Chisbury & the chapel, 4.5 miles.
Date: Thursday 19th Sept 2024
Time: 10.00am - 12.45pm
Location: Chisbury village centre, by old telephone box. SN8 3JA
Our group walk began when 9 walkers assembled at the home of footpaths group member, Genevieve Mapson, who kindly organised and led this walk. From there we walked to the telephone box on the junction at the centre of Chisbury where we took the lane in the direction of Little Bedwyn. Our first stop was to visit Chisbury’s delightful little chapel, St Martin’s, which sits overlooking the valley on the edge of the banks of the Iron age hillfort. This medieval thatched former chapel of ease has been used as a barn since the reformation and is now in the care of English Heritage. From the chapel we continued towards Little Bedwyn, turning left off the road at a bend and along a sunken shady path, then it was up and over the hill on this bridleway through fields with open views to the north. We turned down to the A4 main road and unfortunately, it is necessary to briefly cross and re-cross this busy road to link up with Monk’s Lane. This path beside Noke Wood had been cleared earlier in the season but had become quite overgrown again. However, we struggled on, using field edges where the undergrowth was so thick that it became the only option. On reaching Chisbury we had also to navigate the extremely awkward stiles but were pleased that the path through and around the gardens leading back to Chisbury centre had been cleared. The combined efforts of Wiltshire Council rights-of-way team and Bedwyn Footpaths Group volunteers have managed to keep this enclosed path accessible this year.
There are two stiles on this route and some long steady inclines with a couple of road sections.
This route also forms part of a longer 6 mile route from Great Bedwyn which can be found here