Thornbury Wayfinders

2 Hills Flats 16.5 K or 10.25 miles

Hills Flats are characteristic mudflats between the village of Hill and Lydney, which is on the other side of the River Severn. This walk makes use of the Severn Way and the Severn Way Thornbury Link.

To get to the start, take  the 62 bus from Rock Street Thornbury to Berkeley Square School bus stop.

From the bus stop go past the end of High Street into Salter Street at the other side of Market Place.

If you have forgotten to eat breakfast, these are a couple of cafes in High Street. If you have forgotten to bring any lunch, you might like to visit the bakery opposite.

Continue down Salter Street until you come to Stock Lane on the left, just before a shuttered pub. Go down Stock Lane to the bottom and turn right on the path alongside a stream called Berkeley Pill on Google maps. Continue to to follow the stream through a play area, an enclosed path, a field and another enclosed path to emerge past a house onto a road.

Turn left and cross a road bridge over The Little Avon/Berkeley Pill into the former Royal Forest of Horwood. Keep right at the next road junction and head towards the former nuclear power station.

Just before you enter the precinct of the power station, turn left along the Severn Way, which begins as an enclosed path. After a series of twists and turns, you will emerge in a field. Follow the hedge on the left to a gate leading onto the embankment. 

As you follow the Severn Way, much of the interest is on the other side of the river. If you pause and look across, you should be able to make out the entrance to Lydney Docks on the right. Beyond that the river narrows and bends to the right beyond Sharpness. If you look straight across, you may be able to make out the position of the Temple of Nodens , which was built in what is now Lydney Park in the third or fourth century AD. It seems to have survived as a pagan place of healing after the Roman Empire became officially Christian. Its position in an iron age promontory fort overlooking the Severn implies it might have some relationship with the famous Severn Bore.

The Severn Bore website suggests that Bore is not really worth looking at as a spectacle until the river narrows past Slimbridge at Overton near Fretherne. 

However, although they did not understand how the Bore worked, the people who served at the Temple of Nodens did know it had something to do with the tides and that it developed somewhere between Avonmouth and Sharpness.

Many stories were told to explain the phenomenon. My favourite relates how it was caused by the bow wave of the giant Salmon of Llyn Lliwan, when it was ridden by Sir Cei (Kay) and Sir Bedwyr (Bedevere) on its back as it swam up to Gloucester to rescue Mabon son of Modron from a fearfully long incarceration. Unfortunately, nobody knows where Llyn Lliwan was. It was somewhere on one side or the other of the mouth of the River Wye, but we don’t know which, and the nature of the riverbank has altered over the centuries out of all recognition, as you can see from the man made embankment you are standing on!

However, the most popular story over the years relates how it was caused by a battle between two warriors. They were known as Dau Ri Hafren (The two kings of the Severn) in “The Wonders of Britain” by Nennius who was writing in the 820s AD. In Bristol the battle is fought by two giants, Vincent and Gorram over the maiden Avona. 

The Tale of Culhwch and Olwen in The Mabinogion contains an early Welsh version of the story, which has Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwythyr son of Greidawl fighting over Creiddylad daughter of Lludd Silverhand. Now Nudd and Lludd are both versions of Nodens, which is the Latin version of his name. “Creiddylad” seems to mean “Freshwater,” which is also suggestive. The story has King Arthur making them fight each other for ever and ever until Doomsday; “and the one of them that should be victor on Doomsday, let him have the maiden.”

The story fits the location of the Temple next to the Severn rather well.

There is a Norse version of the story, which has Hildr, Hogni’s daughter, causing strife between her father and her lover Hedin – also forever and ever, but this time in Valhalla. I have always been taken with the similarity between the name Hildr (battle) and Arild (battle leader or instigator) whose church is on Cowhill in Oldbury, where it would be visible from the Temple of Nodens if a couple of trees were felled.

Continue along the floodbank, past Severn House Farm on the left and Hills Flats on the right until you come to a strange building on the edge of a pill. This used to be on the stream until the pill was re-engineered.

The Severn Way Thornbury Link: Turn left on the bridleway until another joins from the right. Follow the right hand hedge through one field, then turn right and left before you enter the next field.

Follow the path past the entrance to Day House farm and turn right along the hedge ahead. Go through two field boundaries, keeping the hedge on your left before you emerge through a Bristol gate onto Nupdown Lane and turn left.

Turn right down Hill Lane (signposted Oldbury and Thornbury). When you come to a pair of field gates on your left opposite a bridleway through a wood. Turn left into the field.

Follow the track through three fields until it peters out in the fourth field. Here follow the diminished track around a bend to the left and make your way into the fifth field. Before you enter the next field, look for a stile in the hedge to the right.

Turn right and follow the diagonal path to a stile/kissing gate.

You now have Rockhampton Rhine on your left. Follow this to the end of the field, where another track joins from the right. Continue to follow Rockhampton Rhine. After a while, the track morphs into a lane called Duckhole. You will pass Henridge Hill on the left then Folly Lane joins from the right and the lane becomes tarmacked.

After the lane bends to the left look for a farm track on the right opposite a substantial barn. Go past the buildings into a former orchard and head for a kissing gate in the far right hand corner.

Through this and a second kissing gate, you come to a track through a site for fairground equipment and caravans. Go access a driveway and down an enclosed path to a footbridge with a stile at either end.

In the next field, follow the left hand hedge until a farm track joins from the left. Follow the enclosed track along the left hand hedge to a gate onto Oldbury Lane. 

Climb the stile built into the gate and cross the road. Turn left to find a similar setup on your right. In the field, follow the left hand hedge around to a stile leading into a housing estate. 

Go past some play equipment up to a road called Barley Fields and cross into Scythe Way. Cut down Scythe Way to pick up a yellow grit path. Turn right along it until you come to the end of a cul-de-sac.

Continue straight ahead to a footbridge and around the edge of Fishponds Wood to find a kissing gate. 

Through the gate go ahead then left on a path alongside some houses. At a T-junction do a right left jink across a bridge into a streamside open space. Follow the path around to the right to an underpass beneath Park Road.

Continue along the path between the stream and the scout hut. Follow it as winds alongside the stream to emerge on the Gloucester Road near a zebra crossing.

On the other side, find another streamside path and follow it until you come to a cross path. Turn right.

At the other side of the field, go down an enclosed path through to a road called Hillcrest.

Turn left and then right into Crispin Lane, which leads through to Pullin’s Green.

From here you should be able to see the Rock Street car park and the St Mary Centre, where you began.