June 19, 2002: Chipping Campden to Broadway
The church at Chipping Campden
June 19, 2002 was a unique occasion for me, not because I was starting a new walk but because I was starting a new stage in my life – for it was the first day of my retirement. The decision to end my professional life had been made rather late in the year, during the first week of May, and I had not had much time to reflect on the changes this would bring; indeed, with the busy end of term activities followed by the usual frantic book order process – in which I served as advisor to my successor as department head – I had not had a moment to consider the implications of this choice for my daily life. Nevertheless I had come home on Tuesday afternoon, after a final meeting with ASL’s principal Bill Mules, enjoyed a meal with Dorothy at our local Asian restaurant, and packed up preparatory to a walking commitment I had made in far different times – six days on the Cotswold Way with the Lees and Marjorie Rogers.
I donned my backpack at about 7:45 and carried my day pack over one shoulder as I made my way on a nice sunny morning to the Maida Vale tube stop – I had to walk down to the platform with all this gear because of another escalator repair job. A few days earlier I had renewed my senior rail card and I now used this at Paddington Station to buy my ticket to Moreton-in-Marsh. Harold came by, having already purchased his, and directed me to the coffee shop, where I found Margie. Tosh returned with her ubiquitous newspapers as I bought a cappuccino and an apple Danish. A platform was announced for our 8:48 train and we were soon off. I finished my snack and filled the Lees in on the very last of the ASL gossip I would be in a position to pass on – and the journey went pleasantly.
When reached Moreton-in-Marsh at 10:30. I had found numbers for local cab companies on the Internet and Tosh had located a chap who would take us to Chipping Campden, where the Cotswold Way begins (for north-to-south walkers), one who would then continue on to Broadway – where our big packs could be left to await our arrival. Tosh said he would actually have a placard with her name on it at the front of the station – but this wasn’t the case. Nevertheless a bald young man leaned out of a maroon scenicruiser and asked me if I were Mr. Lee. Soon we were loaded up and off on a ten-minute drive through a beautiful chocolate box cover thatched cottage Cotswold scene. I asked the driver to let us out at the town church – so we could begin a slow stroll through the village before lunch.
I had been having trouble with my camera (soon to be replaced by a digital successor) but I discovered that the difficulty with the shutter could be remedied with a new battery and, after I had snapped this back into place among the tombstones of the church of St. James, things were much improved. I had to wander some distance to the rear in order to obtain the right angle for a photo and then we walked past some almshouses to the main street – where we began a slow perambulation south. Trying to get shots of this lovely village with its antique buildings in the local stone – but without the omnipresent automobile – was not easy.
The Lees and Marge were looking for postcards and all of us were studying the menu boards of pubs and restaurants, even penetrating the back gardens of some of these places in search of a likely looking site for lunch. A number of spots were not open yet and others seemed to have adopted menus in which the straightforward had been sacrificed to the trendy-experimental. We visited the market hall and Tosh bought a book on local geology (she was carrying a magnifying glass and focusing on oolites in the building stone as we walked down the street). After a visit to a local potter we carried on past the tourists, the dogs and the baby carriages and, opposite the Catholic church and the first Cotswold Way sign, we entered the Volunteer, where we agreed to have lunch in the courtyard.
Marge, Tosh and Harold at the Volunteer in Chipping Campden.
I used a version of this photo in A Walker’s Alphabet
This was a very pleasant experience. “All dogs on leads, please” a sign warned, “pet rabbit roaming.” We did not see this animal nor the feline referred to in the “Attenti al gatto” sign. I had cod and chips, Harold a pork schnitzel, Tosh a cranberry and brie baguette and Marge a cranberry and turkey pie. A phalanx of geriatric cyclists in lurid spandex filled the rest of the courtyard with their bikes – while we supped our beer.
It was 1:10 before we were ready to leave, heading across the main street one last time and using suburban streets to approach Hoo Lane, a narrow fenced-in track that climbed steadily but not too precipitously up above the village. The wildflowers were profuse and we spent the first of many moments trying to identify the species in the hedgerows.
At the top of the track we reached a paved road and turned left for a short distance, finding a path through a field that brought us up to the first of many escarpment viewpoints on this trip –this over the Vale of Evesham. Then we turned southwest, with pathway only intermittently available in the grassy greensward, and made our way toward a topograph at the end of the plateau. Tosh identified a brown clearing in the grass as a marshy spot – but the patch was brown only because it had been burned over – later I told her that she wasn’t allowed to add to her legacy of vision mistakes now that I had fixed her portrait in the book that would subsequently be titled A Walker’s Alphabet.
At the topograph there were a lot of tourists who had strolled up from cars – and we waited our turn on a bench. Then we ambled through the car park and turned left on tarmac, reaching an isolated postbox where Marge, not put off by our suggestions that it had not been serviced since Cromwell’s day, deposited the first of her many cards. Here we turned right and marched against the busy traffic. No wonder we missed the Kiftsgate Stone over on our right; we had to keep an eye on all the whizzing motorized lunacy. When the road turned right into woodland we guessed that a gate on the left was actually meant for us and we used it to begin a track, known as the Mile Drive, in more open country on the southeast side of the plateau.
Walking on uneven ground wasn’t very pleasant and I kept trying to figure out how far we had come, xeroxed pages of Mark Richards’ Penguin guide sharing space in my map case with Anthony Burton’s Recreational Path Guide. Richards had written a south to north guide – so only his maps were useful; Burton’s book contained the relevant OS maps but his text often telescoped matters – so it wasn’t always clear how far we had come.
Eventually we left the Mile Drive for field paths through the grain, crossed a road, and approached the next highway – where a woman was being pulled along the grass by two impatient dogs. We could see rooftops that must have represented the Fish Inn, but we decided not to go slightly off route to find out – using paths to cross the highway in order to begin a final assault on Broadway Hill itself.
We walked up a grassy valley as Broadway Tower made an appearance and I fished out my camera, which I kept in my daypack on this trip, for a shot. The tower itself seemed to be in the hands of some local entrepreneur who wanted to sell tickets to this folly and we therefore decided not to enter its precincts, having a free sprawl on the trail below its ramparts, our first and only sustained rest in the six mile journey. I think Harold fell asleep.
The descent from Broadway Tower
There were wonderful views of Broadway below and we made our way gingerly down a very steep slope, eventually reaching a series of fields that brought us closer to the main road. Here we turned left and made a slow progress through the delightful ribbon village (our first ever overnight stop in Worcestershire) – a spot that had many fine buildings including many places with menu boards that invited our perusal. In this fashion we located our own b&b, where the proprietor had stationed a dozy friend in shorts and a yellow t-shirt to await our arrival. It was 4:40.
We were shown to our rooms (all en-suite on this trip); our backpacks were waiting for us in Tosh and Harold’s room. We changed shoes and repaired to the Small Talk Patisserie, where we had tea and cakes. Then a prolonged search for a suitable dining place for the evening began. The hotel up the street was undergoing conversion, the posh Broadway across the green was full up, the Lygon Arms too expensive (and you would have to eat under the reproving antlers of sacrificed beasts) – so we chose the Swan Hotel and made a reservation.
Each of us had a cleanup and then we met at 7:00 for drinks in the bar of the Lygon, where a redhead from Eastern Europe served us Jack Daniels. At the Swan (where I phoned Dorothy after giving in my order) I had liver, though I couldn’t get through it all. We ordered a bottle of wine as well. Our South African host was now in evidence at our b&b and we learned about breakfast and met his wife, who worked in Winchcombe. It was hard to keep my eyes open much past 10:00 throughout this trip and this night was no exception.
To continue with our next stage you need: