Beating the Bounds in Bits

Beating the Bounds in Bits – a collection of nine walks between 3.1 miles and 8.7 miles long. The walks that do not start in the Centre of Thornbury visit five outlying pubs and Dobbies’ which has a cafe.

1. The Slad 6.5K or 4miles

Start by crossing the pedestrian crossing from the St Mary Centre in Rock Street Thornbury.

Turn right and cross Bath Road and Upper Bath Road and turn left down Streamleaze.
Turn right to cross Streamleaze to make your way past some garages into a former railway tunnel that now goes under Midland Way,
Follow the cycle track past Tesco car park and continue between the industrial estate and Thornbury Farm Wood. At the T-junction, turn right.
Follow Vilner Lane to the bottom and cross the road leading into the Leisure Centre Car Park.
Follow the path around to 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.
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 path descends to a stream then up the other side. 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. Turn right and continue up to the A38.
Cross the major road with care into a bridleway 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.
Follow the path down the hill, out of the wood and across the grass to a muddy ford, which appears to have carried the engineered path in the past.. Head up the hill to a kissing gate (or the gap to the left.) Through this gate follow the path between the hedge on the right and the housing estate. Go past one kissing gate and exit onto Midland Way through another.
Cross Midland Way and turn left and then right down Chiltern Park. Turn left and then right down a path next to what appears to be a Christmas Tree. Go straight across a staggered cross path. At a grassy triangle with three trees, turn left on another path that leads up to Malvern Drive. Turn left and follow the pavement up to Grovesend Road.
Cross the road and turn right and then left on a path that leads through to a green open space, where there is a plantation of new trees. Turn right and follow the narrow green space down to Streamleaze Park. Go past the playground between the trees and follow the path through Streamleaze (the road) and cross over.
Turn left and then take the second turning on the right which is a footpath. Take the second footpath on the left, which leads past Gillingstool School into Bath Road. Continue up the road to the start in Rock Street.

2) Milbury Heath – a long version about 10.5K or 6.5 miles

A look at the sites of two proposed developments including three Ancient Semi Natural Woodlands and two pubs. In the absence of a potential gateway site on the east side of Thornbury, this walk starts at the Rock Street long-stay car park. Warning – there are some dodgy steps and stone stiles.

A hand drawn map in the Thornbury and District Museum based on maps from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries refers to St Mildburgh’s Heath. Saint Mildburgh (or Milburga) was the daughter of Merewalh, King of the Magonsaeta, who occupied greater Herefordshire. He was the son of the last great pagan king of the English, Penda. According to a painting by the Hispano-Flemish painter Juan de Roelas, Penda was her father rather than her grandfather. St Mildburgh was associated with the abbey at Much Wenlock, first as a nun and then as the abbess. Her main function was to save crops from birds. It is difficult to see why she should have been associated with Milbury Heath, except that her legend is a bit similar to that of St Arild at Cowhill, although Mildburgh was saved from her male pursuer by an event that sounds like the Severn Bore, and Arild lost her head. Also, the church at Rockhampton is dedicated to St Oswald, who was killed by Penda at Oswestry.

