[1] The walk starts at the rear of Bath station where you take the metal footbridge across the Avon. Use the pedestrian lights to cross both carriageways of the road ahead then turn left along Claverton Street, crossing Prior Park Road and turning into Widcombe Hill by the White Hart pub. Pass St Matthew’s Church on the left and minor roads left and right, then turn right into Church Street. When you reach the War Memorial in front of the church, fork left into Church Lane pausing at the gate to Prior Park to view the Palladian bridge ahead. Continue now on the roughly surfaced track to the left of the park, this becomes a path which you take steeply up to the right ignoring a gate and stile on the left, to reach a metal stile.
[2] Take the grassy path half-left up the field ahead pausing for breath and taking in the fine views back to the city. Go through the right-hand of a pair of metal field gates and climb to the top of the field to cross a stile by a National Trust sign. Follow the path up to the right for a few metres to a gate with playing fields beyond; walk across these playing fields to the far right corner and turn right on to a lane that leads you to a road.
Turn right, crossing the road (with care) to reach a pavement. Walk along the road and turn left into Tyning Road, then left again into Gladstone Road. At the end of the road follow the footpath to a road with allotments on the left and school playing fields on your right; here go ahead keeping the allotments to your left to reach the school entrance where you continue along footpath. After a jink to the left the path passes playing fields on your left and when you reach a junction of lanes go straight ahead and turn half left in a short distance through a kissing gate. Follow the stone-walled footpath to a lane where you turn right to a footpath sign by a wooden seat; you may wish to take a breather here and admire the view over Monkton Combe.
(A) In the Domesday Book, the village is referred to as Cume, meaning valley. ‘Monkton’ was added as from ancient times it was monastic property.
[3] When refreshed, take the stepped path, The Drungway, down to the village going ahead at the lane for a few metres then turning left. Follow the road through the village passing the school on the right and when you reach the far end of the (modern) buildings follow the footpath sign to the right, down the side of the school, then ahead descending a gravel path with the school sports centre on the left. At the back of the building the path enters woodland, reaching a lane via a set of steps. Cross over and go left along the broad track, the course of an old railway.
(B) Here, ran the Camerton & Limpley Stoke Railway, opened in 1910 to carry coal from Camerton and Dunkerton collieries, and passengers between Hallatrow and Limpley Stoke.
At the end of the track continue in the same direction along the lane ignoring the footpath sign pointing right towards the cricket pitch. This old trackbed leads you beneath the bridge carrying the A36 road to reach an open area with a minor road on your right. Go left, then left again to the car park of the boatyard to arrive at the Somerset Coal Canal.
(C) Construction started on the canal in 1794 and for over 50 years barges laden with coal from the Somerset mines negotiated the narrow waterway to reach the Kennet & Avon Canal.
[4] Follow the canal towpath passing chandlery and café on the right and continue through the security gate to a sign directing you down to the right. Turn left on this path to reach the Kennet and Avon Canal by Dundas Wharf and the aqueduct, turning left briefly to view the entrance of the Coal Canal. Your route now takes you over the aqueduct crossing both the railway and the River Avon, and along the towpath for 1300 metres to reach the bridge at Limpley Stoke.
[5] Leave the canal here and climb up onto the road where you walk right, crossing the bridge over the Avon after which you need to reach the opposite side of the road with care, before walking beneath the railway bridge and turning left to Limpley Stoke village.
(D) A health resort, the ‘West of England Hydropathic Establishment’ was founded here in 1860 and advertised as being three minutes walk from the station. The resort is now the Limpley Stoke Hotel and the station closed in 1965, although it once had numerous sidings to cater for the huge quantities of coal, transported from the Somerset coalfields, and stone from local quarries. During the First World War, the sidings were used for hospital trains from Southampton which would wait there overnight before taking the wounded soldiers to hospitals in Bristol and Bath.
Follow the road (with care as the pavement is intermittent along this stretch) with the disused station on the left then the Hop Pole Inn up to your right. Continue through the village for 300 metres then turn left along the lane signed Freshford (before the road ahead starts to climb). Beyond the railway bridge, cross a stile and turn right, then walk parallel with the river keeping to the higher ground as this area can be quite marshy after rain. Continue for 800 metres to reach a water treatment plant on the left where you join a track leading you up to the right and Freshford station. Cross the railway by footbridge. Walkers wishing to end their ramble here can catch a train and return to Bath, or can catch a train onward to Bradford-on-Avon.
(E) Freshford stands on the confluence of the Rivers Frome and Avon and is another village that gained wealth and a rising population through the cloth industry; many of the houses with their substantial gardens were built with ‘wool money’.
