Beating the Ancient Bounds

Thornbury Manor and Parish 1300 – 1894

43.9 K or 26.8 miles

Before 1894, the parish of Thornbury included the modern parishes of Oldbury-on-Severn and Falfield. (It also included Rangeworthy, which is inconvenient for present purposes!) Like the shorter version – this route is subject to revision.

From the Leisure Centre to the Huntsman 12.5 K or 7.8 miles

On the way out of the Leisure Centre car park, turn left up the path opposite Vilner Lane that goes around the back of the Leisure Centre. When you come to a path into the field on your right, take it and head across the field to the far left hand corner. Follow the muddy path into Filnore Woods.At this stage, the parish boundary is at the top of the field on the right.
When a path alongside the allotments joins from the left, turn right and follow the path uphill, which follows the right hand boundary of the wood. Pass the three jubilee limes and the pond (usually dry).The parish boundary joins the edge of the wood at this point. The path descends to a stream then up the other side. At the top, it is worth taking a diversion to the left when the view opens out to the left, but you need to get back to the hedge side path afterwards as you are now following the parish boundary.
The route now follows the parish boundary until you get to The Slad. When you come to a kissing gate, go through it and follow the path parallel to the hedge on your left through three gaps in three hedges and then duck through some bushes onto a tarmac lane (Abbey Lane). Turn right and continue up to the A38.
Cross the major road with care into a bridleway also called Abbey Lane. On the left hand side of the lane, there are the remains of an iron age hill fort. After about six hundred metres, the bridleway bends to the left and emerges on Itchington Road.
Turn left and follow the road alongside Tytherington Quarry on your right to a bridge over a railway. Continue up through the hamlet called The Slad to the A38.The parish boundary heads off up the hill to the right just before you reach the first house on the right. The word “Slad” comes from the Old English slaed – a valley or dingle. It seems that the railway engineers chose this little valley to put the railway through to the tunnel under the main road.
Cross using the traffic lights into Grovesend Road and look for the footpath on the right next to Cleevewood Farm (aka Grovesend Farm). It may be better to wait until you can see over the brow of the hill before you cross.
Go through the small gate into a car park and go straight ahead to a kissing gate into a field. Follow the right hand fence to the corner of the field, where there is a kissing gate into the next field.
On the other side of the kissing gate, look for a gap on the right opposite the electricity pylon. Head down the hillside to the right and head up the far side of Cleve Wood. The little valley on the right is an example of a “hope.” That is the top end of a valley. There is another at Hope Farm on the other side of Milbury Heath. Cleve Wood is an Ancient Semi Natural Woodland (ASNW). It is also an example of a hanger aka a hanging wood. This is a beech hanger specifically. It was probably so called because the slope made it a convenient place to hang criminals. As you can see, nowadays, it might be better called a swinger! Follow the top edge of the wood until the path goes into the trees. Follow the path along the top of the wood until it morphs into an engineered track, which bends off to the left as you come towards the end of the wood. Turn right up to a kissing gate set into a post and rail fence, which leads into the Hacket.
Through the gate, turn left and follow Hacket Lane until you see some uneven steps up to a stone stile on the right. Continue up the woodside to another difficult stone stile leading to some steps up to the A38.
Cross the road carefully, when it is safe, and turn left to find a gate into a wooded area.
Follow the waymarked path through the trees until you come out into a field across a plank bridge and a kissing gate. When I checked out the route, there was a clear, trodden path across the field that went down the right hand side of some farm buildings to a gate on the left near a house. You cross the parish boundary into Tytherington when you pass the conifers in the woods and reenter Thornbury when you go through the gate.
Through the gate, turn right down the lane to the Motorway (following the parish boundary). Keep left and follow the bridle path between Milbury Heath Plantation and the M5.
At the end of the bridleway, turn right on the road that leads over the motorway. (The solar farm on the right is in Cutts Heath, which is in the modern parish of Thornbury.)
When you come to a crossroads, turn left past Baden Hill Farm and follow Cuttsheath Road for about six hundred metres, through the hamlet of Baden Hill until Baden Hill Road joins from the right. (There is rather a good example of a dead hedge on the left as you descend the hill.) Turn left over a stile between two field gates next to a cottage. Baden Hill Farm and the cottages along this lane are in Tytherington. The parish boundary runs parallel to the lane on the left.
Go over another stile next to a garage and follow the path along the right hand hedge. Follow the path along the bottom edge of Jones’ Wood. When you go over the first stone stile, you start to follow the parish boundary that runs along the woodside. When you go over the second stone stile, you are leaving Tytherington and entering Falfield, formerly a tithing within Thornbury until 1894. The boundary runs along the hedge on the other side of the field on the right.
At the end of the wood, turn left up to a wooden stile. The boundary now follows the hedge on the right and then the edge of Priest Wood. We pick it up again on the other side of the motorway. Cross the next field to another stile, which is a bit difficult for large dogs. In the next field, head diagonally up to the top left hand corner of the field, where there are some interesting, but derelict, farm buildings.The right of way goes up the left hand side of these on an enclosed path between two kissing gates.
Follow the right hand hedge to another kissing gate..In the next field descend the path parallel to the right hand hedge to a hunting gate into an enclosed path leading to the car park attached to Hope Manor Farm, which is the home of several businesses. Hope Manor Farm is named after the hamlet of Hope in the parish, formerly the tithing, of Falfield. Hop is Old English for “an enclosure in marshy land” but also means the top end of a valley, in this case the valley of a stream that rises near Baden Hill Farm and flows past Hope Farm and Heneage Court to join the Little Avon near Middle Mill Farm on Damery Lane in Stone. I call this stream Hope Brook as I cannot find another name. The valley has been obscured by the intrusion of the M5. Head towards the sound of the motorway. The right of way follows the drive between the farm buildings and the motorway round to Cromhall Lane.