Head out of the main entrance of the Rock Street long-stay car park. The flats opposite are on the site of the former cattle market. Turn left down Bath Road passing Turnberrie’s on the right. Turnberrie is the Domesday Book name for Thornbury, so Turnberrie’s means belonging to Thornbury, although it actually belongs to South Gloucestershire and is run by the Thornbury Community Building Trust. The path runs along the back of Gillingstool Primary School. The name Bath Road has nothing to do with the city, but commemorates an open air swimming bath that used to be where The Bathings flats now stand.
Turn left at a T-junction at the end and follow the path around until it splits into three. Take the middle path.and bear left on the main path between two rows of houses. Bear right as you emerge in a more open space and take the path that goes under Streamleaze via an underpass, which gives the impression that you are going through an actual Gateway into the countryside..
Head up the path between some trees and some houses until it bends to the left into a long open space with a path along each side. I prefer to walk along the grass up the middle, but this depends on the state of the ground. Keep going until the space opens up a bit and some young trees have been planted. Turn left and and follow the path through to Grovesend Road.
Turn right a little and cross the main road into Malvern Drive. Turn right (or straight on) onto a metalled path and then turn right onto another path. Cross the grass to a parallel path and head up to Chiltern Way. Cross the road and go straight ahead onto Morton Way.
Turn left and then right to cross the main road to a kissing gate. Through the gate, follow the hedge on the left through one gateway. (This is the site of the proposed Cleve Park development by Miller Homes – now in the process of being built.)
Head up the next field to find a gap in the hedge opposite just to the right of a kissing gate (which is on the line of the actual right of way but is now overgrown.
There is a fork in the path through the gap. The right of way takes the left fork down to a boggy gap and then leads up through a rough field to enter Cleve Wood shortly before you arrive at a gate onto a lane. (The right fork leads to a concrete dam across the stream that has created a pond. Some people have used the dam as a path into the wood and there is a vague track up through the wood to the gate on the far side. However, it does not seem safe and is not a right of way.) This stream is the nearest to Milbury Heath. There is a sacred well dedicated to St Milburga in Shropshire, but the springs that feed this stream seem to be in Grovesend rather than Milbury Heath. However, Grovesend suggests a sacred grove somewhere in the vicinity.
Head left along Hacket Lane and look for 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 went there there was a clearly marked path across the field that went down the right hand side of some farm buildings to a gate on the left near a house.
Through the gate, there is a lane. Turn right down to the Motorway and follow the bridle path between Milbury Heath Plantation and the M5. Follow the bridle path to a road.
Turn right on the road that leads over the motorway. When you come to a crossroads, turn left past Baden Hill Farm.
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 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. 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 leading to an enclosed path leading to a car park. Head for the diagonally opposite corner, where there is a drive leading around the buildings of Hope Manor Farm industrial estate..
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 for it. The valley has been obscured by the intrusion of the M5 into it. The right of way follows the drive between the farm buildings and the motorway round to Cromhall Lane.
Turn left and follow the road over the motorway. Continue up the road past roads joining from right and left until you come across a seat on the right with a view. Most of the view is taken up by Buckover Farms, which is part of the Tortworth Estate. Rudge Wood (to the right) is Ancient Semi Natural Woodland (ASNW) and hence a Site of Nature Conservation Interest. (SNCI). Buckover Farms is also the site of the proposed Buckover Garden Village. (I have tried the path to the left of the seat, which allows you a glimpse of the inside of Rudge Wood, but it ends badly, descending some dangerous steps to the A38. It would be better if there were a permissive path to the gate opposite the White Horse pub!)
From the seat, continue up the road past a junction on the left and a pond, and take the first turning on the right, which descends to the A38 using some stone steps on the right. Cross the road, carefully and turn right to visit the White Horse (open 12 till 10 pm. But closed Mondays and Tuesdays.)
There is a permissive path at the back of the pub that leads to the bottom of the field, where there is a stile on the left. Over the stile, the path has been diverted so as to avoid going right next to a house, which seems fair enough. You will be directed up to the original line near some stables. At the top of the diversion, turn right and follow the drive to the end.
On the road, turn right and then left up some steps into a field.
Follow the path that follows the contour through a long field (for about five hundred metres).In the next field, follow the track to a gate at the bottom right hand corner onto Hacket Lane.
Head down the lane until there is a metal gate on the left just past Hacket Farm. Through the gate turn right and follow the path alongside Crossways Wood on your right. This wood is mentioned as being a Site of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI) in Thornbury’s Biodiversity Action Plan. At the end there is a kissing gate leading out into Morton Way.
Cross Morton Way carefully and follow the path into the green space next to a red pillar box. The path leads past some old and some younger trees and some houses down to a bridge over a stream.
Cross the stream and turn left to follow the streamside path until you reach the third turning on the right (Elizabeth Close). At the end, continue straight ahead on a path past the end of a cul-de-sac and bungalow to emerge on Sibland..
Turn right on a narrow road. This is Sibland, which is the original road out of Thornbury. Grovesend Road is a comparative upstart!. The road picks up some motorised traffic before it emerges on Sibland Road. Turn right and then left on Sibland Way by an old pink house. At the end, cross over Knapp Road into a path that leads up to the Black Horse public house. This is the original course of Gillingstool.
From the pub, the easiest way back to the start is to cross over the road to the path between the houses to the right of the petrol station. Keep right and follow the path behind Gillingstool Primary School back to the beginning.

3) Milbury Heath – a short version about 7K or 4.3 miles

A hand drawn map in the Thornbury and District Museum based on maps from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries refers to St Mildburgh’s Heath. Saint Mildburgh (or Milburga) was the daughter of Merewalh, King of the Magonsaeta, who occupied greater Herefordshire. He was the son of the last great pagan king of the English, Penda. According to a painting by the Hispano-Flemish painter Juan de Roelas, Penda was her father rather than her grandfather. St Mildburgh was associated with the abbey at Much Wenlock, first as a nun and then as the abbess. Her main function was to save crops from birds. It is a shame she was not available to deal with the robins who were slaughtered for invading the garden centre’s cafe! It is difficult to see why she should have been associated with Milbury Heath, except that her legend is a bit similar to that of St Arild at Cowhill, although Mildburgh was saved from her male pursuer by an event that sounds like the Severn Bore, and Arild lost her head. Also, the church at Rockhampton is dedicated to St Oswald, who was killed by Penda at Oswestry.

