A walk through the lovely landscape of Limpley Stoke on the trail of the bat-winged Old Lad of Westwood
There’s a kind of local legend that purports to explain some ornamental feature, commonly in a church. The reality is likely to be the other way around: the feature has inspired the story in the local imagination.
In St Mary’s Church, Westwood – near Bradford-on-Avon – a pug-faced, bat-winged devil hovers in the stonework above the font. Known as the Old Lad of Westwood or the Devil of Limpley Stoke, he’s the inspiration, or explanation, of a tale about another St Mary’s, at Limpley Stoke. A good excuse to stretch your legs through this beautiful part of the Avon valley, which legend refers to as the Valley of the Nightingale.
We begin along a shady path from the far corner of Westwood churchyard. Keep going straight on till you reach the stile to the road. Turn right here, then left into Linden Crescent, and partway along this take the path on the left behind the houses. You’ll come to a field, where you should keep left to the gate at the far corner. Bear right along a road and then along a path into the attractive green space of Westwood Park. Walk through the park, cross the road, descend the road opposite, and continue downhill by either of the two paths through the woods. You’ll emerge on the road down to Avoncliff Aqueduct, which spectacularly carries the Kennet & Avon Canal over both the Avon and the railway.
After crossing the aqueduct – a brick pillbox guards the far end – it’s quick march along the towpath for about three miles. You’ll see many ash trees along the way. At the time of writing, early September, many still look magnificent, the compound leaves giving the trees their distinctive feathery appearance. Look closer and nearly every tree has a few dead branches where the dieback fungus has taken hold. Others are in more advanced stages of the disease, in which nearly all the branches are dead. The other tree species look well, of course, even if this year the autumn colours have begun earlier than usual.
Where the canal bends northwards, just before the B3108 bridge, you’re in the vicinity of where, in Saxon times, attempts were made to build a church. Every night, the legend goes, the Old Lad came on his bat wings and transported the stones up the hill southwards. He seems to have done the faithful of Limpley Stoke a favour by steering them away from the flood plain to a wiser spot to build their church.
After you’ve crossed Dundas Aqueduct, turn left down the cycle route just after the railway and head through the gate on your right, along the towpath of the Somerset Coal Canal, and through its picturesque boatyard. Drop down to the gate and turn right on the cycle route under a bridge and through the playing fields of Monkton Combe School. Signs direct you between the school buildings to the road, where you go left, then left again at the Wheelwrights Arms. Bear right down a footpath from the road, cross two footbridges, then turn left alongside the stream. Between some old houses, the path becomes a lane. A short way along, steps on the right lead to a stile and a steep hike up the footpath across a field and into Stoke Wood.
When the path begins to descend and you can hear through the trees the traffic on the A36, look out for a pair of rude gateposts on your left. Through these, I encountered what I thought to be the campsite of some off-the-grid survivalists but turned out to be a dump of unwanted consumer durables. Further downhill and slightly to the left is Shingle Bell Well. Folklorist Katy Jordan learnt from a Victorian source that the water was believed to cure eye problems and that votive rags used to be tied on the surrounding trees. No rags today on the splendid ash tree from whose foot the spring rises. Perhaps the tree could use some, since it’s beginning to be affected by dieback. Jordan also notes that Stoke Wood was once known as Pucklewood, which she interprets as ‘Puck’s Well Wood’. Another clue, perhaps, to the Old Lad’s identity?
Retrace your steps to the main footpath and follow it down to the A36. Take great care crossing this road, walk a few yards to the right, and then turn down Middle Stoke, which runs through Limpley Stoke to the cute little church of St Mary’s and its wonderful view. In the tenth century, they say, the Abbess of Shaftesbury planted pear trees on the borders of her land and built churches beside them, including Limpley Stoke’s. A church warden told Jordan that some thirty years ago the church decided to plant a pear tree in honour of the original one. In the very spot that seemed the best place to plant it they discovered an old tree stump, which the church warden thought might have belonged to the pear tree the Saxons planted a thousand years before. However, an old photograph shows another kind of tree growing in that spot – an elm.
