Start: The Charlcombe Inn, Lansdown, Bath, Somerset BA1 9BT
Tel +44 (0)1225 421995
(S/E) From the front door of The Charlcombe Inn, turn right and then right again through the kissing gate in the corner of the car park onto the racecourse. At the rear of the pub, turn right and follow the wall with Bath Race Course (A) on your left.
(1) Well before you reach a telecommunications mast and the grandstands, duck under the rail on your left and cross both sides of the course (and the grassland between) to join a footpath along the wall on the far side. Turn right and follow the path; when it diverges from the racetrack you can either stick to the
wall or cut across a triangular area of grass and meet it beyond.
(2) Either way, you will reach a topograph identifying features of the view (with Kelston Round Hill prominent ahead). Go through the kissing gate next to the topograph and bear left; in the corner, turn right through another tall kissing gate and follow the path downhill. Beyond another gate is a junction of paths.
(3) At the junction turn left through a metal handgate then immediately right through another metal gate.
(Here you can avoid the climb up to Kelston Round Hill, by turning right to follow the obvious track round a left-hand bend and rejoining the described route at the wooden kissing gate in step 4)
Follow the path along the field edge for quarter of a mile until you reach a gate on your right, from which a permitted path runs up the slope to the clump of trees on the summit of Kelston Round Hill.
(4) To the right of the trees is a signpost, where you turn right and descend, still on a permitted path, to regain an official right of way beyond a wooden kissing gate. Turn left. Follow the track downhill. After
about quarter of a mile, pass to the left of a barn conversion and follow the metalled lane down to Kelston village.
(5) When you meet the A431 through Kelston, cross the main road carefully and turn left along the pavement. By the telephone booth at the Old Forge, turn right down a lane (past a house with an ammonite fossil in the wall) that reduces to a path. At a gate you
meet a driveway; go through a kissing gate opposite (signposted “Saltford Cycle Path”). After a further two kissing gates, the path continues to join a farm track that descends to a bridge under the old railway.
(6) Just before the bridge, a kissing gate on the right gives access to steps up the embankment. Turn right (beware cyclists) and follow the old railway, shortly crossing over the River Avon (B). After a further 150 yards the trail crosses a bridge over a road in Saltford. Continue for just under a mile, to Avon Riverside Station on the Avon Valley Railway (C).
(7) Cross the river again, then take the first path on the left, which curves down to the riverbank. Turn left and pass under the bridge. A kissing gate gives access to waterside meadows, through which follow the river upstream for half a mile, passing a few more gates. The path leaves the main river to follow a mill stream on the left, which leads you to the main road in Swineford.
(8) Cross and follow a driveway to the right of the Swan pub, which leads between buildings and then along a driveway towards a car park.
(9) Beyond a Georgian house on the right, turn right at a footpath sign to a kissing gate. Cross the field beyond to a gate and then climb the hill to a kissing gate into a green lane, which develops into a sunken holloway.
(10) At a bend, ignore a path on the right and continue on the wider left-hand path, which widens into a farm track then bends right between buildings to North Stoke village. When you meet the road turn left and walk up to the church (D).
(11) Take the track to the left in front of the church, which curves to the right (ignoring a footpath on the right) and climbs to the Cotswold Way (E) path on the lip of the Lansdown plateau.
(12) Turn left, with the golf course on your right and Pipley Wood on your left. At Pipley Barn, bear right
along a track across a fairway, still following the Cotswold Way. At a crossroads of tracks and paths, turn right, signposted as a Public Bridleway.
Follow the wall on your left, with the golf course and racecourse away to your right.
(13) Beyond the racecourse access road, the path continues in the same direction, following a line of trees, to reach the clubhouse. Cross the car park in front of the clubhouse and then cross an area of rough grassland beyond, to a metal hooped gate in the corner. Turn right along the road to return to The Charlcombe Inn. (S/E)
