Winsley Way
WNOTE: Please maintain social distancing while walking for exercise and only follow this walk if it is local to you during lockdown
insley is an altogether better place since its bypass was opened in the 1990s. Driving around the village on the B3108, you might be tempted into thinking that this is just some modern housing estate in the West Wiltshire countryside. leave the main road and explore the older part of the village, however, and you will find pretty little cottages, grand houses, a fine old pub and a church with a handsome perpendicular tower topped out with a rare saddleback roof. i did like one description of Winsley that recorded ‘good village scenery of stone cottages and tasteful villas aligned along wriggling village roads’.
The walk begins by following a hillside path downhill from Winsley to the Kennet & Avon Canal by elbow Bridge. Just over one mile of towpath follows, a section of canal with no locks or bridges, although there are the scanty remains of the Murhill Quarry Wharf, of which more later. This is towpath walking at its best, with steep wooded slopes rising above what is widely acknowledged as southern Britain’s finest waterway. One local guidebook recorded that ‘picturesque and scenic’ seem somehow inadequate appendages to
this valley, with ‘sylvan and resplendent’ being closer to the mark.
A unfortunate hill-climb along the B3108, albeit with a pavement, brings the walk to a viewpoint high above the Avon Valley, before our steps drop downhill into the little-known Murhill Bank nature Reserve. To quote from its website: ‘The highlight is an unimproved limestone meadow of about one acre, but there is also about half an acre of woodland at each end, a copse in the middle and a hedgerow along the south side. Unlike most British meadows, it has never been ploughed or sprayed, perhaps because it slopes so steeply, and it is these factors that have led to its richness of wildlife.’ search for ‘Murhill Bank nature Reserve’ online for further information.
At the end of the woodland section of the reserve are a series of steep rock faces, some of the remains of the Murhill quarries. Above these cliff faces was a larger upper quarry, that in 1905 became the site of the Winsley sanatorium, now the Avon Park Retirement Village. The lower quarry was known as engine Quarry because of a steam-powered stone-cutting saw on the site. From here, a steeply inclined tramway carried the stone to that aforementioned wharf on the K&A Canal. such was the stone’s reputation that it was used for the facade of Temple Meads station in Bristol.
Back in Winsley, thoughts would normally turn to rest and refreshment, but certainly not in these Covid-19 times. A while back, when Wiltshire was in the relatively straightforward tier two, the seven stars was advertising a substantial meal called a ‘Boris Platter’ to accompany customers’ Christmas drinks. Those halcyon days have now passed and, until the vaccine has done its job, simply enjoy this walk in the great outdoors for exercise.
getting there
■ Follow the B3108 from Monkton Combe towards Bradford-on-avon. In 1½ miles, at what is the start of the Winsley Bypass, turn right off of the B3108 into Winsley village. In 250 yards, turn right and park on the roadside opposite the entrance to Dorothy House.
■ 1. Walk back up to the Winsley Road and follow the road opposite into ‘Old Winsley’. Continue to a junction just past the village church and turn right, shortly passing the Seven Stars pub. Shortly, on a right-hand bend, keep left towards the village hall and cricket club. At the next junction, keep right on a lane signposted to the cricket club. Where the road ends by the cricket club, turn right and follow a track that drops downhill into the Avon Valley. Follow this track for 600 yards to a gate and track just above Elbow Cottage.
■ 2. Turn right, cross the K&A Canal and follow the towpath to the right in the direction of Bath. In 1¼ miles, pass under bridge 175, turn left and follow a path up to the B3108. Turn left and walk up Winsley Hill for 650 yards before taking a right turn on to a lane signposted to Murhill. In 40 yards, veer left on to a footpath and walk along to a stone slab stile. ■ 3. Beyond this stile, follow a path to a hand gate before following the right edge of a field across a hillside with views. In 150 yards, pass through a gate on the right and drop downhill into the Murhill Bank Nature Reserve. In 25 yards, where the path zig-zags downhill to the right, keep ahead to a handgate and follow a woodland path ahead for ¼ mile until it joins a lane in Murhill by a parking area, a former quarry on the left. Follow the lane to the left and, ignoring a cul de sac on the right, keep on the lane as it bears left to climb uphill back to the parking by Dorothy House.