If visited following a sojourn at its not too distant neighbour, the Crippets long barrow, Coberley will always prove something of an anti-climax, I guess. Yeah, but not a disappointment.... since, although crudely dismembered by a lateral trench and subjected to numerous other horrors, Coberley nevertheless remains an upstanding, well positioned monument.
I approach from the east along what the map reveals to be the ‘Gloucestershire Way’, having parked upon the nearby minor road just before a sharp left hand descent to Coberley village. It is certainly an aesthetically pleasing approach above Coldwell Bottom to the south, the valley cradling what I assume to be the nascent River Churn? Ha! A long barrow upon a hillside overlooking a fledgling water course... whatever next?
The Gloucestershire Way veers to the south-west beside the monument, perhaps following the same contours of millennia past, an unlocked gate providing access to the long barrow itself. Once upon the barrow, the wanton damage to ancient fabric somehow becomes irrelevant – after the moral indignation has subsided, that is – as vast, billowing clouds take centre stage and raise both the visitor’s gaze and spirits (if not consciousness, but hey, one day perhaps?) to, quite literally, another level. The stratosphere itself, no less. The notion recurs.... is it just me or were these monuments designed as viewing galleries for a theatre where the very landscape itself was the stage?
Needless to say, it still is to me.
You had a good day for it, from the pics. There is a lovely feeling of space here, even though the views aren't all that extensive. It's a sky thing, mainly. (Except in a blizzard of course)
What do you know about The Gloucestershire Way. You being local, un'that? Any finds to confirm an ancient ancestry?
Erm, nowt really! I suspect it's more of link up of lots of short tracks, but some bits are almost certain the be long-standing trackways. There is a book I keep meaning to buy about Gloucestershire's old paths.