Turn left and follow Cromhall Lane back over the motorway Turn down the first road on the right, which is Brinkmarsh Lane. Follow the road which is narrow enough to have moss growing down the middle. There is an impressive retaining wall on the left for about seven hundred metres. After the view opens out, there is a field gate on your right, just after two or three houses and some sheds. If you reach Brinkmarsh Farm, you have gone too far.
Through this gate follow the left hand hedge, which conceals a stream. Through the next gateway the stream is joined by another rill coming from the right. This is the parish boundary between Falfield and Cromhall. Follow the stream on your left to a rather difficult field gate and continue in the same way until you come to a concrete bridge over the stream. (You are briefly in Falfield.) Follow the fence on your right until you come to another stile, which is difficult for your large dog, leading to a tunnel under the motorway (the M5).
Through the tunnel turn left and continue to follow the stream on your left (the boundary between Falfield tithing and Cromhall) past Whitfield Farm, where you will join a farm track. Keep left through a field gate, following the stream, when the track forks. You cross the boundary back into Falfield tithing fifty metres into the field. Watch out for the gate leading to Brook Cottages. It landed on my toe when I tried to open it! The eponymous brook is Hope Brook.
Turn left and follow Gambril Lane over the motorway and up to the A38. At the top, turn right and follow the footway alongside the road towards the Huntsman pub. There is a traffic island to help you to cross the road, but it doesn’t quite marry up with the pavements! The walk along the A38 is about a kilometre, which is a lot longer than I’d like, but the alternative route requires a larger incursion into Tortworth Parish. I only hope you’ve timed your walk to allow for a break at the pub.
From the Huntsman follow the footway past St George’s Church and the Village Hall. (Note potential route via Mill Lane opposite.) Continue past the traffic lights to a crossroads and turn right into Heneage Lane. As the lane bends to the left, turn right opposite Lilac Cottage to a stile next to a gate.
Over the stile, head down the field past some conifers enclosed by a hedge and look for a stile in the hedge on the left. Follow the path between Heneage Court and a lake. The lake is fed by Hope Brook, reinforced by water from Tortworth Lake. From this point, the brook forms the border between Tortworth and Falfield (and later Stone.) Continue below Heneage Wood to another stile (below a field gate). Continue in the next field following the left hand hedge to a bridge over the stream leading to a tunnel under the motorway. Yes, it is Hope Brook again, so you have now strayed into Tortworth parish.
Head away from the tunnel, go through a field gate and turn left parallel to the stream on the left. Still Hope Brook. Go through a kissing gate to find a footbridge over the stream guarded by a couple of stiles. So you are now back in the Tithing of Falfield.
Head for the top right hand corner of the field, where there are a pair of kissing gates. In the next field, follow the left hand hedge to a field gate. Bear right to a pair of kissing gates in the sparse hedge ahead. Head for the top right hand corner of the next field to a field gate. Through the gate, turn right to a pedestrian gate/ kissing gate combination through to a drive. Turn left and follow it to a pedestrian gate onto the A38.
Cross over to the other side of the A38 and turn right.(There is supposed to be a shorter route straight across the field ahead, but it is not apparent on the ground.) Follow the footway for about five hundred metres past some houses and a lorry pull-in with a hot and cold food and drink wagon. After you have entered Stone in Stroud District of Gloucestershire, look for an enclosed footpath on the left, just past the garage. You have actually been in Stone for a bit because the houses and their gardens have been moved into Stone. However, they were in Falfield when the Pathfinder maps were published in the 1980s.
Fight your way down the enclosed path over a couple of stone stiles to emerge in an open field. This path follows the original parish boundary between the Tithing of Falfield and Stone. Follow the right hand hedge until you come to a footbridge guarded by stiles. Go straight across the next field to a field gate. You are now leaving the Parish boundary.
Go straight across the next field and turn left alongside the steam flowing through the hedge on the right. Go over a stile next to the stream then bear left to the bottom left hand corner of the field. A footpath sign will direct you alongside a post and rail fence to a Bristol gate onto Moorslade Lane.
Turn left and then right up a side lane leading past two or three houses to the barns behind Glen Farm. Before you get into the actual farmyard, turn left and follow a line parallel to the right hand hedge.
Go through the field gate under some trees and follow the hedge on the left in the next field. When you come to a kink in the hedge do not be tempted to go through the gap, but follow the hedge around the corner and past some hurdles acting as gates until you come to a stile.
Over the stile, follow the left hand hedge to find a stile and plank bridge in the hedge on the left. Turn right and follow the hedge to a field gate. Climb over the gate and turn left. (You may need to unhook an electric wire. Head straight across the field and past the garden of Sunday’s Hill Farm to find a gate leading to a track through the paddocks of the farm and a farm drive. (There are about three gates on the way that need shutting.
Turn left down Sundayshill Lane and then right into a pull in with gates. The situation is complicated by the presence of a caravan, but it is quite obvious how to get into the large left hand field. Head up the field, with Swift Wood on your right. You need to head towards the small group of trees on the left at the far end of the field, which conceals a small pond. There is a pair of field gates on the far side of the pond.
Head across the next field past the end of a redundant hedge and head up to a stile and kissing gate in the top right hand corner. The hedge on your right, which is crossed by the stile/kissing gate, is the boundary between Falfield Tithing and Morton Tithing in Thornbury.
Cross a track to a kissing gate into the diagonally opposite field. The paths have been diverted in the following fields so watch out for signs. Your first objective is a kissing gate in the hedge just to the left of the wind turbine. In the next field, follow the right hand hedge to another kissing gate through the present boundary between Thornbury and Rockhapton.

