side of the ridge — but the sound: twelve thousand men, cannon, steel on steel. Probably yes, we thought. And as the battle broke up and became fragmented, individual soldiers fleeing the field might have reached as far as where we were sitting.
Colin, who had been quietly observing the view for a while, described the light rain that was now falling as *spaffling*.
I believe this to be a new meteorological term and I intend to use it.
Slip slidin’ away ....
The spaffling became more purposeful and we moved off along the bare crest of Sunrising Hill before ducking back into woodland. The descent from the ridge followed — which I had warned Colin about, having navigated it the previous week in conditions considerably worse than today. As it happened, the intervening days had deposited a thick layer of leaves over the worst of the mud, which acted as a kind of improvised carpet and spared us the full experience. We counted ourselves fortunate and pressed on.
We crossed a short pasture near a farm and arrived at the day's most dispiriting obstacle: a narrow gap between two fences through which the route passed, unavoidably, and through which a great many cows had also passed, repeatedly, with the result that the ground was occupied by approximately a foot of consolidated mud and manure. Navigation of this required the technique of a man crossing a minefield: slow, careful, and with a strong preference for not touching either of the electrified fences flanking the passage. We got through without incident, though not without commentary. I will say this for the farmer: the land is first and foremost a working farm, and cows do have a prior claim on the terrain. A modest plank or two across the worst of it would, however, have been a neighbourly gesture toward the Centenary Way's occasional pilgrims.
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Tysoe |
We turned off the road toward what appeared to be a rather grand stone gateway — no actual gate — where a diminutive old lady stood with an even more diminutive dog on a lead. She watched us approach with an expression of deep sympathy.
"Oh what a horrible day it's been for you!" she exclaimed.
I assured her we were quite comfortable and had walked through considerably worse. She was unconvinced.
"Oh no, it's awful — cold! And I'm a Yorkshire lass!"
She had a completely undetectable Yorkshire accent.
We agreed with her suggestion that a large shot of dark rum would probably help, and continued along the drive. Further back along it we had glimpsed a very grand house indeed, and I found myself wondering whether we had just been commiserated with by its owner. The drive gave way to a lovely path between old stone walls — the kind of enclosed, sheltered route that would be spectacular in spring, with aubrieta and alyssum tumbling down the stonework in purple and yellow. Today it was stripped back and damp and yet very fine in its own austere way.
Through a gate we passed, and inevitably, another large ploughed field. Then over sweet corn stubble, which combined mud with a specific slipperiness all of its own. A small wooden footbridge lay at the far end at which we paused to scrape our boots, knowing it would make no lasting difference. Then more ploughed acreage, and the boots just as claggy again within fifty yards. We were close to the end now — a fact that became apparent and then stubbornly refused to translate into actual arrival. The final field was the worst of the lot, its furrows higher than usual and soft underfoot, every step requiring an effort disproportionate to the distance covered, the exit visible across the field for what felt like considerably longer than it had any right to be.
We got there, singing calf muscles registering the achievement.
Epic failures ....
One last small meadow, and then the neat cottages of Whatcote, appeared ahead. I began calculating the return journey — twenty minutes in Colin's car, back to my Land Rover on the Dassett Hills, and then that coffee. Fresh, hot, strong coffee. I had been thinking about it since lunchtime.
It was at this point that a Bad Thought arrived.
I will let Colin tell what happened next, via the tweets he published that evening:
"Hugely enjoyed the walk today. We had the advantage of two cars and made use of this. My car was left at what would be the end of the walk and we then drove in Mark's car to the start, about twelve miles away. We could then do the walk and finish by taking my car back to his car. Good logistics. Trouble is, I had The Bright Idea. I didn't want to walk whilst carrying my house keys, so asked bro if I could leave them secure in his car. We enjoyed a good few hours walking and were lucky with the weather, the rain only got going as we finished. We were on the final field and it seemed that Mark had been ruminating. 'Those keys you left in my car,' he said. 'Did they include your car keys?' My heart sank. So, it was a phone call for a quote from a not-so-local taxi firm and me staring helplessly at my totally unusable car. It was a piece of absent-minded brilliance that cost us £25 to taxi back to bro's car, then a drive back to my car. Sheer Laurel and Hardy."
We found the landlord of the Royal Oak at Whatcote — a Brummie, as it turned out, who had run pubs in and around Birmingham before heading out into the countryside and was planning to stay a few years before pursuing his ambition of running a seaside pub. He helped us find a local taxi number, pulled us pints of a very decent local bitter, and told us about the pub itself.
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Sunset at Whatcote |
The taxi arrived promptly and the driver, hearing the full story of the car keys with great interest, responded with sympathy and not the faintest suggestion of a discounted fare. He had never heard of the Centenary Way, which nobody ever had, it seems. We were delivered back to the Burton Dassett Hills in the gathering dusk, colder than we had left it, and I was — at last — able to look forward to the coffee.
I had packed everything with some care. The milk, kept cool with ice packs. The thermos mugs. The coffee itself.
I had forgotten to bring the flask of hot water.
We stood on a cold hillside at the end of a long day, with cold milk, cold mugs, cold coffee, and a taxi driver somewhere in the distance carrying away most of our money. It was, I reflected, entirely consistent with the general character of the day. And of the walk. And, if I'm honest, of most days that involve me, Colin, a car, and a plan.
Some things never change. After all these years, that's almost a comfort.
See Route on ......
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