Bluebell Woods, Conkwell, Farleigh Wick & Riverside Walk
Walk 5 - by Monkton Combe W.I.
print version
of instructions
print version
of map
Distance: 5½ miles
Time: about 2½ hours
Start: By the Wheelwrights Arms in Monkton Combe.
Parking: In village car park opposite the church (GR
773620). Or lay-by on A36 few hundred yards past the petrol
garage, in the direction of Bath.
Maps: OS Explorer 155 Landranger 172
From the Wheelwrights Arms, turn right (east) and follow
the road to Brassknocker Hill and cross, with great care, to
the road opposite which will lead you to the A36. Cross the
busy road, again with care, and follow the track ahead which
leads down to the Dundas Basin on the Kennet and Avon Canal.
(alternative starting point is the adjacent lay-by on the
A36).
At the Basin, turn left, passing an old crane and a board
giving the history of the canal and aqueduct, and cross the
canal by the high footbridge. Turn right to cross the Dundas
Aqueduct with the canal of your right, and where the canal
swings right, follow the footpath to the left of the boat
building shed, and cross a stile into a field. Cross the field
diagonally to the left and uphill to a stile beside a water
trough and the wood. Continue on the same line over the next
field, and follow a steep stony path to Conkwell Village. (A
stick would be a help on this path). On your right is a spring
which was once the water supply for the hamlet. At the
T-junction at the top of the hill turn left and walk along the
road, passing a road turning on the left, to a stone stile on
the left.
The footpath follows the edge of a wood with fields on the
right - in May the woods are full of bluebells. Now the views
tot he right are of stretches of open countryside to the
south-east. Go over another stone stile and through a metal
gate - the wood is now on your right, and and a field on the
left. At a gap in the wood, turn right and then left to follow
the field edge to a stile beside a gate into the wood on your
left. Go through the wood to emerge over a stile into another
field, where you follow the boundary of Inwoods Estate on your
left. Two metal gates on the left lead into the stable yard of
Inwoods, and the drive on your right takes you to the main
road, the A363 at Farleigh Wick. Walk along the A363 to the
left and come to the Fox and Hounds Inn - a good resting
point!
From the inn pass some houses on the left and at the end of
the pavement cross the road to a gap and kissing gate in the
hedge. Through the gate follow the path diagonally across the
field to a stile in the corner. Take the nearer left-hand
Public Footpath sign and follow through farm buildings and
along the lane to Pinkney Green, which was a settlement of
quarrymen working in the Farleigh Wick stone mines. Bear round
to the right, and at the T-junction take the footpath ahead, a
sunken path between hedges which passes a garden with beehives
and goes under the A363. Where three paths diverge, take the
left-hand one. This is a bridleway, and therefore may be
muddy, but is less steep than the alternatives. The path
skirts the edge of the woods with views down to the Avon
valley. It emerges on to a lane, where you turn right downhill
to Sheephouse Farm. Take the footpath into the farmyard and a
further path half-right from the yard into the fields and over
the stiles into the water-meadows (you may pass a large and
friendly pig!).
Follow the river upstream, over some good footbridges which
cross streams, for about a mile back to the Dundas Aqueduct.
Just before the aqueduct there are remains of a wharf where
stone from Conkwell quarry came down on a railway to be loaded
on to barges on the river. Pass the Monkton Combe School
boathouses, go under the aqueduct, and immediately left up
steep steps to emerge on the aqueduct towpath. Cross the
aqueduct and the lifting bridge over the Coal Canal entrance,
and so up the path to the A36 and the way home. |
