#20: Old Sodbury - Dyrham

Sheep & Strip Lynchets - Frenchpiece Wood

The Ceysell Brass - Tormarton Church

XXIII to Cirencester, XIII to Tetbury, X to Bath

Kissing Gate at Dawn

Mixed feelings about today's walk. Firstly, it was a most beautiful early morning with the sun rising on mist in the hollows and the first frost of the year was very welcome, photographically speaking. So, lots of potential photography to be had - but I was still in the car and didn't arrive at my start point until some of the best light had dissipated. Another lesson for me though it's not as if I don't know it. But I did find one lovely backlit group of trees which I photographed in b&w just in time. When I first saw the scene there were dozens of backlit woolly sheep which would have made the picture even more appealing - but after a couple of minutes of frantically setting up the tripod and camera, loading the film, metering the scene the sheep count on the ground glass was down to just two or three. I wish I could have done what Alfred Hitchcock did with "The Birds" - he's quoted as saying in response to a question about how did he get them to do what he wanted, he replied "I paid them well".

The Ceysell Brass in Tormarton Church is beautiful, but easily missed. It's hidden under the blue carpet to the left of the entance - slide the carpet to reveal all. I have a close up b&w photograph of the organ pipes in the church that I'm looking forward to seeing.

Once over the M4 motorway there is a stretch of perhaps 3 of miles or more of very boring walking along the edge of large farm fields with almost nothing to rival the scenery of most of the rest of the walk from Chipping Campden.

I'm finding the limits of the capability of my knees whilst carrying my heavy camera backpack, and today's 12 or 13 miles was a bit too much. I need to throttle back a little to my more usual eight or nine miles.

#19: B&W Images: Somerset Monument - Old Sodbury

Old Sodbury Church

#18: B&W Images: Wortley Hill - Somerset Monument

Hartstongue Fern in Ivy

Alderley Church

#19: Somerset Monument - Old Sodbury

Autumn Sumach

Owl & Swallow Roost - A Millennium Folly

Old Sodbury Church Stained Glass
and Reflection in the Pulpit Lecturn

I started this walk a few hours later in the day - I usually start early morning - and anticipated a different feel to the walk, particularly with the approach of sunset. But the late afternoon light was nothing special for photography. I did chance a b&w cloud picture as well as several in and around the church at Old Sodbury but I'll have to wait to see how they work out, and I found more colour snaps than usual, perhaps prompted by the onset of a little more autumn colour in the trees.

Most days of the walk I've seen and heard ravens and their amazing tumbling and flipping upside down flight. Today added a new feature to their display act which was quite startling. I heard a low metallic sounding noise as if a piece of metal was being hit. I turned to see a raven about 50 yards away fold its wings in as it flipped onto its back for a second and at the same time heard it emit the metallic 'tonk-like' sound. It did this several times so cause and effect were confirmed. I've seen and heard ravens many many times, both here and in North America but never heard this sound before.

#17: B&W Images: North Nibley - Wortley Hill

Wortley Hill Maize

Almshouses - Chapel Window

Tyndale Top

Westridge Woodland Path

#18: Wortley Hill - Somerset Monument

Sunken Green Lane

Ivy & Virginia Creeper

Glancing Light

Woven Floor Grill

As I'm progressing south the walk is becoming a little less cotswold-like. Certainly there are fewer ups and downs and fewer stone walls. And now the route has turned almost due south and is distancing itself from the continual low level background sound of the traffic on the M5. Parts of today's walk were so peaceful that the only sound I could hear was occasional birdsong, or the crarking of ravens or the mewing cries of buzzards, and now and again a distant farm tractor. But periodically the peace was shattered by an explosion of alarm calls and feathers as a pheasant broke cover just feet away from me, deciding not to sit quietly and let me pass.

We're obviously into autumn now but I'm surprised how green all of the trees still are. There are some signs of leaves on a few species of tree starting to turn colour but the first frost can't be far off which will accelerate the whole process.

One stretch of the walk - on the side of Wortley Hill if I recall correctly - was along a very deep cutting. A sort of deeply hidden green lane. There have been several others, but none as deep and long as this one. In a couple of places there were what appeared to be badger setts amongst the roots of old beech trees as well as many other smaller holes which must have housed various species of wild life. This was another place in which the sides were lined with hartstounge ferns but whilst the breeze was very gentle it was still just too much to photograph. I did actually find one patch to photograph which perhaps was just calm enough though I'm not certain the picture will pass muster. And I made a couple of b&w pictures in the Georgian church at Alderley - normally only open at the weekends but the lady doing the church flowers let me in for a few minutes - thank you.

I met several groups today walking the whole of the Way including one couple from Belgium. Compared with most of my previous days' walking this was almost crowded - but it was still only once every hour or so.

Totting up the miles I find that I'm now three quarters of the way to Bath. It will soon be time to decide whether to do it all again as a winter and spring walk - or find a new project.

Cotswold Life - October Issue

In the current issue (October 2009) of Cotswold Life magazine there's a two page spread of black and white pictures which I made during the first part of my walk along the Cotswold Way. They appear at the end of the 25 page feature on the Cotswold Way. There's a link to this blog included in the short article accompanying the pictures.