[1] On the bend in the road by St Leonard's church, cross the stone stile and walk ahead to a kissing gate.
(A) This old gate marked the crossing point of the Yatton to Wells railway. Opened in 1870, a variety of goods were carried, but it became so heavily used by the strawberry growers of the Cheddar area that the line became known as the ‘Strawberry Line’. The line finally closed, after years of decline, in 1963.
Beyond the gate, go half-right to a stile with stream on the right. Cross the field diagonally, aiming for the white house where you pass through a metal gate to reach a road.
[2] Walk right along the road to a T-junction. Turn left towards the clay pigeon shooting range, and about 100 metres before the range turn right into a lane which soon becomes a rough track. (Look in the ditches for the white Little Egrets that have made this area their home in recent years.) Look out for a waymarked path on the right before a bend in the track, and cross the stile next to the metal gate. Go half-right over boggy ground to a footbridge.
[3] Cross, then go half-left to another bridge by an electricity pole. Beyond here, go ahead to a kissing gate and lane beyond. Once on the lane, turn left by the sewage works and follow the track to a "T" junction where you turn left, following this road passing Nylands Farm and Batts Farm on the left.
[4] At a sharp right bend, beyond Batts Farm, go left along a track signed Rookery Farm. The track bears right, passing a couple of cottages, ascending to the base of Nyland Hill on your right. At the top of the track go through a field gate where you will come out onto an open hillside. You have a choice of climbing up to the right to reach the summit or following a track around the base of the hill.
(B) Nyland Hill is one of the few highpoints that rise up out of the Somerset Levels. It would have been an important place of refuge when a sudden flood devastated the area in 1607. In earlier times, the hill belonged to Glastonbury Abbey. In the pre-Norman period, it is thought to have had a chapel and probably a hermitage. At this time, it would have been surrounded by marshland. From the summit of Nyland Hill, there are fine views over the Somerset Levels. From the trig point Crook's Peak can be seen (300 degrees NNW) and Brent Knoll (270 degrees W).
(C) Looking southwest, a medieval duck decoy can be seen. When the Levels were drained (drainage ditches can be seen covering most of the fields) the abundance of wildfowl, an important source of meat and feathers, decreased. From the seventeenth century, a number of these decoys were built to attract and catch wildfowl. This one has a roughly square pool with six channels or ‘pipes’ leading off, where the birds were caught. First mentioned in 1668, the decoy appears to have gone out of use in the mid C19 with the last mention in 1813.
[5] Leave the hillside via a stile by a field gate, then follow the track down to a further stile and road beyond (Quarry Farm). Turn right and keep to the road as far as the next farm (Decoy Pool Farm), where a signed path directs you left, go through a pair of field gates. Walk ahead across the pasture and over a rather dilapidated footbridge, then continue in the same direction. Notice the meandering depression to your right.
(D) This is the original course of the River Axe, thought to have been diverted sometime before the seventeenth century into a straight, four-mile channel further to the south as part of an ongoing drainage programme.
[6] Pass through a metal field gate and cross a ditch, then continue ahead keeping to the right boundary to cross stiles (poor state) and a footbridge in the far right corner. (Note that in late summer, this crossing is likely to be impassable due to an overgrowth of brambles. If this is the case, retrace your route to a gate on the left, go through and turn left. Now keep to the ditch on your left to reach a gate where you turn left again, regaining the original route at Hixam Rhyne.) Keep in the same direction now towards gates where you cross Hixam Rhyne, and onwards to a gap in the hedge in the opposite boundary. From here, veer left across the pasture to reach a large watercourse. This channel carries the diverted River Axe.
[7] Walk with the channel on your right, going through two gates and climbing a stile. Beyond the next gate, you pass farm buildings on your left as you continue ahead to a road. Turn right, crossing a bridge, then go immediately left on a track past Cricklade Farm. Follow the track for some distance beyond the farm buildings until you reach a T-junction where you turn left and walk to the end with a gate and waymarked stile.
[8] Beyond here, follow an increasingly muddy track right, with a watercourse joining on the left. Continue to a footbridge, cross and turn right, walking with the channel on your right. (This stretch is a favourite haunt of kingfishers.) Continue past a redundant stile, and go through four fields separated by water channels keeping the main watercourse on your right.
[9] At the second metal gate, and upon entering the fifth field, look left to a farm building and metal field gate at the end of a track (next to a fenced slurry pit). Make for this and join Whitesome’s Drove. Follow this track, passing farm buildings on your left, and beyond a house on the right, turn right down Middle Drove.
[10] Follow the drove with the Mendip hills ahead in the distance until you reach a "T" junction where you turn right. Walk as far as a waymarked footbridge on the left. Cross, then walk ahead aiming for Rodney Stoke church tower, visible in the distance. Keep on in the same direction, crossing a couple of footbridges then heading towards a gate in the middle of the far boundary.
[11] In this final field, cross to a gate and stile with a road beyond. Walk ahead, crossing the railway bridge, then follow the road round to your starting point at the church.