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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Sunday 26 May 2019

Kingham to Moreton-in Marsh

Kingham to Moreton-in-Marsh
Length: 17.7km (11.0 miles) Toughness: 3/10

09:47 Great Malvern train from Paddington arriving at Kingham at 11:15.

Return trains from Moreton-in-Marsh to Paddington are at: 15:11, 16:11, 17:14, 18:16, 19:14, 20:14, 21:14 (journey time just under 2 hours).

As at 23 April, you can buy Advance Singles from Paddington to Kingham (£11) and from Moreton-in-Marsh to Paddington (£12.50), though you'll need to specify both the outward and the return trains. If you want the flexibility of choosing your return train on the day, a Super Off-Peak Return to Moreton-in-Marsh costs £28.10 (with rail card) or £42.60 (without rail card).

Starting with some potentially muddy paths across fields near the River Evenlode, the route then passes through a number of lovely Cotswold villages, including Adlestrop, whose station (long since closed) was immortalised in the eponymous poem by Edward Thomas in 1914. Chastleton House (National Trust) is an unspoilt Jacobean manor house open in the afternoon, whose café is a welcome tea stop in view of the distance from the lunch stop to the end of the walk.

Taking the higher, scenic, route from Adlestrop to Chastleton will add just over a mile to the distance. There are no suggested ways of significantly shortening the route. Much more information about the walk’s features can be found here.


The suggested lunch stop is the The Fox (tel 01451 870555) at Lower Oddington, after a third of the walk. It’s quite expensive and booking ahead is essential. An alternative, requiring a round trip detour of 2km, is the Horse and Groom (tel 01451 830584) in Higher Oddington.

The walk directions can be downloaded here.

T=swc.224

1 comment:

PeteB said...

Just n=4 of us on this long trip to the Cotswolds. We did not enjoy the languid summer weather immortalised in Edward Thomas's Adelstrop poem but rather w= cloudy-with-a-few-showers-and-quite-humid conditions.
Nevertheless the countryside looked splendidly verdant as we set off through grassy water meadows (completely dry) covered in buttercups, daisies, meadowsweet and other flowers. A fawn was spotted. We stopped to admire the lovely church of St Nicholas and amazingly it was open and we were able to admire the medieval wall paintings of the Doom although after the 1970s restoration they were fairly faint. We stopped briefly for refreshments at the Fox noting a number of swifts swooping over the village before we set off for Adelstrop and the gorgeous grounds of Adelstrop House. we stopped at the St Mary and Magdelene Church for lunch and this church too was open and we could admire its splendid interior where Jane Austen worshipped when she visited relatives at Chastleton.
We ambled through the deserted village noting the open village shop and soon reached the Adelstrop railway station sign by some covered seating. Here one of our number gave a splendid rendition of the famous poem entirely from memory.
We reached Chastleton House and its adjacent church where we enjoyed further refreshments provided by volunteers. One of the walkers, a National Trust member. decided to visit the Jacobean Grade 1 listed country house whilst the rest of us ambled through the misty countryside resting briefly at Evenlode before the final stretch to Moreton in Marsh. Here two of us enjoyed a drink at the Bell before catching the 18.16 train.
A wonderfully evocative day out in the quintessentially English countryside far, far away from the grubby political mediocrites now contending for souls.