With Nigel Vile The origins of Pickwick Papers
The Corsham Walking Festival has become an annual event; this year’s running from June 11 to the June 13, with bookings now open. The festival has also spawned a series of heritage Trails, all eight of which are available online to download on www.corsham walkingfestival.org.uk. This week’s walk is a section of the much longer Corsham to Biddestone Peacock Trail, named after the peacocks from Corsham Court that regularly walk up and down the town’s high Street.
The walk starts in Pickwick, on the north-west edge of Corsham. This was once a separate community with its name being derived from the Anglo Saxon ‘pic’ which means a pointed hill or peak, and ‘wic’ that translates to a village. And yes, this was the inspiration for Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers. The story goes that he took the name from one Moses Pickwick, a coachman who was abandoned as a baby in Pickwick who subsequently lived in the local hare & hounds Inn, before running horsedrawn coaches between Bath and London, replaced today by a National express coach.
The walk heads north from the A4 along Middlewick Lane. At the far end of this quiet byway lies Middlewick house, a grade II listed building with, to quote the architectural detail, ‘a front range of ashlar, using Cotswold stone, with a roof of stone tiles, and dates from the 18th-century; the west wing is earlier’. Formerly the home of Andrew and Camilla Parker Bowles, Middlewick house is now the home of Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, with the gardens occasionally open to visitors to raise funds for local charities.
Beyond Middlewick house and Pickwick Lodge Farm, a seriously steep descent – later in the walk an ascent! – brings the walk down into Collet’s Bottom Woods. Quite who Collet was is lost to the sands of time, but ‘bottom’ does suggest a damp, low-lying valley - which in this case is surrounded by ancient woodland. emerging from the woods, there are glimpses of the ruinous Weavern Farm. It is difficult to believe but there were three water mills here, the last of which ceased working in 1834.
All that remains is a disused leat to the east of the By Brook.
Weavern Lane returns the walk to Collet’s Bottom Woods and that seriously steep ascent back up to Pickwick Lodge Farm. Pleasant pastureland takes the walk past the driveway leading to Guyer’s house, now an up-market hotel and restaurant, before we reach the A4 opposite Corsham’s Catholic Church. Originally the mid-victorian Pickwick District School, following its closure in 1922 it became variously a glove factory and a gas mask factory. It opened as a Catholic Church in 1945 following the arrival of large numbers of Irish Catholic workers that were arriving in the area.
Two more features of note as the walk follows the busy A4 back to Middlewick Lane. Firstly there is the Pickwick Gate Toll house, thought to have been built for the Corsham Turnpike Trust in the 19th-century. An interesting story tells how, in 1840, the Toll house keeper was brought before the magistrates for demanding 4½d for a metallic spring cart when the legal toll was just 3d! There is also the hare & hounds, home to the aforementioned Moses Pickwick. Built in the late 17th-century, this grade II listed building was a former coaching inn on the London to Bath coach route. You will have to wait until at least May 17 when pubs can open their doors once again, should you wish to explore its historic interior.
GETTING There
■ Coming from Bath, having passed the Hare & Hounds in Pickwick, continue along the A4 for another 100 yards before turning left into Middlewick Lane. There is normally parking on the first part of this road, failing which park in Corsham’s town centre.
■ 1. Continue walking along Middlewick Lane away from the A4. Shortly, opposite some allotments, turn left into the Beechfield Wildlife Area. Turn right and walk up the right edge of this open space before dropping back down to Middlewick Lane. Turn left and continue for 600 yards to a T-junction. Turn left and walk along to a property on the right called Hillsgreen Lodge. Pass through a gateway ahead and follow a track along to Pickwick Lodge Farm. Keep ahead by the farm to a handgate before continuing along the right edge of a field above a wooded valley.
■ 2. In 200 yards, by a marker post, turn right and drop downhill to a gate, before dropping steeply downhill in the next field to a gate in its bottom left corner. Join a bridleway in Collett’s Bottom Woods and turn left. Walk uphill for ¼ mile to a junction by a stone pillar. Turn sharply right and drop downhill to reach a junction in just over ¼ mile, the ruinous buildings of Weavern Farm in the field ahead. Turn right and walk uphill for 350 yards to join Weavern Lane. Turn right and follow Weavern Lane for just under ½ mile to a T-junction. Turn right and drop downhill back into Collett’s Bottom Woods. Keep left at a junction in 250 yards – the track ahead is signposted as ‘Private’ – and drop downhill for 200 yards to a gate on the left at the bottom of the hill, a gateway passed earlier in the walk.
■ 3. Turn left through this gateway and retrace your steps steeply back uphill across two fields to a marker post once again passed earlier in the walk. Turn left back along to Pickwick Lodge Farm. Turn right and pass through the complex of farm buildings and cottages. In another 300 yards, by a marker post, veer left to follow a well-worn path across an arable field to reach the driveway leading to Guyer’s House. Cross this driveway, enter the next field and walk across towards its far left corner, making for a clearly visible road sign on the A4.
Join the A4, turn left and, in 500 yards, left again back into Middlewick Lane.