This version of the route starts at the White Horse, Buckover.
There is a permissive path at the back of the pub that leads to the bottom of the field, where there is a stile on the left. Over the stile, the path has been diverted so as to avoid going right next to a house, which seems fair enough. You will be directed up to the original line near some stables. At the top of the diversion, turn right and follow the drive to the end.
On the road, turn right and then left up some steps into a field.
Follow the path that follows the contour through a long field (for about five hundred metres).In the next field, bear left up the field to a kissing gate. Turn left and then right to find the steps up to a stone stile on the left.
Over the stile, 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 went there there was a clearly marked path across the field that went down the right hand side of some farm buildings to a gate on the left near a house.
Through the gate, there is a lane. Turn right down it towards the Motorway and follow the bridle path between Milbury Heath Plantation and the M5.
Turn right on the road that leads over the motorway. 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.
Turn left over a stile next to a cottage. Continue over another stile past the garages. Follow the hedge on the left to a stone stile and continue along the bottom edge of Jones’ Wood. You will go over another stone stile.
At the end of the wood, turn left up to a wooden stile. 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 disused farm buildings.The right of way goes through two kissing gates to the left hand side of these.
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, which leads 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 motorway and follow the drive between the farm buildings and the motorway round to Cromhall Lane.
Turn left and follow the road over the motorway. Continue up the road past roads leading off to the right and left until you come across a seat on the right with a view. Most of the view is taken up by Buckover Farms, which is part of the Tortworth Estate. Rudge Wood (to the right) is Ancient Semi Natural Woodland (ASNW) and hence a Site of Nature Conservation Interest. (SNCI). Buckover Farms is also the site of the proposed Buckover Garden Village. (I have tried the path to the left of the seat, which allows you a glimpse of the inside of Rudge Wood, but it ends badly, descending some dangerous steps to the A38. It would be better if there were a permissive path to the gate opposite the White Horse pub!)
From the seat, continue up the road past a junction on the left and a pond, and take the first turning on the right, which descends to the A38 using some stone steps on the right. Cross the road, carefully and turn right to visit the White Horse.

4) Hope Disrupted by Roads 12.5K or 7.8 miles

There is a case for starting from Dobbies instead of the White Horse. They serve breakfast from 9am and don’t close until 5pm and there is ample parking. You could meet for breakfast at 9 or 9-30 then walk to Falfield for a sandwich at the Huntsman at Falfield and finish at Dobbies with a pot of tea. (If you are starting from Dobbies, turn right out of the car park, head around the corner, turn right up Green Lane past the pond, look for a kissing gate on the left and start from 2).)

