Thornbury Wayfinders

From Falfield to Thornbury –

The Coffin Path – into the Wild  8k or 5miles

Formerly, Falfield was a Tithing of Thornbury. This meant that anyone who died in the village had to be carried to the Parish Church of St Mary in Thornbury. This route follows the Coffin Path along which the dead were carried for burial.

To get to the start take the number 60 bus from Rock Street, Thornbury to the Huntsman bus stop in Falfield.

From the bus stop walk back past the war memorial and the church towards the eponymous pub and turn right up Sundays Hill Lane.

On your right is the Parish Church of St George, Falfield. Until 1863, Falfield was part of the ecclesiastical parish of Thornbury. Locals had to make do with a small chapel of ease without an altar, but in 1855 the estate devolved onto Sir George Jenkinson Bart, who built a new manor house at Eastwood Park and donated land to build a new church, which is dedicated to Saint George, presumably in Jenkinson’s honour.

Before the splitting of the parish of Thornbury – celebrated by the Parishioners of Falfield by a Memorial Bench on the edge of Milbury Heath, anyone who died in Falfield had to be buried in the churchyard at St Mary’s, Thornbury.  Before the division, the path we will follow was a Coffin Path like the one that went from Sea Mills up to St Mary’s, Henbury or the Lyke Wake Walk that crosses the North York Moors from Sheepwash, Osmotherly to Ravenscar on the coast, only shorter.

THIS yah neet, this yah neet,
— Ivvery neet an’ all,Fire an’ fleet an’ cannle leet,
An’ Christ tak up thy saul.

This is the beginning of the Dirge sung by participants in the Lyke Wake Walk. For those not fluent in Yorkshire dialect it reads: This one night, this one night – Every night and all, Fire and fleet and candlelight And Christ take up your soul. “Fleet” means “floor” in the sense of a comfortable indoor space around the fire.

The dirge shadows our route to an uncanny degree.

Go past Church Avenue on your left.

The lodge house, pillars and railings signal the fact that this used to be one of the entrances to the Eastwood Park Estate, which belonged to the Jenkinson Family. Church Avenue now leads to HMP Eastwood, a women’s prison which received a shocking report from the prison inspectors in 2023.

Continue along Sundays Hill Lane until you come to the second footpath on the left (opposite another footpath joining from the right).

Turn left through the kissing gate into the Eastwood Prison Estate. Turn right over a footbridge, then keep right to pick up an enclosed path at the end of a car park, which leads to a footbridge into a field.

Turn left and follow the newly enclosed path alongside the ditch on the left. Keep going past some farm buildings on the left. Go over a stile and continue along the enclosed path.

At the end you must turn left over a bridge to a gate into a field. Turn right and follow the right hand hedge past another field gate. After this, you pass some newly planted and fenced trees to an enclosed and gated path through a band of mature trees ahead.

In the next field, bear left to cut the corner of the next field past a dead oak tree to a terrible double stile in the fence ahead. 

At this point it becomes easier to imagine that this used to be one of the two mediaeval deer parks in Thornbury. The other one was Marlwood.

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.

Until someone removes it, you must climb the stile and go through this gate.

When thoo frae hence away art passed
— Ivvery neet an’ all,Ti Whinny Moor thoo cums at last
An’ Christ tak up thy saul.

(When you from here have passed away … To Whinny Moor you come at last). Over to the right you can see “Gorse Covert” planted as a fox-covert by the Berkeley Hunt.  Whin is a Yorkshire word for gorse – so here you are on Whinny Moor. But fear not:

If ivver thoo gav owther hosen or shoon,
— Ivvery neet an’ all,Clap thee doon, an’ put ’em on,
An’ Christ tak up thy saul.

Bud if hosen an’ shoon thoo nivver gav neean,
— Ivvery neet an’ all,T’whinnies’ll prick thee sair ti t’beean,
An’ Christ tak up thy saul.

(Have you generously given other people socks and shoes? If so you can put them on now. If not, the gorse prickles will prick you to the bone.)
There is another kissing gate on the other side of a  muddy track, which brings you into the field containing the wind turbine. 

This plateau will serve as Whinny Moor, but you are 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.

When there are sheep in this field, they are fenced in by electric fences. If this is the case when you get there, turn left on the farm track. 

You may spot a platform in a tree on the left, which is designed as a hide for those who wish to shoot or photograph the many fallow deer that inhabit the nearby woods. If you keep your eyes peeled, you may see them picking their way through the trees or fleeing across the fields.

Don’t go through the field gate on the track that leads to Pound Farm, which this diversion was designed to avoid. Instead, head for the kissing gate closer to Groves Gully, the wood on the right.

As you follow the path parallel to Groves Gully, you will appreciate why the wood got its name and the precipitous nature of the slope down to the stream. 

Continue on the same line through another two kissing gates as the gully on the right gets shallower.

Eventually, you will come to a kissing gate on the right that takes you over the line of the gully.

