Badminton, great & little
Great Badminton is chiefly an estate village, centred around the wide High Street that leads to Badminton House. That this is a ‘one-horse town’ is soon discovered when you search for the village pub and find only a club for the estate workers.
The attractive row of almshouses, dating from the early 18th century, come complete with the Beaufort portcullis and the Beaufort beasts that support the cartouches. The onlooker is left in no doubt as to their patronage, the actual founder being the 1st Duchess.
Badminton House and the adjoining parish church of St Michael and all angels, a 1785 miniature of St Martin-inthe-fields, are strictly private properties with no permissive rights of access. The chancel of the church was added in 1875 as accommodation for the 25ft monument by Grinling Gibbons to Henry Somerset, the 1st Duke, who died in 1699. This monument was formerly to be found at Windsor, and was only removed to Badminton when Queen Victoria required the space in St George’s Chapel for a monument to her father. Blood is clearly thicker than water!
From the village, the walk heads out to the Seven Mile Plantation, neither seven miles nor a plantation, but rather a linear woodland along the way, we pass the handsomely crafted Slait Lodge, as well as a tin barn that is actually a hangar for the adjoining grass airstrip used seasonally by affluent attendees of the noted Badminton Horse trials. There are also the scanty remains of the Plague Cottage where, in the 17th century, people who were suffering from the plague were brought to die. The cottage collapsed in about 1930.
Beyond the Seven Mile Plantation, fieldpaths and a country road bring the walk to Little Badminton, a pretty place that grew up around a village green with its fine medieval dovecote. There is also St Michael’s Church, 12th century in origin and mainly early english in design, that was originally the private chapel of the Dukes of Beaufort. During the 1960s, it was fitted out with a plastic tower for the filming of ‘Sky West and Crooked’, in which John Mills directed his daughter Hayley in a part where she was cast as an offbeat teenager obsessed with death who became involved with a kindly gypsy youth.
The walk concludes by heading across Badminton’s Deer Park, home to the aforementioned horse trials. This was one of Queen elizabeth’s favourite places to visit each year, indeed her daughter the Princess royal came sixth here in the 1979 trials. Her then husband Captain Mark Phillips won the event on no less than three occasions.
The deer can be quite elusive but, witnessing the stags rutting, is quite a sight.
Note: The film ‘Sky West and Crooked’ can be found on Youtube and is worth watching not only for its moving story but also for its many scenes shot in the Southern Cotswolds.
Getting there
Leave the a46 at Old Sodbury 10 miles north of Bath, and turn right right on to the B4040. In 1½ miles, on a right-hand bend, take the left turn to Badminton. In another 1½ miles, at the junction with Station road in Badminton, turn left. Continue for 350 yards, before turning right into the village’s High Street and park on the roadside in the vicinity of the village shop.
■ 1. With your back to the village shop, follow the High Street to the right. In 100 yards, at a junction, follow the ‘main’ road ahead in the direction of Little Badminton for almost ½ mile to a pair of farm gates and a signposted bridleway on the left, a short distance beyond Slait Lodge. Follow this bridleway along past some woodland before crossing a field towards what looks like a barn; in fact it is a hangar for the adjoining grassy airstrip. Pass to the right of this hangar and drop down to a grassy track.
■ 2. Follow this track to the right for 100 yards, passing the remains of the Plague Cottage, before passing through a gateway on the left to join a signposted bridleway. Follow this bridleway across a field, with a hedge on the right, to enter the Seven Mile Plantation in 600 yards. Follow the permissive path in this linear woodland to the right for ¾ mile before passing through a gateway on the right into a field; this is just 75 yards before the A46. Follow the grassy ride ahead, it is a bridleway, for just over ½ mile to reach a farm road. Cross this private farm road and continue following the bridleway ahead for 800 yards to reach the Great Badminton to Little Badminton road.
■ 3. Turn left into Little Badminton to reach a junction by Upper Slaight Lodge in 600 yards. Continue along the ‘main’ road for 300 yards before turning right into Church Lane. Follow this lane as it loops around the village, the former village green with its dovecote on the right. In 600 yards, immediately before Upper Slaight Lodge, pass through a gateway on the left to enter Badminton Park. Follow the estate road ahead for almost ¾ mile across the park, looking out for the herd of deer, to reach a lodge on the far side of the park. Pass through the left-hand of several gates at this point and follow a lane running between stables and farm buildings down to Badminton’s High Street. Turn right back to the village shop.