From the White Horse, turn right and cross the A38 (carefully) from a white cottage, called Hillcrest to some steps on the other side. Follow Chapel Lane uphill to the village pond and turn left and then right into Green Lane and look for a kissing gate on the left.
Follow the diagonal path across several fields. It is quite difficult to stay on line as the landowner does not usually restore the path after ploughing as required by law. The first kissing gate is a bit before the far corner of the first field. The second field is long and thin (relatively). The stile is about halfway between the garden of the house on the left and the plantation at the end of the field. The next target is a kissing gate in the hedge at the bottom of the field. The next is another kissing gate in the hedge on the left with a stile on the other side of the hedge. The next is a stile in the fence ahead. It is quite important to head diagonally across the field to a kissing gate in the trees opposite a house called Fair View.
In the Road, turn right and follow Cutts Heath Road across the M5. The field on the right containing solar panels is in Cutts Heath and is part of Thornbury Parish. At a road junction, turn left beside Baden Hill Farm.Turn right on the road that leads over the motorway. When you come to a crossroads, turn left past Baden Hill Farm. .
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 plank gate. This used to be called The Barton. Go through a paddock to a kissing gate into a field. Go straight across to Bristol Gate to the right of a pond with a flock of mallard on it. 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 gate leading to an enclosed path leading to a car park. Head for the diagonally opposite corner, where there is a drive leading around the buildings 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.
Turn left and follow the road over the motorway Turn right down the first road on the right, which is Brinkmarsh Lane. Follow the road, which is narrow enough to have moss in the middle for about seven hundred metres. There is an impressive retaining wall on the left. 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, continue through another field gate, turn left and follow the left hand hedge, which conceals a stream. Through the next gateway, which is difficult to open at the time of writing, continue in the same way until you can cross the stream by a concrete bridge. Follow the fence on the right until you come to a stile leading to a tunnel under the motorway (the M5).
Through the tunnel go over a stile and turn left. Follow the stream on the left past Whitfield Farm, where you will join a farm track. Keep left through a field gate and continue alongside the stream across a field to another field gate leading to the track past Brook Cottages.
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 until you reach the Huntsman pub. This is about a kilometre, which is a lot longer than I’d like, but the alternative route requires an incursion into Tortworth Parish. I only hope you’ve timed your walk to allow for a break at the pub.
If you have visited the pub, exit through the car park towards St George’s Church and turn left down Sundayshill Lane. Go past the entrance to the prison complex on your left. Continue past Orchard View on your left and look for the second kissing gate on the left (It is the one opposite another footpath.)
Through the kissing gate, bear right over a footbridge and keep right around a rough field. Go down an enclosed path around the end of a car park, which leads to a metal footbridge into a field. Turn left and follow the path between the farm track and the ditch.
Continue across the farm track when it swings to the left and go over a stile in the corner of the field. Look for a bridge over the ditch on your left. On the other side, turn right and cut the corner to look for an enclosed and gated path through the band of trees ahead.
In the next field, bear left to cut the corner of the next field past a dead oak tree to a stile in the fence ahead. Head diagonally up the next field towards the wind turbine peeping over the hill. There is a difficult and redundant stile in the top left corner with a kissing gate beyond it.. Go through this gate and another kissing gate on the other side of a muddy track. This brings you into the field containing a wind turbine. You are now back in the modern parish of Thornbury.
The path goes diagonally across the field on a path that goes closer to the wind turbine than the route shown on most maps. The path has been diverted to go through a new kissing gate.
Through the kissing gate, follow the right hand hedge down the hill to another kissing gate.
Through the gate turn left along the track and bear right towards the kissing gate next to a wood called Grove Gully Wood. Follow the path alongside the wood to another kissing gate. Continue alongside the stream until you come to a kissing gate on the right. In the field, cut the corner to a pair of Bristol gates. Go through the left hand gate.
Follow the farm track along the left hand fence to another Bristol gate at the edge of the escarpment, just to the right of the farm track. Through the gate, the path descends straight down the field towards yet another Bristol gate. Through this head towards the house displaying a cream gable end, before which there is yet another Bristol gate onto the road.
Turn right and then immediately left into Crossways Lane. After the lane crosses a bridge over a streamlet, look for a track up to a gate just before a building on the left. The right of way goes straight across the field, but most people go around the edge on the left to a footbridge and stile and there is no evidence that anyone is using the official line. This seems to be encouraged by the tenant of Buckover Farms.
To follow the majority, turn right over the stile and follow the right hand hedge through gaps in two hedges. This takes you past an attractive pond. Turn left after the second gap and follow the hedge on your left up to the top of the field. Turn right along a ditch (on your left) and cross it using the second footbridge. This takes you up an enclosed path next to a paddock. At the top of the enclosed path, take the gate on the left and turn right to get to a stile into the garden of the White Horse.

19a) If you are returning to Dobbies, take the gate on the right and cross the paddock. Follow the signs up from the stables to the driveway and turn right. There is a stile on the left leading diagonally up the field to a stile in the top left hand corner. Carefully cross the A38 into Chapel Lane and head up to the pond you passed when leaving Dobbies. Turn right to return to the garden centre and cafe.

5) White Horse – Wind Turbine 5K or 3.1 miles

This short route provides an opportunity to check out the consequences of the path diversions around Pound Farm. The start point is the White Horse at Buckover. You should be aware that it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays and it would be wise to check opening times. If you are not intending to use the pub for its proper purpose. There is ample parking on Old Gloucester Road.

From the pub car park, turn left and head down the footway. Turn left down Old Gloucester Road. (There is a footway on the right.)
At the end, turn left along (New) Gloucester Road. You will pass the entrance to Eastwood Farm (Delta Force Paintballing) and Springfield (Supplies and Projects) after which there is a footpath in the hedge on your right.
The path heads up the right hand edge of the first field until you pass a small wood on the right and straight up the next field. The path shadows some power lines up the hill to a stile on the horizon. (Dog proof.) There is a second stile on the other side.
The path follows the right hand hedge and the edge of Larch Covert to a gap next to an overgrown kissing gate. .
The right of way goes straight across the next field to a functioning kissing gate.(When I checked out the route, both gates were protected by an electric fence designed to keep sheep in. There were insulated sections in front of the gates to accommodate walkers.)
The path goes diagonally left across the next field to a new kissing gate in the far corner at the opposite end of the opposite hedge from the wind turbine.