In the field, head diagonally left to a pair of field gates. Go through the right hand Bristol gate and follow the diagonal to a gate under a tree. 

Through the gate, there is an opportunity to admire the view over Thornbury. You might sit on the fallen tree and enjoy a snack as you make out the ridge that carries the top end of the High Street for you are now off “Whinny Moor.”

Frae Whinny Moor when thoo art passed,
— Ivvery neet an’ all,Ti t’Brig o’ Dreead tho cums at last,
An’ Christ tak up thy saul.

Well the Brig o’ Dread is something to look forward to! There is more than one candidate on this route. It means the Bridge of Dread. The only Brig I know of is Filey Brigg on the Yorkshire coast near Scarborough. It is a narrow rocky strip leading out into the North Sea, where Dogger Land was drowned at the end of the last Ice Age.

There is a choice of routes to the first bridge. Either way you need to follow the end of Longman’s Grove, which is the wood on your right. You can either go over the hunt jump near the covert side or through the kissing gate a bit further down the hill. In either case you need to bear left down the field where you should find a footbridge guarded by stiles. 

Is this the Brig o’ Dreead?

Not to worry:

If ivver thoo gav o’ thy siller an’ gowd,
— Ivvery neet an’ all,On t’Brig o’Dreead thoo’ll finnd footho’d,
An’ Christ tak up thy saul.

(If you have been equally generous with silver and gold, you’ll find a secure foothold on the bridge.)

Luckily, this bridge has been repaired, and as you cross it, you are leaving the former Eastwood Deer Park.

Go straight across the field keeping parallel to the hedge on the right at first, then continuing on the same line to a stile in a projecting corner of the hedge ahead. Be guided by two prominent conifers behind it.

Continue to a stile leading to a plank bridge onto the Gloucester Road. (Missing last time I was there!)

Be careful. 

Bud if silver an’ gowd thoo nivver gav neean,
— Ivvery neet an’ all,Thoo’ll doon, doon tumle towards Hell fleeame,
An’ Christ tak up thy saul.

(If you’ve been mean with your money you’ll tumble down towards Hell flame!)

It is probably best to cross the road onto the opposite verge and turn right, although the verge is higher than it was due to ditch clearing work!

Turn left onto a minor road.

When the road bends to the right, go straight ahead into a field. Bear right across the field to a pair of stiles beside the gable end of a house.

Go straight on down the cul-de-sac and cross Badger Road onto a path alongside a Teletubbies Park through to Morton Way. 

Use the pedestrian lights on the left to cross the road onto a path between the houses. This will bring you through to a green open space. Turn right on the grass past the play area. When you come out on the road, go straight ahead down Swallow Park and onto the path leading out onto Gloucester Road.

Cross the road using the traffic island.

Turn left and cross the road bridge towards the Anchor pub.

As you cross, you will doubtless notice there is a yawning crack in the bridge parapet. However, you’ll probably get across all right. The area on the other side of the parapet used to be the Mill Pond of Morton AKA Wolford Mill. The Mill itself, at the far end, has been turned into flats.

Safely across, turn right down Park Road. But wait!

Frae t’Brig o’ Dreead when thoo art passed
— Ivvery neet an’ all,Ti t’fleeames o’ Hell tho’ll cum at last,
An’ Christ tak up thy saul.

If ivver thoo gav owther bite or sup,
— Ivvery neet an’ all,T’fleeames’ll nivver catch thee up,
An’ Christ tak up thy saul.

Bud if bite or sup thoo nivver gav neean,
— Ivvery neet an’ all,T’ flames’ll bon thee sair ti t’beean,
An’ Christ tak up thy saul.

(When you’ve passed the Bridge, you’ll come to the flames of Hell (or Purgatory) willy nilly. But, if you have been equally generous with food and drink, the flames won’t touch you.If not the flames will burn you sore to the bone.)

Just to be on the safe side, I think we need to stop at the Anchor and buy each other a drink or two at least!

After you come out of the Anchor follow Park Road past Manorbrook Primary School and Castle School until you reach the safety of St Mary’s Church.

This yah neet, this yah neet,
— Ivvery neet an’ all,Fire an’ fleet an’ cannle leet,
An’ Christ tak up thy saul.

From the church, make your way back into town along Castle Street. 

When you come to the High Street, you will find many opportunities to continue to treat each other generously to “Bite or sup,” which, in case you have forgotten, is Old Yorkshire dialect for food and drink!

The quickest way back to the car park and bus stops is probably through the St Mary Centre.

Some scholars think that the Lyke Wake Dirge is pre-Christian on the grounds that it is a bit like stories told by some Shamans. It is also a bit like John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and some aspects of the Tibetan Buddhist Book of the Dead. I particularly like the last suggestion as there is a version of the Book of the Dead, where the person in the intermediate state between incarnations is asked whether they have removed thorns from paths and stones from country roads. If you are that sort of person, you would be very welcome in Thornbury Wayfinders!