Version A This is a bit shorter than the main version; but it spends rather a long time in Rockhampton. It would have spent less time there before the 1980’s because Luce Farm and most of Camp Hill were in Thornbury then. Head away from the kissing gate towards an impressive oak tree where a wood on the right threatens to join Groves Gully.To the right of the oak, there is a kissing gate The view is impressive. There is a line of sight between here and the site of the Temple of Nodens on the other side of the Severn at Lydney Park. It is to the right of a dip in the distant hills.From the kissing gate descend the hill below the rampart to a group of poplars that conceal two stiles separated by a bridge over another gully, which is the old boundary between Thornbury and Rockhampton. In the next field, head towards some white buildings which are beside the tower of St Oswald’s Church hidden by some trees. The stile beside a red-roofed house was overgrown by brambles, but has now been cleared. In the next field,follow the left hand hedge until you reach another gate.Through the gate, turn left and follow the left hand hedge to the end of the field. There are two stiles in the corner, the first of which I found difficult to get over with an artificial hip, but there is a pleasant grassy path through Mount Pleasant Tree Farm to Gully Road. Turn left then right towards Luce’s Farm. After some trees on the right, leave the drive and follow the right hand hedge through three field boundaries. The first through the former boundary between Rockhampton and Thornbury has a dog proof stile and the second, which is the present boundary, has two dog-proof stiles and a bridge. The third has a similar stile and a kissing gate. (You are following the western pale or boundary of Eastwood deer park.) After the third, look for a broken stile and plank bridge on the right. Continue from 38).