When I checked out this route in February, it felt more natural to continue straight ahead to the kissing gate behind an oak tree on the parish boundary, which opens out onto Camp Hill. I was hoping for a repeat of the view of a herd of fallow deer that had greeted me here the first time I came here, but It was not to be. I had to make do with the four roe deer that had broken out of the nameless wood behind Springfield Educational Supplies.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. This is on the present boundary between Thornbury and Rockhampton. 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. This is the pre 1980s boundary. 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, which is the old boundary between Rockhampton and Thornbury, has a dog proof stile and the second, on the new 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 second you are briefly back in Thornbury parish. After the third, look for a broken stile and plank bridge on the right..I didn’t use that route on this occasion, instead I followed the hedge on the right all the way to the end of the field, with Longman’s Grove on the left, with its signs of an active pheasant shoot. (Is the deer shooting platform still there?)The map shows a right of way all the way into the far corner, but then stile in the corner has been overcome by time. There is an alternative kissing gate a short way up the hill. This is fine, but it is worth following the edge of the field to see some good bits of the bank of the Eastwood Park Pale. There is a particularly good example behind the pheasant feeder.Through the kissing gate, bear right to follow the hedge bank to a kissing gate.In the next field, bear right to the Bristol Gate near the house at the end of Crossways Lane. Go to 9) below. (This version is 7 K or 4.3 miles)

Through the gate turn left along the track and bear right towards the kissing gate next to a wood called Grove Gully Wood. Follow the path alongside the wood to another kissing gate. Continue alongside the stream until you come to a kissing gate on the right. In the field, cut the corner to a pair of Bristol gates. Go through the left hand gate.
Follow the farm track along the left hand fence to a gate at the edge of the escarpment. Through the gate, the path heads straight down the field towards the junction between Gloucester Road and Crossways Lane at the bottom of the second field, which you should be able to see. In the second field, there is a tree on the line of the path. There is a Bristol gate onto the road.
Turn right and then left into Crossways Lane. After the lane crosses a bridge over a streamlet, look for a track up to a gate just before a building on the left. The right of way goes straight across the field, but most people go around the edge on the left to a stile. This seems to be encouraged by the tenant of Buckover Farms, so you may wish to carry on in the same way up to the White Horse.

6) Moorslade 7K or 4.3 miles

A walk round the Tithing of Falfield in the Ancient Parish of Thornbury

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 gap and bridge over a stream leading to a tunnel under the motorway. Yes, it is the 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 a 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 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 path 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 the Morton Tithing of Thornbury. Before you go over the stile, turn round and head back down the hill to a pair of stiles below the gates you came through. Alternatively, turn left through the gates and walk down to find the stiles. It’s not on the right of way, but I doubt whether anyone will mind!
Over the stiles, head down past the ancient (but ring-barked) oak tree to find a bridge guarded by hunting gates in the band of trees ahead.
Over the bridge, follow the post and rail fence guarding a new hedge and take the second field gate on the left that leads to a bridge over a ditch. Turn right and follow the ditch over a step over stile.
Keep following the ditch on your right through a second field, where you cross an access road to Shepherd’s Yard and look for a steel footbridge on your right. This brings you via an enclosed path to the rear of a car park attached to HM Prison Falfield. Follow the left hand hedge around some rough grass to pick up a path just past the cream gable end of a house. Go over a footbridge and through a kissing gate to come out onto Sundayshill Lane.
Turn right and follow the road down to the A38. Turn right to find the Huntsman Inn at Falfield.

7) Anchored 8K or 5 miles

A Walk Anchored in the Tithing of Morton

From the Anchor car park, turn left, cross Park Road and Morton Bridge and cross Gloucester Road using the traffic island. Follow the path beside the wildflower meadow and the community orchard and continue along the path beside the stream until you have gone under the bridge carrying Morton Way.
In the field, take the path up to the diagonally opposite corner. Turn right along Badger Road and follow it around the end of the houses. Head up the path to the top and turn right alongside a hedge.
Follow the hedge to the end of the field. Go over the stile in the corner and cross the diagonal to another stile next to a field gate. In the next field, head across to the opposite left hand corner, where there is a kissing gate into another field. Head straight across the next field to a telegraph pole supporting a power line marking a stile, footbridge and pedestrian gate leading to. an enclosed path through to Crossways Lane.
Turn left and follow the lane up to Gloucester Road. Turn right and then left through a Bristol gate. (There is a shortcut to the left, which follows a version of the Pale of Eastwood Deer Park.)
From the gate, head straight up to another Bristol gate and on up to another one in the top corner on the edge of the escarpment. Follow the farm track up to a pair of Bristol gates. Go through the right hand one.