[6] Beyond the station, follow the lane to the village, turning left at the road junction and walking downhill where, beyond a bend to the right, you pass ‘The Inn’. Ahead, the road crosses the river but before this, turn right, through a metal kissing gate into a meadow and take the path climbing up to the right through trees to reach a second gate. Now go left, losing the height you have just gained, with the Frome down to your left. Follow the path through two kissing gates and accross a meadow to a road with a bridge and Freshford Mill on your left.
Go right for 150 metres to Dunkirk Mill Cottage. At the drive turn left. Here, as the road bends to the right, take the track to the left and follow it to the Mill entrance where you turn left and walk along a bridleway, with the River Frome down to your left.
(F) The scene across the meadows has not always been so tranquil. Freshford Mill, built below the weir to harness the fast flowing water, has been a place of employment for almost 1000 years, latterly for the manufacture of rubber and polymers. Though it is now empty, it employed ninety two people in 1816 and made this an area of high pollution with noise from the machines all day and night, the smell of lanolin from the wool and urine used for scouring the cloth, as well as the froth and dye poisoning the water. These fields were draped with cloth being stretched on wooden racks, and devices to wash the scouring substances from the wool were built across the river. At the same time, Dunkirk Mill, now restored as private residences, employed around eighty people. The original mill had gone by the late 18th century but a 9.75 metre water-wheel was installed in the present building, replaced in 1856 by a steam engine. The mill closed in 1912 and fell into disrepair until restoration in the 1980s. It is interesting to view the contribution of the 21st century to this scene: the fast flowing water now supports a hydroelectric generator with Archimedean screw. A good view of this is obtained from the path.
Pass through a field gate and follow the path down to a driveway keeping the wire fence to your left, with a cottage up to your right. At the drive turn left then immediately right along a field track between two stone boulders. Follow this track to a stile by a field gate. Continue ahead to the lower corner of the field, going through a kissing gate to reach a broad path through a wood.
[7] After about 200 metres follow a waymark arrow down left to a further gate and into a meadow where you turn right. Walk the length of this meadow aiming for the house ahead, Iford Mill, passing to the right of it to reach a lane; turn left, and follow the lane to Iford Manor.
(G) The manor house was built around 1480 and extended in the 16th century. Harold Peto the architect, bought the house and designed the Italianate gardens that are periodically open to the public.
Beyond the river, turn right and follow the lane as it climbs steeply to reach a road junction. Turn left, walking for 400 metres and just before the road bends slightly left, look for a bridleway off to the right signposted Upper Westwood (this can be overgrown in summer and muddy in winter). Follow this to reach a road; turn right and walk past two cottages on the left, then turn left down a track by a wooden electricity pole. Go through the gate and head down the field keeping to the right boundary and looking for a kissing gate where steps with an iron hand rail are visible beyond. Descend to a sunken lane that you follow back left, then go right with the lane, ignoring a gate on the bend to reach a broad stone stile at the lane end. Cross into a meadow.
[9] Head down towards the corrugated buildings on the right, on to a gate beyond. Go through and follow the track, soon turning right with a metal kissing gate and footpath to the left which you ignore, and passing the buildings of Ancliff Square on your right.
(H) Built as a group of weavers' cottages in the late 1770's these buildings became the Bradford Union Work House from 1836 to 1914. In 1841 alone, 400 paupers, skilled workers from the then ailing wool trade, were admitted here. During the 1914-18 war, it was a convalescent home for wounded soldiers, then the building was converted and used as a residential Hotel, ‘The Old Court', between 1922 and 1948. A further conversion in 1952 to 14 self contained flats lasted until 1987 when the site was developed into 12 separate houses. Changing it's name to Ancliff Square.
Continue to Avoncliff Aqueduct where you drop down left to pass beneath the arch to reach the 17th century Cross Guns pub. From the pub, walk back up on to the aqueduct and turn left following the towpath with the canal to your right. Walk for about 1200 metres to reach a footbridge and here, take the surfaced driveway down to the left to enter Barton Manor Country Park, continuing with the River Avon on your left. Eventually, the drive bears left with picnic tables on the grass to your right. Now go right over the grass and through the gateway in the wall to reach the 14th century tithe barn where an information board explains the history of the farm and surrounding parkland.
[10] With your back to the barn entrance, walk ahead passing other farm buildings, now used as craft shops, then Barton Farm on your left. When you reach the driveway turn left passing the front of the farmhouse then go right along a surfaced path with a play area on the right, coming alongside the river and passing underneath the railway. Take the tarmac path right, up to the car park and walk to the far end to enter the station, crossing the footbridge to await your transport back to Bath.