Broadway Manor Cottages

It’s been a warm sunny September in the Cotswolds this year, ideal weather for a walk in the surrounding beautiful English countryside, so last Saturday afternoon I decided to try out one of the new Cotswold Way Circular Walks from Winchcombe to Belas Knap and back. The route, just over 5 miles long, starts in the centre of Winchcombe, about 7 miles from Broadway.

Starting at the stone bridge on Vineyard Street (about 200 yards before the entrance to Sudeley Castle, home of Lord and Lady Ashcombe and the Dent Brocklehurst family), the walk follows the Cotswold Way, passing by St Peter’s Church across fields to Corndean Lane.  A short walk along Corndean Lane to Winchcombe Cricket Club (which, given its fabulous location and immaculate cricket square, must be one of the most picturesque cricket clubs in the area), the walk then follows the Cotswold Way up the hill towards Humblebee Wood.  Some sections of the walk here are fairly steep providing a good excuse to stop and rest whilst taking in the wonderful views back down the hill over Winchcombe towards Toddington and Broadway in the far distance. Despite the haze of the late afternoon sunshine, Damien Hirst’s Toddington Manor was clearly visible, shrouded in the plastic sheeting covering the extensive scaffolding surrounding the 19th century building.

At the top of the hill beyond the kissing gate, the Circular Walk bears right, away from the Cotswold Way up the lane to Hill Barn Farm at the top of the hill. The trees lining the lane provided cool dappled shade and the brambles a plentiful supply of blackberries to snack on.

At the top of the hill beyond the farm, the walk rejoins the Cotswold Way heading eastwards towards Belas Knap at the far end of the field. To the left of the footpath the hedgerow of hawthorn was covered in a blaze of bright red berries and the blackthorn in wonderful dark blue sloes. It’s going to be a good year for sloe gin!

Belas Knap is a Neolothic long barrow or burial chamber, 986 feet (300m) above sea level. ‘Belas’ is possibly derived from the Latin word bellus, meaning beautiful and ‘Knap’ is probably an old English term for the top, crest, or summit of a hill. Belas Knap measures about 178 feet (54m) long, 60 feet (18m) wide and nearly 14 feet (4.3m) in height. There are four burial chambers which were first excavated in 1863 and since then hundreds of human bones have been uncovered along with horse and pig bones, some over 6,000 years old. All was quiet on the grassy mound this sunny autumn afternoon!

Leaving Belas Knap through a lovely old iron kissing gate, the walk down the hill following the Cotswold Way provides fantastic views over Sudeley Castle before descending down through Humblebee Wood back to Corndean Lane. The walk then leaves the Cotswold Way and continues along Corndean Lane where looking up the hill across the field on the right there was a large scarecrow just like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. 

At Humblebee Cottages the walk picks up the old route of the Cotswold Way back down towards Winchcombe, passing through Wadfield Farm with its attractive symmetrical 18th century farmhouse.  Again the walk affords fantastic views of the surrounding Cotswold countryside whilst meandering across fields and stiles back to Winchcombe.

Further details of this and other Circular Walks can be found on the Cotswold Way National Trail website.

Broadway Manor Cottages: award winning self catering Cotswold holiday cottages
 at The Manor House, Broadway, The Cotswolds

Due to the cold winter and mild spring, we have just harvested a bumper crop of damsons.  Our small tree (prunus domestica subsp. insititia) has provided us with many pounds of this wonderful oval dark blue/purple, very tart fruit with its yellow flesh.  In April the tree was covered in delicate white blossom and by the end of last month, the fruit was ripe and ready for picking.

The Daily Telegraph recently reported a warning from fruit famers that ‘Damson jam could become a thing of the past, because of a lack of demand for the traditional fruit’. Old damson trees are not being replaced at the end of their life (usually damson trees bear fruit for around 30 years) because demand for the fruit has fallen and as a consequence damson orchards around the country are disappearing. Today damsons are a rare sight in supermarkets and few preserve manufacturers now produce damson jam purely it seems because it is unfashionable, not because it is any more difficult or expensive to make than other jams or preserves.  Indeed in 2007 Boris Johnson reported on his successful homemade damson jam when commenting on the EU’s 2001 directive on jams, jellies, marmalades and sweetened chestnut purees which sets standards on the composition and labelling of the products covered by the directive.

I have made several pounds of damson jam in the last few days and have placed many more pounds of damsons in the freezer for use at a later date.  I intend to give Delia’s Spiced Damson Chutney a go and will try making Damson Gin after the success of our Sloe Gin a couple of years ago. I hope our damson tree keeps producing fruit for many years to come.