Version BThrough the Bristol Gate, come back through the other one. Now head diagonally across the field to a dead tree and a live one next to the corner of Longman’s Grove. The view from the gate here makes the extra distance worthwhile, unless visibility is poor or you are in a hurry! 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.

Continue on the same line through a kissing gate towards Pound House Farm. then turn left along the stream on the edge of the field. Take care, it was eroding quite badly on the day I went. The footpath has been diverted away from Pound House Farm, which is in an enclave of Falfield Parish, which may be why the kissing gates alongside the wood were installed by Southwold Ramblers. It is now on an attractive line alongside a wood called Groves Gully, a SNCI in the Biodiversity Action Plan. After two woodside kissing gates, the path bears right up towards the wind turbine, then along a track until you reach a kissing gate in the hedge on the right. (The path was blocked by electric sheep fencing last time I was there, so I turned left and followed the edge of Grove Gully Wood round to the kissing gate. Actually seemed better than the official route!)
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. This is on the present boundary between Thornbury and Rockhampton. 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. This is the pre 1980s boundary. 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, which is the old boundary between Rockhampton and Thornbury, has a dog proof stile and the second, on the new 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 second you are briefly back in Thornbury parish. After the third, look for a broken stile and plank bridge on the right.
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 Rockhampton. 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. (Alternatively, turn right and follow Newton Hill past Thornbury Rugby Football Club, which is in Rockhampton. It seems OK if you stay on the right facing the traffic.)
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 goes around a pile of rubble and continues to a Bristol gate to the left of the hedge straight ahead. It then goes between the hedge and a ditch or rhine in an enclosed path into a field. The rhine is the parish boundary. Here you keep straight ahead following the rhine on your left. Continue through two hedge boundaries. The first has a plank bridge and an Avon stile about thirty metres from the ditch on the left. The second is a field gate. The next field is occupied by Henridge Hill. 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 Lane.
Turn left and follow the lane into Lower Morton. Go past Folly Lane on the right. Continue along the road around a bend to the left. You need to take the second turn on the right past Whitfield Farm through a field gate opposite a bigger farm yard.
The right of way goes through a yard into a field or paddock. Head diagonally right to the top corner, where there is a pair of kissing gates. This leads through to a caravan site occupied by showmen and women called Fair View. The path descends through two enclosed paths separated by Avon stiles either side of a track to a footbridge and two dog-resistant.stiles leading into a field.
Follow the left hand hedge until you can join a track that carries on alongside the left hand hedge down to a stile in a gate onto Oldbury Lane. Cross the road and turn left to look for a stile on the right.
Follow the left hand hedge around the corner to an Avon stile into the housing estate. The stile has a hinged top rail that could easily land on someone’s head if it is left up.
Go straight ahead across a green space and across Barley Fields and go down Scythe Way. At the end cut across Harvest Way towards some play equipment to a yellowish footpath and turn right.When it runs into the end of a cul-de-sac, go straight across onto an green path leading to a footbridge.
On the other side, follow the path around the side of Fishponds Wood to a kissing gate on the left. Depending on the state of the water, follow the left or the right bank of the millstream back to the Anchor. You will need to cross back over a footbridge if you avoid the stepping stones.

8) Morton – The Eastwood Deer Park 6.5K or 4 miles

Inspired by a shorter walk devised by Dave and Helen Walter-Cornes, aka Thornbury Walker. Their version uses the shortcut at 8) and does not start at the pub. It also continues down Morton Street instead of going cross country to the housing estate. This route also goes alongside two of the six woodland areas mentioned in the Thornbury Biodiversity Action Plan with their fallow deer. Some short hills and some stiles.

Start – Anchor Inn at Morton Bridge on the Gloucester Road,Thornbury. This has some of the characteristics of a gateway site, but do not park in the pub car park without permission. There are usually a couple of parking spaces behind the pub.

