The Cotswold Way : Leg 16 (the final one)

Freezinghill to Bath Abbey: 8.2 miles

Sunday 29th December, 10am

Moving time: 2:48:51

Elevation gain: 508 ft

Steps: 17.578

Our route today

The final stretch into Bath.

We met at the Park & Ride at Lansdown and watched the fog roll in very quickly before heading to the start in 3 cars, parking in the lay-by at the top of Freezing Hill.

Finally the last leg is here and there is no stormy weather forecast!! A great turnout with faces old and new!

The one with the longest arms needs to take our starter selfie today. Chilly start, but the weather looks promising for our Nordic walk today.

Starting off near Sir Bevill Grenville’s Monument, we cross the busy road which heads into Bath (passing the Park & Ride) and walk up the service road that leads to the Southwest Command and Development Centre for Avon Fire and Rescue Service. Turning off the road and onto a path we pass more of the blue posts with orange flags that mark the site of the Battle of Lansdown.

Views across towards Bristol.

We soon reach Hanging Hill, which at 778 feet above sea level, is the highest point in the local authority of South Gloucestershire. There is an information board about the Battle of Lansdown and a marker stone alongside a blue flag pole with orange flag.

Norbert is excited that he can finally sit atop a trig point without getting blown off! This trig is at Hanging Hill.

From the Trig point we turn left and follow a dry-stone wall, there are great views from up here!

We soon reach Lansdown Golf Club which is looking very atmospheric today! The sun is trying so hard to burn through the cloud!

We passed these spooky looking sculptures made from scrap metal, there’s a dragon, a horse and the grim reaper with a dog. They were made by David Michael Morse, but there is very little information to be found about them!

We continue to navigate our way around the golf club and alongside Pipley Wood.

Fantastic views and sunshine over in Bristol.

The rolling landscape means some downs and then some ups, but it’s gentle for now.

The Cotswold Way goes around the site of an Iron-age hillfort at Little Down and then directly through the middle of it, you can just about still make out the contours of the ditches and banks of the fort. We reach the edge of Bath Racecourse which opened in 1811 and decide to pause for a snack and drink and remove a layer or two.

We head towards Prospect Stile (now a gate) which affords us great views across to Bath and Norbert gets a second chance to pose up high on the viewpoint.

I absolutely adore the top photo of our Nordic walkers admiring a great view on The Cotswold Way, sums up our journey through The Cotswold Way for me.

We continue down through a really tall gate (keeping out the local giraffes?) and along the path passing a memorial stone to Sarah Louise Gray, in 1995 she was riding her horse along the Cotswold Way when something happened and she died, apparently from an undiagnosed heart condition.

The general descent continues on hardcore and stony paths. Views over Bath.

We climb over a stile (very few of those on our leg today) and continue round Kelston Round Hill and Weston is really coming into view now. Some of this section is quite muddy and slippy, so some of us deploy our zig-zag method for safely getting down a steep slippy hill.

We reach the playing fields and cross through them, coming out of the wrong gate (it turns out), we should have continued to the corner of the field, but it doesn’t matter as we can follow the pavement there anyway. We turn left down Penn Hill Road into Weston and cross over the zebra crossing to reach the High Street. Weston still considers itself a village, but it really is a suburb of Bath. Weston is an area of Bath particularly suited to families, due to a predominance of excellent schools, it is detached from Bath city centre by Royal Victoria Park.

We go through an alleyway and shortly after a Tesco bear left and begin to climb. We reach All Saints Church and decide to stop here for lunch. Walking all the way round there are no benches in the graveyard and the church is very firmly locked. I asked a person coming out of the church if it was open and they said “no, are you ok?, do you need to talk to someone?” I explained that my walkers were just looking for somewhere to sit for lunch! We decided the steps and wall would do, it was a shame that that was the very point when the rain decided to arrive! Thankfully it was short-lived!

Suitably fed and watered we continued the last part of our journey into Bath, leaving what felt like quite an urban setting we instantly walked into countryside again!

Bath stone walls are never far away and the route takes us through suburban Weston into the elegant Georgian houses of the Sion Hill area. Between Weston and Sion Hill lies the beast of Primrose Hill, one of those hills that continues up and round several corners unexpectedly!

Here the Cotswold Way goes downhill through High Common where there used to be a golf club, it is now mainly used for recreation, dog walking and Footgolf on the Southwestern part.

We approach Royal Victoria Park. A young Princess Victoria officially opened the park in 1830, seven years before she became queen, and a tall obelisk in her honour (erected in 1837) rises above the cedars and beeches. We have to keep a beady eye out now for the Cotswold Way markers! And then the Royal Crescent, the Grade I-listed curve of 30 terraced houses that epitomises Bath’s graceful limestone architecture appears above us.

It starts to get really busy here with tourists and then streams of shoppers to navigate, also we’re trying not to lose any of our walkers! The Cotswold Way markers are getting harder to spot! We’re not entirely sure we have walked exactly the right way to Bath Abbey, but we reach it with all our walkers intact!

We did it! 102 miles Nordic Walked through stunning British countryside. The finishing point is outside the west door of Bath Abbey, the marker stone mirrors that of the one at the start in Chipping Campden. The stone is carved with the names of places along the route, however the inscription is different. It bears a verse from the Old Testament in the bible. ‘Stand ye in the ways and see, ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therin, and ye shall find rest for your souls’. Jeremiah 6:16

After completing our post-walk stretches around the side of the Abbey we celebrated finishing The Cotswold Way with a glass of Nonsecco and a mince pie, presenting Kirsty and Sue with completers patches before catching the bus back to the Park and Ride.

Huge congratulations to Sue and Kirsty for Nordic Walking all 16 legs and completing The Cotswold Way!

We are completers!

I have thoroughly enjoyed leading this 102 mile challenge for my Nordic walkers, I’m a little sad that this particular adventure is over, so thanks guys for joining me every month all through the different seasons and my thanks also go to The Cotswold Way Association for their fabulous 16 leg guide which has enabled my Nordic walkers to achieve something they weren’t sure they could. We did have to adjust some of the suggested parking locations as some weren’t suitable for several cars. Thank you to Knife Edge for their fantastic guide book, the OS maps in the guide meant I didn’t ever need to look at the OS maps I carried! Thank you to the awesome Cotswold Way wardens and all the volunteers who work so hard throughout the year to keep the paths, stiles and gates safe and the signage strong!

We would definitely recommend giving up some of your time to go and walk The Cotswold Way and walk it however you want! There are no rules! Nordic walking is the best way, obviously! Happy walking.