Walking the Bath Beat Route

I was lazing in bed sipping a cup of tea when I had a text from my friend Yvonne asking me if I fancied going for a walk. 'Sure, when?' I texted back. 'Now.' Crikey. Ok. Forty five minutes later I was at Combe Down, lacing up my boots and pulling on my gloves. Yvonne was right though, it was a lovely day, and too good to waste.

'I've brought an OS map,' I said, mindful of previous walking disasters when we had ventured out together. 'And I've brought two headlights this time.'
'Oh, we won't need those,' Yvonne said confidently. I know this route really well, I walk it all the time.'
The route we were taking was part of the shortest route of the Bath Beat, an annual walk/running event around the Limpley Stoke valley. I decided to err on the side of caution and put them in my rucksack anyway, and we set off.

Two minutes later we were staring down the very steep path which led down the hill to the village of Monkton Combe. Very steep and very, very icy. 'Don't fancy that,' I said. Yvonne agreed. Only Alfie seemed keen, but he obediently turned around with us and trudged up to the road.We were already 'off route' and unsure where we were. Great. A chance to use my beloved map. I reached in my bag to get it.
'Oh, don't worry, I've got us pinpointed,' said Yvonne, waving her iphone4S. Sure enough a pulsating red circle was throbbing on the map on the screen. Holding it in front like a dowsing stick we traced our way down the road until we joined up with our original route.

***Warning: using a phone to navigate may be ok in Bath. But not on top of Scafall Pike. See here***

We followed the bed of the old Somerset Coal Canal to Midford. Authorised by Act of Parliament in 1794 the canal was built to carry coal from the Somersetshire coalfields up to the Kennet and Avon and thence to Bath and beyond. By the 1820's the canal was carrying over 100,000 tons per year. By the end of the century the seams were becoming worked out and the railways had taken over the freight trade. It was closed in 1898 and sold a few years later to the Great Western Railway who promptly built a railway over much of the route. There is lots of information here and here about the SCC. (The former is now the 'unoffical' website but I think it is the better one of the two.)
Partway along we found a tyre hanging from a tree and despite the fact that we have a combined age of nearly 100, the tempation was too much. We took it in turns having a swing, and then spinning eachother around until we were so giddy we fell over in the mud. It was great fun.

Eventually we dragged ourselves away and soon reached the main road at Midford, used it to cross the brook and then turned off immediately onto Midford Lane and then plunged back across fields and woodland.






From here there was a fine view of Midford Castle, a castle folly built in 1775 for Henry Disney Roebuck. I can't find anything much about him except he was from a wealthy family and liked a bit of gambling. For decades the house was owned by writer Isabel Colegate (author of the Shooting Party) and her husband Michael Briggs. In 2007 they sold it to Nicholas Cage, who apparently was very taken with Bath and the local area. (He also bought a place in the Circus in Bath.) He sold it just two years later, apparently to help him deal with an enormous tax bill.










At Monkton Combe there is an annoying climb up the hill and then back down again to circumnavigate the playing fields and swimming pool of the
  posh Monkton Combe public school. Still, it gave us a chance to look at the old lock up dating from around 1776. Having skirted the playing fields we headed back down the hill and then turned left along the road. We were now walking the course of the old Bristol and North Somerset Railway which had superceded the canal in the nineteenth century, until the railway, in its turn, became uneconomical to run and was closed. Monkton Station, sadly now long gone, became Titfield Station for the wonderful 1953 Ealing Comedy The Titfield Thunderbolt




From derelict canals and defunct railways we headed onto a functioning canal, the Kennet and Avon. Alfie was complaining that he was hungry, Yvonne said it served him right as he hadn't eaten his breakfast, but after some truly pitiful looks from him she relented and we stopped at the Angel Cafe for some tea and biscuits. (I know, I know I said I wouldn't come here again, but hey, I never claimed to be consistent. And actually I got a smile from one of the staff today.)

The boats were pretty solidly iced in and nothing was moving. But just after crossing the Dundas aquaduct we came across a narrowboat having a go at icebreaking. It was doing a fine job of ripping all the blacking off its bow, so I assume wherever the crew was trying to get to must have been really important. Or maybe they were just a couple of dickheads, I don't know. There are a lot of them at this end of the K&A. They managed to crash the boat along for about fifty yards before coming to a complete stop in the middle of the canal.


We stood gongoozling and gawping for a while, but then Yvonne suddenly panicked, as she realised that we were short of time to get to the cafe before they stopped serving food so we left the boaters to it. We power-walked the last three miles to Avoncliffe; by the time we got there I thought I was going to throw up on the counter. but we had made it with two and a half minutes to spare and ordered some food.

After we'd eaten and I'd stopped wanting to vomit we set off across the fields to Freshford, passing through Tess's Gate.



 At least at this time of year there were no cows for us to run away from. The New Inn at Freshford looked delightful and I was very pleased when Yvonne made a bee line for it. Oh. Apparently she was just heading for the toilet. Never mind.  It's owned by the Box Steam Brewery and I made a mental note to come back soon to sample the beer. Maybe I could work it into a bike ride.

We passed Freshford Mill, a large and controversial housing development. Progress at the site seems to be at about the pace of an arthritic tortoise, it seems the developers may have gone bust. The final loop took us over the hill near Limpley Stoke. Next to one of the farms was a collection of huts and an old petrol pump, presumably a relic from World War Two.
We only had one more challenge - the very steep descent and ascent of Monkton Combe Valley. Alfie was getting weary. He kept lying down, evidently hoping one of us would relent and carry him, but we remained hard hearted. The path was slippery and we found a couple of stout sticks to aid the descent.









On reaching the car I turned to Yvonne. 'This doesn't seem right,' I said.
'What?'
'No crawling through barbed wire. No running away from cows. No staggering around in the dark. It was, as our walks go, pretty uneventful.'
'You're right,' she said. 'Maybe we're getting better at this.'
Possibly. Or maybe it was just a fluke. We'll find out next time.