Greystones a Landscape Through Time

1 From the car park take care crossing the road and turn right onto the pavement beside the wooden railings. Take the signposted footpath on the left, beside the Cotswold stone wall. Continue along the footpath until you reach the gates of Bourton-on-the-Water Cemetery.

2 Continue right along Cemetery Lane with the cemetery on your left. Pass the allotments until you reach the hedged fields on your left.

3 Walk a little further along the lane until you see the ground drop steeply down to your right through a gap in the hedge.

4 Continue along the lane. The line of the tall hedge on your left curves left because it follows the line of the Iron Age rampart. It is a 2,000-year-old boundary line still in use today. This line was part of an extension of the rampart in front of the enclosed settlement, probably to create an area for corralling livestock. Continue until you reach the lakes.

5 Follow the footpath past the lakes. Continue over the boardwalk through the trees until you reach the pasture fields. Turn right, walk through the footpath gate next to the field gate, and head for the gate in the hedge opposite.

6 Stop just before you reach the gate in the hedge.

7 Continue through the gate, across the next field and through a second gate.

8 Follow the footpath along the narrow hedged lane. Turn right out of the lane onto the Oxfordshire Way.

9 Continue along the Oxfordshire Way towards the River Eye.

10 Return along the Oxfordshire Way, cross the lane and continue across the field opposite. As you approach the wall bear right to its far end.

11 Walk back along the wall and continue through the gate on your right.

12 Continue along the path and through the gate in the corner of the field.

13 Walk along the path towards the Greystones Farm buildings. The area of narrow fields to your right are known as Berryfields. This was part of medieval Bourton’s common fields. It was hedged and ‘privatised’ during the 1620s.

When you reach the farm, turn left to look into the milking parlour.

14 Return to the main farm buildings. You can return to the car park along the lane past the farm buildings.

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