I’m just old enough to remember the Dutch elm disease pandemic, when the majestic elms were obliterated from the landscape. I remember a dying tree in a field near my home, and the horror with which grown-ups talked about the disease. There was no vaccine, no treatment. The elms never became resistant. Now the same thing is happening to the ash, though people don’t seem to talk about it so much. It’s poignant that in the Norse mythology of our Viking ancestors the gods made the first woman, Embla, from an elm tree and the first man, Ask, from an ash.
We’ll see more ash trees a bit further along our route. Through the gate behind the church, take the left-hand path down the field to Freshford’s community shop and café. Across the road, go left along the pavement, then up the footpath to the right. Dog-leg left then right and pass through the small metal gate on your left and down a steep path. After crossing two roads, you’ll reach an old mill. Walk round the mill and take the bridleway on the left. After a gate, bear left along the footpath that runs for a mile through a gorgeous stretch of the Avon valley – a mix of woods and open fields. There are lots of fine ash trees here, but again the fungus has taken hold in many. It feels strange to witness this tragedy happening right now – to see the trees still there, still beautiful, and to know they’ll soon be gone. Also in Norse mythology, a gigantic ash tree, Yggdrasill, is the axis supporting the nine worlds of the cosmos. What would it mean if this world tree were no more?
When you reach the road, turn left over the old bridge with its resplendent statue of an armoured woman whom I thought at first to be Pallas Athene till I saw the Union Jack design on her shield. From Iford Manor take the lane to the right, then right again, till you see the stile on your right, just before The Laurels, from which to retrace your steps along the footpath to Westwood Church.
Before you go home, spare a prayer for the ash trees and perhaps also one for Westwood Manor – next door to the church – which Peter Underwood reports was cursed by a Gypsy woman when its owner, a magistrate, sentenced her husband for poaching. The magistrate and his family soon had to depart, but the curse on the house continued, with stories of fires, suicides, a ghostly woman haunting one of the bedrooms, and a headless man who wanders the house.
ESSENTIALS
Distance: 9 miles.
Duration: 7 hours.
Level: A mix of easy and moderate walking, including some stiles and steep paths.
Parking: Road parking near St Mary’s Church, Westwood.
Toilets and refreshments: No. 10 Tea Garden (Avoncliff); Angelfish Café (Boatyard); Wheelwrights Arms (Monkton Combe); Galleries Shop & Café (Freshford); Iford Manor Café & Kitchen.
Transport links: You can reach Westwood via Avoncliff railway station (a request stop) or the 94 and 98 buses between Trowbridge and Bath and Bradford-on-Avon.
Map: OS Explorer 155: Bristol & Bath plus OS Explorer 156: Chippenham & Bradford-on-Avon.
Further reading: The Haunted Landscape, by Katy Jordan; Ghosts of Wiltshire, by Peter Morwood.
Route: gb.mapometer.com/walking/route_5396810
Anthony Nanson is based in Stroud and available as a storyteller and speaker. His books include Gloucestershire Folk Tales and (with Kirsty Hartsiotis) Gloucestershire Ghost Tales and Gloucestershire Folk Tales for Children. Anthony also runs the small press Awen Publications.
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App walk: Take a walk with your phone
Start: Northleach
Distance: 4 miles (6.4km)
Time approx.: 2 hours
Parking: Roadside
Recommended direction is anticlockwise.
This walk follows the young River Leach north west away from the market town of Northleach to the pretty village of Hampnett. On leaving the town, look out for the prison building dating back to 1791 and now the home of the Cotswolds National Landscape. From Hampnett, turn south to follow the Monarch’s Way to a high point on the wolds before descending again back into Northleach. The town has played a cameo role in a number of TV dramas, including the BBC adaptation of JK Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy.
Download the Cotswold Walks app and let your mobile guide you around the route. It shows your location on the map as you walk, and even works without a phone signal.
To download the app, search ‘Cotswold Walks’ on the iPhone or Google Play AppStore. For more information visit pathranger.com/cotswoldwalks