Turn left out of the pub car park, cross Park Road and Morton Bridge over the Morton Mill Brook, (called Pickedmoor Lane Rhine on Google Earth maps). The millpond used to be on the left as you cross the bridge.
Cross the Gloucester Road using the pedestrian island. The path ahead forks. (The left hand path rises into a modern estate called Swallow Park.This is a shortcut that follows the line of an historical crossfield path. At a road junction, go straight ahead across a green open space, known as Osprey Park (owned by Thornbury Town Council.) Keep left of the playground and bear left down the path to some pedestrian lights on Morton Way.)
The above shortcut is the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle, but it is worth taking the right fork past a prize winning wildflower meadow and a community orchard alongside the Morton Mill Brook. Turn left at the offset crosspath and follow the tarmac path through Osprey Park to the pedestrian lights on Morton Way.
On the other side of Morton Way, turn left and then right on a footpath alongside a “Teletubbies” park through to Badger Road. Cross over onto the path alongside a road signposted “Nos 25-35 ODDS”. Follow this path to a double stile leading into the countryside.
Climb over the stiles and head diagonally right across the field to a gate into Upper Morton. Go straight ahead up the lane to the B4061.
Turn right along the grass verge until you see a stile on the opposite side of the road. Cross the road carefully and climb this stile and another, a short way beyond. (This is a slightly alarming experience, due to the traffic, but the other side of the road is worse due to the presence of “Pit Pool” hidden behind the bushes and at least you are facing the oncoming cars! .However, a vegetation cut and a plank bridge could improve the experience
The next field had been enlarged and was rather wet cattle pasture when we went across. To keep on track, head for the slightly more distant pylon in view, which stands in front of a wood called Longman’s Grove. The sprawling Farm on the right is Yew Tree Farm. Longman’s Grove is named in the Thornbury Biodiversity Action Plan as a Site of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI).
Cross two stiles and a wooden bridge that had a dodgy looking hole in it when we used it. On the other side, you enter Eastwood Park, one of the two original medieval deer parks in the parish or manor of Thornbury. (The other one was Marlwood.) The second stile bore a sign telling us to put our dog on a lead due the presence of pheasant poults. Look out for barbed wire on the left hand post especially.

(If you turn left, you can follow the park pale or boundary fence below Longman’s Grove until you come to a broken stile and a plank bridge on the left, just before you reach the end of the field. This is a shortcut to 16).)

