Start: The Charlcombe Inn, Lansdown, Bath, Somerset BA1 9BT
(S/E) From the front of The Charlcombe Inn, turn right and right again through the kissing gate onto Bath Racecourse (A). Duck under the rails and cross the course, then bear half-left to the far corner, where a gap in the wall leads into a road. Turn left, then take a footpath on the right through a wooden kissing gate. Walk along the bottom of the playing fields, bearing right and left as the hedge bends.
(1) Beyond the buildings, join a track that continues towards Beckford’s Tower (B), looking out for a kissing gate on the right. Take the signposted footpath, bearing left to a metal kissing gate, and follow the path across the hillside beyond, initially close to the wall then dropping below some trees. Go through two further kissing gates in quick succession and pass below Beckford’s Tower.
(2) After the next kissing gate, turn left to a second gate into a track, which leads out to the road. Take a few steps to the right then follow Granville Road opposite.
(3) After a third of a mile, when the road bends sharp right, turn left onto a metalled driveway, following power lines. Pass a house on the left then turn left before the gateway of Charlcombe Grove Farm and follow the drive round to the right. At the next gateway, take a path on the left that skirts the property. After a gate into a field, pass an old well to a gateway.
(4) Turn right at a footpath sign down a flight of rough steps. Continue steeply downhill on a path that winds between bramble clumps to a wooden kissing gate. After more steps and a further kissing gate, the path enters a field and descends to another metal kissing gate into a driveway and out to a road.
(5) Turn left and, unless you want to visit All Saints' Church (C), Woolley, keep straight on at the top of Church Street. When the road bends right, take the track straight ahead, which leads to a kissing gate into open fields. Follow the path along the top of the first two fields and then across two more, with views over the Swainswick valley. Bear left across the corner of a field and follow the path as it descends towards Langridge. Cross a footbridge over a stream and bear right to emerge in a narrow lane.
(6) To visit the St Mary Magdalene’s Church (D) at Langridge turn left, otherwise turn right. Beyond a house on the right, and before another on the left, turn left up a no-through road. Follow the lane until you pass a stone barn on the right. Just beyond the barn, turn left, before the entrance to Manor Farm.
(7) Follow this hedged path for ¾ mile as it climbs steadily out of the valley, ignoring a footpath on the right towards the top. Beyond a gate, walk up the right-hand side of a valley and climb to a stone stile by a Battle of Lansdowne interpretation board. Cross the stile and follow the wall on your right and drop into woodland at the far side, bearing left along the woodland edge. Cross a wall and leave the woodland to emerge by Sir Bevill Grenville’s Monument (E). Follow the path ahead out to the road by a lay-by.
(8) Cross over into a metalled drive and turn immediately left into a field. Cross the field diagonally to a small car park at the end of a wood.
(9) At the back of the car park join a bridleway that leads along a wall, with woodland on your right. At a junction of paths at the end of the wood, turn left, signposted “Public Bridleway”. Follow the wall on your left, with the golf course and racecourse away to your right.
(10) Beyond the racecourse access road, the path continues in the same direction, following a line of trees, to reach the clubhouse. Cross the car park in front of the clubhouse and then cross an area of rough grassland beyond, to a metal hooped gate in the corner. Turn right along the road to return to The Charlcombe Inn. (S/E)
