A St Valentine's Day Walk around Meon Hill
.
Upper Quinton, Mickelton and Ilmington, which were visited on this walk, are some of the northern most communities of the Cotswold Hills and being within 45 minutes from Warwick, or 30 minutes when Mick’s driving, are regularly visited by all of us.
Click map to see our
route, other routes referred to and legend.
We arrived at Upper
Quinton shortly before 8.45 a.m. Although
this walk could equally be tackled from Mickelton
or Ilmington, Upper Quinton is the best place to
start should you wish to shorten the walk because
of inclement weather or aging legs. Larry and
Mick, as ever, were concerned about my
welfare!!
By 9 o’clock we were
“booted” and were soon on the Heart of England Way heading
south towards Mickelton. The first half of
this route to Mickelton followed the lower
contours of Meon Hill, whose claim to fame was
the unsolved murder on the hill on St
Valentines Day in 1945 - the only thing we
intended to murder today was a pint of beer at
the end of the walk. However, all of us
would have liked to have gone onto the top of
the hill but unfortunately there are no rights
of way, although Larry did tell that some years
ago the hill was used for motor cycle scrambling
and he had been on top of it to see one of these
events.
Leaving the grassy
contours of the hill our route went over ploughed
fields and, following the recent rain, the soil was
very heavy which not only made walking more
difficult but as Mick remarked it even made him
look taller.
Just before reaching the Stratford to Mickelton
Road, the Heart of England Way passes by a
collection of market garden buildings that have
been derelict for many years. The sites
probably waiting for planning permission.
Leaving the playground we turned right and followed the road through the village until reaching the turning on the left which leads to the local church. Soon after, having passed the church, we began steepest climb of the day.
I don’t think I’m getting any fitter as I get older but today the climb didn’t seem as bad as I remember it to be when I'd walked up it on previous occasions. Maybe the company was taking my mind off it, although on the last stretch to meet up with the road outside Kiftsgate Court Gardens, Mick and Larry left me behind but it was probably because I had stopped to take some photographs.
At the top of the hill
more photographs were taken before we continued
east along the road to Hidcote Manor, also noted
for its garden. However, today
it was closed but the picnic area adjacent to
the car park, with picnic benches, was not, so
we “used the facilities” and had a leisurely
“elevenses”.
At this point, having continued east through the
Car Park we could have turned left (north) onto the
Monarch’s Way and followed it
the 1 ¼ miles downhill to meet up with Admington
Lane, and then followed it right to meet up with
the actual route we took. A few years ago
I walked this route with Anne. On that
occasion we walked around Meon Hill clockwise
and on a very hot summers day coming uphill on
the Monarch’s Way was hard work, but very
pleasant.
However, today we went east and with the exception
of a dogleg in the path it was a straight forward
route to the single track roadway that passes by
the wireless station and the trig point on top of
Ilmington Down, the highest point in Warwickshire.
Although to reduce the
distance walked we could have gone left
(northwards) all the way down this tarmac track,
both Mick and Larry seemed to feel I needed
considerable exercise so, after walking about 3/4
of a mile down this track, we turned right and
headed for Ilmington.
This path, which we had all done before from the
opposite direction, was well marked as it went
downhill into a dip. A very muddy dip, which
we navigated very carefully for fear of slipping
and, at the same time, discussed the various
techniques for dealing with such hazards.
Mick told us that he had tried the “run down hill
through the mud” technique when he was once walking
in the Cotswolds. Larry and I were less than
favourably impressed with this approach as it
transpired that on his way down through the mud one
of Mick’s feet slipped and what followed must have
been truly interesting to watch. From the
description it seemed that Mick did a very poor
impression, of a triple lutz, or some similar
ice skating move, before finishing at the bottom
of the incline sitting in the mud with a veneer
of mud covering most of his clothing. We
were so interested in this that we missed a sign
and went too far right when we should have gone
left; but this was soon rectified and proved to
be the only significant navigational error of
the walk. At this point we also felt a few drops
of rain, the only time on the walk when it
looked as if the weather might turn nasty, but
they were soon gone. So it was left, uphill out
of the dip and now with paths ahead very obvious
we made good time over the mile or so to Ilmington enjoying views of
newly born lambs with the village below them as
a backdrop.
Once we had reached the
village we had a short amount of road walking. We
passed the village church on our right and having
passed the local primary school we immediately took
the footpath on the left that went along the side
and rear of the school’s grounds. We then met up
with the Centenary Way which we would
follow back to Upper Quinton.
This part of the route,
which Larry and I had done together once before
(see Ilmington with Larry),
is quite undulating, but as we had made good
time we stopped for another cuppa at the
derelict tractor abandoned on the route.
The break over we continued, admiring the view
of a man made lake on our right (The Dingle),
and soon emerged onto a driveway that lead to
the tarmac track which we had left further
uphill to do the Ilmington detour
Here we turned right
and followed the track downhill to the T junction
with Park Lane, and ensuring we were facing the
oncoming traffic walked left along road, ignoring
the junction right, until, just past a farm, we met
up with the Monarch Way and followed it right, into
a field.
Now it was over fields
with the route initially going north until it
veered north-west to meet up with the road between
Lower Quinton and Hidcote, just outside Meon
Hall. Our route initially went up the drive
to the Hall but, before reaching it, we followed
the way marks that took us across a newly ploughed
field but fortunately it was much drier than the
ploughed fielded experiences earlier in the
day. This last mile or so back to the car was
really pleasant with views of Lower Quinton and its
church to the north and the wooded slopes of Meon
Hill to the south. And suddenly we turned
left down an alleyway between houses and were back
at Mick’s car. So without further ado it was
muddy boots off, shoes on and off to Ilmington and
the Red Lion Pub for a pint.
This walk, according to
Mick, is about 9.5 miles in length - although Larry
reckons it was probably a mile longer. However, it
can be made shorter by about 2.5 miles by taking
the Monarch’s Way from Hidcote, or reduced by about
2 miles by ignoring the detour into
Ilmington. But whichever way you go, it’s a
good walk.
As both Larry and I had left our Ordnance Survey
1:25,000 scale Explorer Map for the area (No. 205
Stratford-upon-Avon & Evesham) at home, we made
do with an extract from an OS 1:50,000 of the area
– which probably also helps explain our momentary
navigational error.