Through the gate, turn left and follow the farm track towards the end of the field. Before you get there, bear right to a kissing gate next to the corner of a wood. Follow the new path along the side of the wood to another gate and continue alongside a stream or ditch to a third kissing gate on the right.
Through the gate, bear left to a pair of Bristol gates. Take the right hand one and head diagonally across the field towards a pair of trees, one of which is dead.
Through the gate, descend the side of a wood called Longman’s Grove to a hunt jump, which is quite easy to get over if you move the wire. Head diagonally right down the hill to the corner of the field and turn right to follow the hedge and ditch on the left for about eight hundred metres. Just before you reach the end of the field, there is a plank bridge on the left.
In the field over the plank, bear left across the field and turn left parallel to the far hedge. The hedge on the right is the parish boundary between Thornbury and Rockhampron. This leads you to an enclosed path called Catsbrain Lane. Catsbrain Lane is in Rockhampton until it crosses a stream, where you are back in Thornbury. The boundary is complicated here.
At the end of the lane, cross Newton Hill, into Horse lane. Follow this until you come to Morton Baptist Church and turn right. Follow this road, called Rockhampton Hill until it joins Newton Hill. You are back in Rockhampton. (I actually stayed on Newton Hill. I had avoided it before because I had seen quite a lot of traffic using it. However, it did not feel threatening and passes Thornbury Rugby Football Club, which is in Rockhampton.)
Just past Yew Tree Farm, which has a triple gabled frontage, there is a pond, after which, you should turn left through a kissing gate next to a double field gate. The right of way starts by going to the left of the hedge straight ahead. It then goes through a Bristol gate into an enclosed path between a ditch or rhine, which is the parish boundary, and a hedge..When you come out in a field, you keep straight ahead following the ditch on your left. Continue through two hedge boundaries to the field occupied by Henridge Hill. Here there is a stile on your left, which crosses the boundary and leads to a path across a smaller field to a gate onto Duckhole a track.
Turn right and follow Duckhole for a kilometre and a half or more as it shadows Rockhampton Rhine. When the rhine bends to the right, keep straight across the field to an acute corner, where there is a footbridge over a ditch and a kissing gate. Here this route briefly joins the “Hill Hike”, which was produced by the Forgotten Landscape Project. The path is confined within an enclosed path around the first field to a pair of kissing kissing gates.
As you follow the right hand edge of the field, you are following the boundary between Oldbury-on-Severn and Hill. Although in days of yore this was all Oldbury Marsh. Continue through one field gate. There is a field gate on your right before the end of the field, where the Hill Hike goes. Ignore that and go through the gate straight ahead. Continue along the track to another field gate, and keep going until you find a pair of gates held together by a Karabiner. .
Go straight across Hill Lane into another bridleway next to a small wood. Continue past a broken hunting gate into a long field. Follow the right hand hedge to the end. Continue through four field gates set up to be easy to open from horseback to enter an enclosed track. Keep going through another field gate into a metalled road, which takes you around the bend to another field gate past the entrance to Shepperdine Farm..Keep going to come out on Harestreet Lane. Turn right and then right again on Shepperdine Road.
Follow the road past a couple of large houses and look for a footpath on the left. If you have an OS map, be careful, the footpath has been diverted so as to avoid a garden. The present route goes through a field gate. Cross the field to a footbridge. In the next field, turn left and follow the path parallel to the left hand hedge until you reach a footbridge to the right of a field gate in the corner.Make your way across the orchard to a field gate onto the road. Turn left and then right to visit the church of St Mary the Virgin, which is a corrugated iron tabernacle church. You need to find a footbridge through the hedge.

