Day 24 Broadway to Broom

6 April 2013: 34km. Started 09:00. Arrived 17:30

My postcard written at the end of the day starts “I must be the only person who would walk from Broadway to Broom via Chipping Campden while trying to get from The Lizard to Dunnet Head”.  A quick glance at the map shows what a circuitous route I chose.  It wasn’t that I needed to get to Chipping Campden to complete the Cotswold Way as I had already omitted the first few miles.  However I had made up my mind that, having worked in Evesham for thirteen years, I did not really want to walk through the Vale.  At least it was a sunny day so the extra miles were completed in perfect walking conditions.

I ate breakfast at the same time as a very forgetful, elderly lady who was staying at the B&B while moving house.  Suffice to say, she needed some assistance with her breakfast.  Breakfast almost over and the B&B owner, a retired art and design teacher, decided to explain her ideology – that children are suffering in their education by way of too many exams, too little culture and “taught to test”.  I have some sympathy.

Before leaving Broadway, I took advantage of the supermarket to stock up lunch and snack supplies and bought some stamps at the post office, conveniently getting the required “rubber stamp” on my log sheet.  Hence it was actually well after 09:30 before I left Broadway.

My initial objective was the well known local landmark of Broadway Tower uphill across fields.  Before long there was a steady trickle of runners and speed walkers coming towards me – turned out to be an ultra race from Chipping Campden to Stroud.  Their speeds and abilities did not appear to relate to their positions and I gathered some were not going the whole way.

Near the summit, there was still some snow lying.  The official Cotswold Way, which I followed, went by a very circuitous route, presumably to cross the main road at a safe point.  I was then on a Green Lane (Mile Drive)  and narrowly missed being knocked over by a speeding tractor.  Soon after I saw the ultra race “backmarker” carrying a large rucksack – no doubt full of emergency equipment which could have been useful if the tractor really had been out of control.

There were good views over the Vale of Evesham from Dover’s Hill, scene of the Cotswold Olimpicks (sic) started by Robert Dover in the early 1600s and held annually on the first Friday after spring Bank Holiday- apparently the highlight is the shin-kicking competition followed by a torch-lit procession to Chipping Campden at the end of the day.  However the hill was very quiet that day apart from a group of six walkers who had just started the Cotswold Way from Chipping Campden.  They explained that they do a long trail each year, using weekends and walking ten miles a day “so the South West Coast Path will have to wait until we all retire”.

Reaching Chipping Campden, I admired the impressive “wool church” and Market Hall.  The town based its fortune on the Cotswold wool trade and boasts impressive stone architecture from its heyday between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.  The High Street has been said to be the most beautiful in England.  Seamlessly, I left the Cotswold Way at its end on the High Street to pick up the Heart of England Way (not a National Trail). 

Leaving the grandeur of Chipping Campden behind me, I found a “quiet spot” to eat lunch near Mickleton but was then surprised to see over twenty people walking past in a single huge group.  Lunch over I passed the Three Ways Hotel at Mickleton – famed for its pudding club (advance bookings only and held in the evening, so not a temptation for me).  By then it was warm and dry so my jacket was in the rucksack.  As I walked past Long Marston Airfield I saw microlights – the pilots making the most of the warm and dry weather.  The villages in this area all seemed to be more “functional” than those in the Cotswolds, including thriving village shops and a greater number of ordinary modern houses.  I avoided the temptation of stopping at a pub for a drink and was soon walking through the small riverside town of Bidford before reaching my overnight destination at a pub in Broom.

In the dry warm weather, I took the opportunity to take my boots to a courtyard to give them a good clean.  From  the bar, I could hear a very happy but inebriated young farm labourer who appeared to be drinking the proceeds of his winnings following the Grand National.

The very busy barman agreed breakfast at 07:30 the next day – amazing service for a busy country pub on a Sunday.  However it was a blessing for me with a long 42km day to reach my next stop.