After leaving Woodmancote round barrow I head to the little village of the same name, from where a bridleway heads westwards. The landscape ahead is open and I can see the next site of the day as a lighter patch in a field across the dry valley dropping away on my left.
The path enters a little wood and turns right, and here a field gate allows access into the fields adjacent to the long barrow. Skirting around the top of the valley, the barrow's field is margined with bright blue cornflowers, but the barrow itself is crowned only with long grasses.
It's clearly been ploughed over the centuries, as it's quite reduced in height. It's nevertheless a good length and has enough left of its mound to be obvious. Now unploughed, it's a nice place to sit for a while, as banks of cloud rush over. The crest of the hill blocks views to the west, hedges to the north, but to the southeast I can just make out the distant edge of the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire.
From here I rejoin the bridleway to Cotswold Park and then up onto prominent Pen Hill to the north. Making my way up to the clump of trees on the top, the clouds that have been building all morning finally decide to drop their load on me, a temporary blip on an otherwise hot and sunny day. After a lunch stop by the trig, I drop down to Colesbourne and munch on a ice-cream before deciding on an impromptu revisit to Norbury hillfort and a long walk back to Cheltenham.
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Posted by thesweetcheat
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