The Church of St Mary the Virgin Shepperdine to the Anchor 6.6 K or 4.1 miles

After you have visited the church, retrace your steps and follow the road (Nupdown Lane) around a left hand bend then, just before a right hand bend, trin left over a stile next to a gate on the left. Follow the hedge on the left up the field. At the end of the field, turn right and then left along a narrow field At the end , make your way round the White House to the left/right. To get onto the embankment alongside the River Severn. The fence across the embankment to the right is the parish boundary. Now it divides Hill from Oldbury on Severn but before 1894, Oldbury was part of Thornbury Parish.
Follow the embankment away from the parish boundary. There used to be a pub called the Windbound at the end of the lane that joins from the left. It closed and became an old peoples’ home or similar. It has been acquired by the nuclear power company and levelled to the ground to prevent it falling into the hands of anyone who might be awkward.
Continue along the embankment past the decommissioned nuclear power station. Keep going until you meet the driveway up to the sailing club, when you should follow it to the left into Oldbury-on-Severn. You will find the Anchor public house on the right and the village shop on your left.

The Anchor at Oldbury on Severn to Leisure Centre 9.6 K

From the Anchor, turn left and follow the Severn Way on the right through a gate leading out past some stables to the riverbank. Follow the Severn Way till you come to a bridge over the rhine on the left.
Follow the track to the right of the hedge ahead. It leads through a gate into an enclosed track, which leads you round a double bend. The track improves into a road called Lower Cowhill Lane that leads past some farms and other houses into Church Lane, where you turn right.
Continue along the lane until it is crossed by a track called Stock Lane. Turn right and follow the lane up towards Stock Hill with Titters Hill on the horizon. When you reach the road, turn left and then right up Bond Lane.
Follow Bond Lane for nearly eighteen hundred metres, past a house, round a bend or three, past a couple of turnings on the right and a couple of houses on the left to emerge at Mumbley’s Plat. (The lane changed its name to Sweetwater Lane, when it acquired a layer of tarmac.
The parish boundary follows Mumbley’s Lane to the right for about eight hundred metres. (If you are not wearing hi-viz clothes or the lighting is poor, you would be well advised to go straight ahead over the stile and follow the Jubilee Way back to Mundy Playing Fields, as there is quite a lot of traffic on the road and the hedges are unforgiving.)
If you have gone for authenticity by following Mumbley’s Lane to the right, turn left at the bottom on Vattingstone Lane. There is a useful footpath on the other side. After you have passed the entrance to Marlwood School, turn left down Quarry Road. At the end turn left up Costers Close, then right on the path that goes past the cemetery. (You are following the boundary pale of Marlwood mediaeval deer park (now a golf course).
At the end, cross the road carefully, turn left and follow the footway back down the hill to the leisure centre.

Shorter alternative to 14) – 17). It leaves out a bit of boundary, but follows Hope Brook.
Follow Cuttsheath Road downhill and over a rill or small stream and then uphill to the hamlet of Baden Hill. There is a green in the hamlet, with a no parking sign and a footpath sign pointing past three cottages to a plank gate. This used to be called The Barton. Go through a paddock to a kissing gate into a field. Go straight across to a Bristol gate to the right of a pond with a flock of mallard on it. The pond has been formed by damming Hope Brook. Follow the path beside the pond to a gate into another field. Follow the course of the stream past a tree house up towards Hope Farm. You go through one gate and head to the right of the yard, where there is a hunting gate and an enclosed path leading to a car park. Head for the sound of the motorway at the diagonally opposite corner, where there is a drive leading between the buildings and the M5 out onto Cromhall Road.Hope Farm is named after the hamlet of Hope in the parish, formerly the tithing, of Falfield. Hop is Old English for “an enclosure in marshy land” but also means the top end of a valley, in this case the valley of a stream that rises near Baden Hill Farm and flows past Hope Farm, Brinkmarsh Farm and Heneage Court to join the Little Avon near Middle Mill Farm on Damery Lane in Stone. I call this stream Hope Brook as I cannot find another name. The valley has been obscured by the intrusion of the M5 into it.