Head towards the centre of Eastwood Park. Head diagonally across the field to a hunt jump in the top right hand corner, next to Longman’s Grove. Over the fence, head up the side of the wood to a Bristol Gate next to a dead tree. (Turn around to admire the view!)
In the next field, go straight ahead over the crest of the hill towards a single wind turbine. (I saw a white fallow buck here!) Your target is a pair of Bristol gates, separated by a wire fence. Continue on the same line through a kissing gate towards Pound House Farm. then turn left along the stream on the edge of the field. Take care, it was eroding quite badly on the day I went. The footpath has been diverted away from Pound House Farm, which is in an enclave of Falfield Parish, which may be why the kissing gates alongside the wood were installed by Southwold Ramblers. It is now on an attractive line alongside a wood called Groves Gully, another SNCI in the Biodiversity Action Plan. After two woodside kissing gates, the path bears right up towards the wind turbine, then along a track until you reach a kissing gate in the hedge on the right.
Head away from the kissing gate towards an impressive oak tree where a wood on the right threatens to join Groves Gully. Here I saw a white fallow doe. To the right of the oak, there is a kissing gate, through which I saw a herd of fallow deer: several were white; one was black and the rest were the more usual speckled colours under another impressive oak. When they saw me, they scarpered over the ramparts of Camp Hill, the iron age hill fort on the left. According to the barman at the Anchor, they can often be seen there. Even without the deer, 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.. By the way, the only other Long Man that I know of (apart from Longman’s Wood) is The Long Man of Wilmington who holds two surveying poles. Alfred Watkins, who wrote the Old Straight Track and popularised ley lines, would probably have thought these sitelines significant!
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.. 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 the gate next to it was open. In the next field,follow the left hand hedge until you reach another gate.
Through the gate, if you want to visit the church, turn right otherwise turn left. Oswald was the second christian king of Northumberland, who was defeated by Penda, the last great pagan Saxon King of Mercia. Penda offered bits of Oswald as a sacrifice to Woden.His head ended up with St Cuthbert at Durham after a mini tour including Bardney Abbey in Lincoln. Oswald had no personal connection with Rockhampton unlike Penda who took the area from Wessex after a contretemps at Cirencester. It is probably not a coincidence that the church of St Arild, another beheaded Saxon saint lies three miles away at Oldbury on the other side of Henridge Hill. I didn’t do any more than poke my head in as my shoes were still muddy from earlier, but it is open every day from nine till six.
From the gate, continue away from the church 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. (If you are encumbered by a dodgy hip or an elderly labrador, you may prefer to turn right here to avoid the stiles that follow. When the road bends to the right, look for a bridge and kissing gate into a narrow field on your left. Go through another kissing gate and head diagonally right across the arable field to a gap to the right of a pair of trees. Continue along the ditch on your right on a grassy track. Go through a Bristol Gate on your right and keep going with a hedge on your left. Take the second and last gate on your left and continue on a similar line with a ditch and hedge on your right. When the hedge peters out keep going across the arable field towards a telegraph pole, where there is a sort of stile behind it onto Catsbrain Lane. If the stile looks challenging there are gaps in the hedge towards the house on the right. In any case turn right and take up the instructions from 17).)
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 has a dog proof stile and the second 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 second you are briefly back in Thornbury parish. After the third, look for a broken stile and plank bridge on the right.
Cross the plank bridge. In the field, the right of way goes diagonally across towards a bend in the opposite hedge. Continue with the hedge on your right until you see an enclosed lane ahead. This is Catsbrain Lane, presumably because it’s muddy and sometimes floods. Follow it until you reach tarmac on a road called Newton Hill. The road leads to Thornbury Rugby Football Club, which you may have noticed on your right as you walked down Catsbrain Lane.
Cross the road carefully into Horse Lane, which can be awkward if you meet traffic. Turn left when you reach Morton Baptist Church. This is Lower Morton, the former home of John Allen, the ringleader in the Berkeley Poaching affair.
After the turning on the right to Duckhole, continue down Morton Street until you pass the drives of Maypole Barn and Silverhill Barn, where there is a stile into the field. A corner has been fenced off as a private play area. Head for the stile in the diagonally opposite corner then head straight across the field to a stone stile in the external corner of a field. Continue along the right hand hedge to another stone stile, then straight across the field to another. (If you have an unwieldy dog or a dodgy hip, you may prefer to continue down Morton Street to a field gate opposite Spring Farm, where there is a right of way along the left hand hedge. Turn right when you reach the stone stile on your left.)
Over the next stone stile, which has a gap next to it for your unwieldy dog, you enter an enclosed path that leads all the way to another stone stile that brings you into a new estate. Turn left and follow the grass path around the edge of the estate. Go straight on when you come to a kissing gate and keep going till you come out through another kissing gate into Butt Lane.
Turn right and then cross the road into Charles’ Close. When the road turns sharply left, keep straight on over the grass and down to the path alongside Morton Mill Brook. Turn left and follow the path back to the pub

9) Oldbury Marsh 14K or 8.7 miles

A Walk in the Tithing of Oldbury

From the other Anchor (the one at Oldbury on Severn), follow the path down the right hand side of the pub and out of the back of the petanque courts. Continue through the orchard and alongside Pickedmoor Lane Rhine until you can cross the bridge on the left.
Turn left and immediately right up the drive towards Rock Farm. Take the first turn on the right, which follows and enclosed path to a stile into a field. Turn left.
Follow the hedge on your left to a kissing gate in a hedge. Continue across an airstrip protected by a hurdle and a pedestrian gate and on to a pedestrian gate a few yards to the right of the corner of the field. Cross a farm lane to a footbridge and a pedestrian gate into some rough grass and nettles and follow the hedge on your left, past the end of a long shed and some abandoned farm machinery. The right of way continues through a Bristol gate into the next field.
Continue with the hedge now on your right, through one field to a kissing gate. Next you come to a field gate into a farmyard on the right. Turn immediately left along a wall to a Bristol gate into another field. turn right through one gate, then left in front of a house to another. Continue through two more stiles.
Nexr there is a farm building straight ahead, where you need to make your way down a farm track through several gates to emerge in Oldbury Naite. Turn left.
At the crossroads, turn right and follow Foss Lane for about a hundred metres until you find a stile next to a field gate on the left.
Go past the pumping station to another stile and follow the Oldbury Naite Rhine on your right. After you have gone over another stile and have gone under a power line, you go over another stile and look for a bridge over the rhine on your right.
Over the bridge, go straight ahead, ignoring the inviting footbridge on your right, follow the Great Leaze Rhine on your right. After you have gone through two field gates, the path bears left, away from the rhine towards a Bristol gate near Henridge Hill, easily recognizable because there are no other hills nearby.
Turn left 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 right. 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

13. 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, turn 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 a Tithing of Thornbury Parish.

14. 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.

15. 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.