Leckhampton Hill to Cooper's Hill
Walked by Sally and Richard, Sunday 27th March 2016 (Easter Sunday)
About 9.5 miles of walking, almost all on route of Cotswold Way
Click here for all our photos from this walk.
We left the Gloucester (Little Witcombe) Premier Inn this morning; it had been very comfortable and was extremely well placed for today's walk. We remembered difficulty in finding car parking at Cooper's Hill on a previous holiday; today was a bit easier, though the car park was not quite where we had expected it to be - it is in a disused quarry on the A46, opposite where the footprint sign is shown on the map (somewhere near SO887141). We drove back through Cheltenham to another car park in another disused quarry, this time the one where we parked yesterday, on Hartley Lane off Leckhampton Hill (SO946177). I've shown the photo I took there because it is the last photo I have of my much loved red Honda Jazz; after 9 years and 160,000 miles I've had to replace it.
The first part of the walk wasn't particularly thrilling (left out of the car park, right onto a track which took us around Salterley Grange, then right onto a minor road past the National Star College, over the road we had driven on to Leckhampton Hill, and straight ahead still on a minor road with a high hedge blocking our view to the left), and we had a few spots of rain at one point.
However, that was all the rain we had today. There were horses in the fields and we were passed by several groups of cyclists (including, I'm sure, one group of three men who passed us twice...). Just before turning left onto a delightful path through a strip of woodland, we had our last view of Cheltenham (through trees); for the rest of today the views were to Gloucester.
The path took us past Crippets Neolithic long barrow and up to Crickley Hill, with magnificent beech woodland and lovely views to Gloucester. Occasionally there was what we perceived to be a choice of routes with no indication as to which we were supposed to take, but with one exception a footpath sign with the trusty acorn always appeared just after we had begun to worry. On the one occasion where we went wrong, this quickly became clear when we reached the edge of the escarpment with no way forward, and the consolation prize was our first clear view to Gloucester. The guidebook goes on about how Gloucester Cathedral dominates the panorama - from this distance we wouldn't agree (we had to search out the Cathedral), but with full zoom I got some good photos!
We reached the Crickley Hill visitor centre and car park, which was teeming with people, and passed someone apparently out planting Easter eggs for an Easter egg hunt. We nobly didn't steal any, but stopped for a snack of our own (hot cross buns) on a picnic bench up above the main view point. We were therefore able to watch people who were watching the view.
The route through the Crickley Hill Country Park took us around a big loop (no complaints, it's a nice place), onto the Iron Age promentory fort, then back through mature woodland, descending to the A417 at the "Air Balloon" roundabout, where the A417 turns back on itself whilst the A436 continues straight ahead. We crossed the A417 on one side of the roundabout, then walked along it for a while, passing the Air Balloon pub and up to a phone box where - thankfully - we left the busy road behind us and turned off into a wood.
We skirted around the edge of the large Barrow Wake car park and soon found ourselves back on the edge of an escarpment, with fantastic views ahead to Birdlip Hill and Cooper's Hill, back to Crickley Hill, and down to Gloucester and the Severn Vale to our right. For all the busyness of the car park, the path along the escarpment was quite narrow, with a fair number of ups and downs, and we weren't troubled by too many people on the path itself; it was very enjoyable walking.
We left the open countryside behind us and entered woodland, walking straight ahead to "The Peak", then sharp left along a path which eventually brought us past a quarry face and onto a minor road a short distance below the village of Birdlip. Although the guidebook breaks the walk here, this is somewhat artificial; we crossed the road and continued our woodland walk through Witcombe Wood. We found a good place to stop for lunch, sitting on tree roots up above the path. As we ate we became aware of a noise which I thought at the time was tree-felling, but I now know to have been motor bikes. Shortly after we'd set off again, a ranger in a land rover stopped to ask if we had seen any motor bikes - they are clearly something of a problem in the woods; we saw two bikes and riders later but apart from the noise and the mess they make of the path they didn't really trouble us.
We carried on through the wood, passing occasional bluebells coming into flower. We turned left and climbed a hill by a wall that marks the boundary of Witcombe Park then, at a clearing (where the motor bikes and their riders were sitting talking) we turned right, heading for Buckholt Wood and Cooper's Hill. There were good views to our right down to the Witcombe Reservoirs and closeby, the Premier Inn where we had been staying. Then we passed a path down to the Great Witcombe Roman Villa, again down the hill to our right.
We emerged in Cooper's Hill Village and stopped to take off a few layers of clothes. The village is at the bottom of the famous, amazingly steep, hill where the annual cheese rolling competition takes place. The hill itself is cordoned off but the route around through the wood from the bottom to the top of the hill was steep enough! We continued on through Brockworth Wood until we reached the point where steps led downhill to the quarry where we had left the car.
Just as we reached the car, the heavens opened - perfect timing! - and the rain continued as we drove back to collect the other car from Leckhampton Hill. Here, limestone coloured water was running down the road. We drove back through Cheltenham, then straight along the A46 past the Coooper's Hill car park, through Painswick and so to Stroud. We were staying at The Bear of Rodborough Hotel, on Rodborough Common high above Stroud, and there was more heavy rain in the evening. We had good view of a rainbow from our lovely room on the 3rd floor, and we had a superb meal in the evening.
