thesweetcheat

Visited 30 August 2020 after leaving Withington long barrow. I thought this one might be harder to find in August vegetation, but it proves to be easy. It’s visible next to one of the main paths running through the woods, prominent above the immediate surroundings and sporting a fine crown of ferns.

It’s pretty big and appears to be well-preserved, although the vegetation makes it difficult to properly see the extent of the mound. On its top, beneath the ferns and brambles, it appears to be constructed of limestone rather than being an earthen mound.

One word of warning – even in pleasant summer weather, the tracks through the woods are very muddy. I pass a couple who have come to pick blackberries, and white trainers maybe weren’t the ideal footwear.

From here I head northwest to seek out the multiple banks of a cross-dyke shown on the OS map. It proves to be a very reduced monument, struggling to be seen above calf-height undergrowth. Still, it’s a pretty spot and I stop for lunch.

I leave the woods to the northeast and drop down to the pretty villlage Withington, where the cool interior of the church is open for visitors, the first I’ve been inside this year. From there it’s an easy stroll back to Colesbourne and the bus home. The monuments in Withington Woods aren’t of the first rank, but in this strange summer of limited travel and adventures close to home, I’m delighted to have visited some new-to-me sites in such a lovely woodland setting.

Of the four new-to-me Gloucestershire long barrows I visited during the post-lockdown summer months, Withington is both the best preserved and potentially the least easy to get to. Visited 30 August 2020.

I start from Colesbourne down in the picturesque Churn valley, a nice summer Sunday stroll along a quiet lane heading east then north up onto the high ground of the west Cotswolds. A bridleway from Hill Barn provides somewhat muddy access to Withington Woods. I get the feeling that this woodland is a ‘country pursuits’ kind of place, as various quad-biking lads wearing gillets and farming gear pass me en route and the distant crump of shotguns, a Cotswolds staple, breaks the peace.

Once in the woods I’m foolishly confident of choosing the right forestry track from a selection, but not sure how overgrown the barrow might be at the tail end of August. In any event, I end up going round in a circle, as the barrow isn’t apparent on my initial pass of the area where I think it is. Second time around, I realise that I missed it because it’s actually inside a high-fenced pheasant or partridge enclosure. Luckily the gate into the enclosure isn’t locked, otherwise there would be no way of getting to the barrow.

The barrow is actually much better than I’d expected, a fine upstanding mound covered in pieces of limestone under a sparse covering of shrubby bushes and less undergrowth than I envisaged. I find no sign of the chamber referred to in Chance’s miscellaneous notes but it’s still an impressive monument.

Despite the nice woodland setting, the barrow isn’t a particularly inviting place to hang around, as being effectively enclosed by 7 foot high wire mesh with only one way in or out kind of kills the atmosphere. Still, it’s really pleasing to find a decent monument here, the main threat to which seems to be tree roots and some light animal burrowing in the flanks.

Having escaped the wire, I head northwest along a broad track to seek out Withington West round barrow.