[1] Facing the playing field, with your back to the car park entrance walk across the grass to a squeezer stile in the fence ahead to enter a cornfield. In summer, or in wet conditions, use the stile in the North corner of the playing field to avoid the crop in the field. Turn right and walk with the fence on your right, passing an electricity pole on your left and a grey corrugated barn across the field to your right. When you reach a farm track, turn left and walk now with the hedge on your right for 200 metres to a concrete track at a junction of field corners with a view of Bredon Hill ahead. Here, continue ahead into the left-hand field and follow the hedge on your right to the end of the field where you pass a gas pipeline marker into a further field.
[2] Keep straight on to walk along the edge of the field with the hedge on your right. At the end of this path there are two farm gates. Take the left gate. This sheltered walkway brings you onto a lane with a large house on your left. Continue down the lane, soon passing Abbot’s Court Farm. A few metres further at a road junction, turn right then take the first turning left signposted Odda’s Chapel and Deerhurst Church. Walk down the road and enter the white gates of the churchyard.
(A) Deerhurst is a site of some significance; it was an early frontier of Roman Britain and in 1016 was the place where the English King Edmund Ironside and the Danish Canute, son of King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, carved up England between them. Canute did rather well out of the deal as Edmund died later that year leaving Canute to rule the entire country. There is much of interest in the Saxon church, founded in the 7th century, including a 9th century font and a 14th century brass of Sir John Cassy, Baron of the Exchequer and his wife together with her pet dog, Terri; the only existing example of a named pet on an old brass.
Return to the road and follow the signs to Odda’s Chapel.
(B) This small Saxon building was erected by Duke Odda in memory of his brother Aelfric and dedicated in 1056. For many centuries this chapel was part of a farmhouse to which it had become attached and it was only in 1885 when the house was being repaired that the real identity of the building became known.
Just beyond the chapel the lane swings right to a gate which you pass through, heading towards a large solitary oak tree, follow the track ahead through parkland to the River Severn. Turn left at the tree and follow the path which runs along a low dyke with the river on your right.
(C) The Severn Way footpath runs for 338km from Plynlimon in Powys to Severn Beach. The Severn Trow, the footpath symbol, is a typical sailing barge that plied the river from the 15th century until as late as the 1930’s. The last remaining trow, the Spry, was made seaworthy again for the Festival of the Sea held in Bristol in 1996, but is now in storage at the Ironbridge Museum in Shropshire. An illustration of the vessel, produced by the author of this walk, can be seen at Gloucester’s National Waterways Museum.
Cross a couple of stiles then beyond the third ignore the path going left and continue ahead passing a property on the left sheltered by a row of conifers. When you reach the next stile, don’t cross, but keep right with the river bank, walking with the hedge on your left. This path may be boggy. Cross a further two stiles to reach the Coal House Inn, hwihc was originally a coal wharf.
[3] Leaving the pub with the river on your right, pass through the wooden gate into a caravan park then follow the waymarks directing you ahead to leave the park via a stile. Follow the river path now for about 1100 metres to reach the road by Haw Bridge. Climb to the road and cross over with care, (there are two pubs by the far end of the bridge which you may want to visit), otherwise continue the walk by taking the path ahead down through a small gate.
(D) Notice the large walnut tree on your right here, walnuts were widely grown in Southern England and there was usually a tree to be found on every old farm.
Walk ahead along a grassy path towards the cottage, Bridge House, and pass to the right of the building. Cross the stile ahead then look immediately for a stile in the hedge on your left. Climb this and walk along the field edge with the hedge now on your right for about 1300 metres, crossing sluice gates to enter another meadow with venerable oak trees. Go half-left, keeping just to the right of the electricity pylon and cross a stile by a metal gate; at this point you are crossing a disused canal and looking down to your right, the brickwork of a lock is visible. Bear right after crossing the stile to pick up the dyke again which goes left in a few metres with the river on your right and continue to reach a further set of sluice gates by a brick bridge, where you climb a stile to reach the road.
(E) Coome Hill Canal is the shortest (at 4.5 km) of a number of canals constructed in the County. It was opened in 1802 and ran from Coome Hill Basin near the A38 road, to the Severn here at Wainlode.The idea was to aid the transport of coal from mines in the Forest of Dean to Cheltenham, which at that time was a difficult journey by road.The canal fared well until the arrival of the railways and it finally closed in 1876.
[4] Turn left here and walk for 350 metres to cross the canal again, then a further 200 metres, where just before a cattle grid, leave the road to metal gates and stile on the right. Ignore the stile but go through the gate furthest to the left and climb the roughly surfaced path with the hedge on your left. In summer this may be overgrown. Pass through a further gate, following the track along the edge of a cornfield and still with the hedge, continue to a farmyard. Opposite the barn on the left, turn right and pass a brick building on the left. Follow the drive left to reach the brick-built farmhouse ahead.
[5] Go right here, across the well-tended grass passing the front of the house on your left, (the track runs away down to the right), and pick up the hedge on the left of the field ahead. In summer, crops and a lack of clear path make the going difficult, but look for a gap in the hedge up to your left after 100 metres, where you will find a stile next to an electricity pole. With your back to the stile, go half-right skirting the brow of the hill to reach a pair of stiles in the far corner of the field by a road junction. Beyond the cattle grid, cross the main road to a lay-by on the far side and walk straight ahead passing gateposts with faint traces of white paint to pick up a path through the wood. This is a disused entrance to the Apperley Court estate, which explains the brick-lined path and the ornamental shrubs planted at intervals along your route. The path climbs between increasingly steep banks. The re-routed path takes you out of the woods, up the hill until you see the lawn of Apperley Court with the white house on your right. Leave the path, and take a moment to view the house from the fence line.
(F) Apperley Court was for many generations the home of the Strickland family, descended from William Strykeland who accompanied Sebastian Cabot, son of John Cabot, on his exploratory voyage along the coast of North America. William Strykeland was granted arms in 1550 which include a turkey-cock crest, the bird being first imported into England from America with Strykeland and Cabot. There are several memorials to the Strickland family to be seen in Deerhurst church.
Return to the path, which now emerges between farm buildings at the rear of the house onto a well made path. You will see a barn ahead, as you approach the barn the path swings around to your right, then again to you left. Look behind to see the ornate white gates which were on the old pathway before the diversion. With the gates behind you, notice the farm yard and stables on the right with the barn on the left.
[6] Follow the lane for 500 metres to pass The Lodge on your left; you are now leaving the Apperley Estate. Continue along the road passing the duck pond and village green on your right. bear left at the end of the village green and on through the village, a mixture of old and new buildings, to reach Box Tree Farm on the left . At the road junction opposite, take the road down to the right, Sawpit Lane, signposted Village Hall. Follow this round to the left for 300 metres to the car park and the completion of your walk.