Stanton Prior Circular (Timsbury Walk 15)

A THE SQUARE STREET SIGN AND OLD RECTORY GATE POSTS

With your back to The Square street sign next to the Old Rectory gate posts near the Miners’ Memorial Garden, turn right and walk along Newmans Lane until you reach the T-junction by The British Legion. Turn right into North Road and then, at the Congregational Church, turn left into Lippiatt Lane. Walk along Lippiatt Lane for about 400 yards, ignoring the first footpath on the right but entering, through a metal kissing gate, the second footpath. Go straight across the field and onward with a hedge on your right. Follow this hedge as it bends left (ignore kissing gate on right) then right (ignore another kissing gate on right) then left again passing the end of Northfield Cottages and downhill to gates over a stream. Walk diagonally right up hill to the field gate in the far corner. Go through the kissing gate onto Lippiatt Lane. Turn right, ignore the entrance to Wallmead House Farm on your left and proceed straight ahead through a kissing gate and a Bristol Gate to enter a field. The field is called Wallmead, formerly the site of two Neolithic barrows. Continue walking straight ahead, keeping the hedge on your right and following the line of the telegraph poles. Farmborough Common can be seen to the left. You then reach another gate leading onto Parkway Lane beyond it.

B PARKWAY LANE

Do not go through the gate onto Parkway Lane. Instead turn left before it and follow the field hedge on your right, keeping Farmborough Common on your left, to reach a Bristol Gate in the corner of the field. Pass through this and proceed ahead through two similar gates to reach a kissing gate, keeping the hedge on your right throughout. Pass through the kissing gate into an open field with increasingly lovely views to Farmborough to the left. Proceed for about 300 yards, keeping hedge to your right, until you reach a kissing gate hidden in the hedge on the right. Go through it and immediately turn left (Priest Barrow Hill is on your right). Proceed in the same direction as before with hedge now on your left until you reach a kissing gate on the left (where the fence poles begin).

Enter a small wood through this gate and follow the path ahead. Exit the wood through another kissing gate and continue ahead, with the field hedge on your left, through a further kissing gate to reach a lane (leading to Priston). Turn left and after 50 yards take the footpath to your right. Proceed through a kissing gate into a field. Continue, following the hedge on your right, to the corner of this field. Cross the wooden footbridge over Conygre Brook and proceed, with the hedge still to your right, up the hill, through two kissing gates and pass a third (disused and too overgrown to go through at the time of writing!) into a level field at the top of the hill. With the field hedge on your right proceed until you reach a lane.

C PRISTON ROAD

Turn right onto the lane and immediately left onto a dirt track. Continue along this until you meet a further lane. Cross this lane, continue along the grassy track and pass through a gate into a field, with views of Stanton Prior church diagonally to the right ahead. Follow the track to a gate in left hand corner of the field. Pass through the gate onto a lane and immediately turn right entering the village of Stanton Prior. Proceed to the parish church.

D STANTON PRIOR

Enter the churchyard and pass around the church to the right. Follow the path between high stone walls and through a wooden kissing gate into a field. Cross the field diagonally left to a wooden kissing gate hidden in the far corner. Turn left through the kissing gate. Proceed, initially keeping the hedge on your left and then continuing on the same line uphill towards a wood and a kissing gate beside a metal field gate. Pass through the kissing gate and follow the path through the small wood (crossing a puzzling ditch) to a further wooden kissing gate. Pass through this gate, carefully descending steps beyond and turn right onto a byway and proceed uphill with views of Newton St Loe on the left. Cross a road and continue on bridleway. Ignore possible left turn part way along and proceed downhill in the same direction, with hedge on your left and then along an aggregate track until you reach a lane with a ruined stone building on your right. Turn left along the lane.

E POTTERN

Follow the lane for one mile towards Priston, ignoring two left hand turnings to Priston Mill and crossing Conygre Brook. At T-junction with a lane, turn right and proceed along the lane. Pass Priston Manor on your left and continue until you reach Holt House, which used to be Pressbarrow Farm, on your right. Enjoy the view towards Bath.

F HOLT HOUSE

Turn left here, take the footpath over a cattle grid and proceed for about 250 yards. Pass through a kissing gate on your left and cross a field diagonally to the far corner. Proceed through undergrowth and a metal kissing gate into a further field. Turn right and proceed, keeping hedge on your right. Pass through a gap in the hedge ahead and go straight across the next field to the far corner. Here, go through the gap and go through the kissing gate on your immediate left. Turn right and proceed, again with the hedge on your right. At field boundary cross the next field with large oak tree to your right and aim for the stone farmhouse diagonally left ahead. Pass through a bridle gate and bear right, past Lammas Field Farm on your left, onto a track and proceed until you reach Lammasfield Cottage on your right.

G PARKWAY LANE

Follow the road downhill to your left. Ignore the footpath gate on your left and go through a metal kissing gate in the hedge on the right just beyond it. Walk straight ahead up the hill to the next kissing gate in the hedge at the top. After walking through the gate, carry on straight ahead to the gap in the hedge – except when the maize is high in which case follow the trodden path! Walk diagonally across the next field to a gate and stile in the fence on the left. Cross the stile into the open area and then turn right and through the gap into the lane. Go straight ahead ignoring the lane to the right which leads to Northfield Cottages.

Follow the lane past some modern houses on your left. Where the road turns left take the second metal kissing gate onto a footpath leading on, past the side of ‘Cherry Glade’ house and through two further kissing gates onto Lippiatt Lane. Turn left and proceed to the T-junction with North Road. Turn right, cross the road, then turn left into Newmans Lane to return to the starting point in The Square.

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