Through Nether Stowey, Friarn and Over Stowey

Description

Start and parking : Library car park in Castle Street, Nether Stowey. GR^® ST190395

(D/A) Turn right out of the Library car park into Castle Street then steeply up Castle Hill to the summit.

(1) Turn right here through a kissing gate, taking the right hand footpath and skirt round the Castle Mount taking an anti-clockwise direction to get the best views. (You may want to make a detour here up the narrow path onto the mount).

(2) When you have completed about half of the circuit around the Mount, turn right onto a steeply descending, narrow path through bracken and trees to reach Butcher’s Lane where you turn left and, after a few more yards, left again into Mill Lane. Continue along Mill Lane, ignoring both a footpath on your right and then Hack Lane; continue on Mill Lane until you reach a bridleway on your right where you turn and follow Watery Lane beside the stream to Broomsquire’s Cottage.

(3) At a crossing of paths turn left at Broomsquire’s Cottage onto a tarmac lane. Walk up the lane, over a small ford, to the next house, Bincombe Bartons, turn right onto a metalled drive immediately after the house. Go over a cattle grid and steeply uphill on this drive until you see the stone entrance gateway of Warren House, at which point bear off the drive to the right, onto grassy pasture, heading up hill, swinging round to the left hand corner of the woodland in front of you.

Go through the gate into the woodland, keeping its boundary on your left and turning left at a junction of paths, until you come onto the Nether Stowey/Crowcombe road.

(4) Cross over the road onto the bridleway opposite which leads through more woodland. Ignore side paths and descend onto a sunken path, which can be muddy. Turn left at a junction of paths and go through a five bar gate, continue to the road at Friarn where you turn left.

(5). Continue down this lane, passing several cottages on your right. Just after Moorfield turn right over a stone stile, marked public footpath, followed shortly by a gate. Follow this waymarked path downhill to the corner of the field. There are wide views of the River Parrett and the Somerset Levels beyond. Follow the hedge boundaries of three more fields until you reach a short lane which takes you into Over Stowey, emerging opposite the Church.

Turn left along the road here, passing Parsonage Farm on your right, and then up hill to reach a gazebo belonging to Cross Farm as the road bears left.

Crossing a stile, take the footpath to the immediate left of the gazebo and continue in a straight line, over a further stile and through three gates, keeping the hedge boundary on your left, until you reach Hockpitt Lane. Walk down Hockpitt Lane until you come to a stile on your right; go over this, walk straight across the field to a kissing gate and follow this path until it emerges onto South Lane where you turn left.

(6) Walk along South Lane, at the junction with Castle Street turn right and retrace your steps down Castle Street to the start point at the Library car park. (D/A)