On Leckhampton Hill

Leckhampton, Gloucestershire

We headed out for south Cheltenham today. Getting south of the town was easy, but what I was specifically interested in was a car park in Hartley Lane, and there lay the difficulty. I should have stopped sooner, but pull-ins along this stretch of the A46 are few and missable owing to meanderings in the course of the road or tree branches obscuring a sign. So to add to the frustration, when I did pull over, it was on to an unclassified road of negligible width and tight bends, and which wandered down a steep hill. Later, virtually imprisoned, as I approached what was probably a passing place at the top of an incline, I unhesitatingly steered for it, and relieved, got out the car to make a much needed map check.
 
It transpired that I was in the southern quarter of a sprawling settlement called Cranham, with rolling hills of buttercupped slopes topped with beech, rising and falling in succession like the crinckly crust of apple pie. Opposite the passing place was a stile and on the summit of the next hill I could see the tower top of a church. We made the short, sharp descent to the bottom of our first hill where we met a stream running off to Sutton's Mill. Then we climbed some more, and via a series of paths and cuts, soon reached the church.
 
It was while having a cuppa at a tea shop in Painswick, the one with the bicycle at the front wall with its handlebar basket full of flowers,  that I drilled into the likely whereabouts of the Hartley Lane car park. Thanks to zoopla, I managed to find a postcode for an address.
 
From the car park, a disused quarry, we clambered up and northwards along the western edge of Leckhampton Hill. My objective was the Devil's Chimney, a solitary limestone rock tower I had first seen in photographs made by Rob Talbot and which overlooks the south of the town. From my viewpoint the chimney was something of a disappointment on a number of levels. First it is not natural, but say no more than 300 years old and very likely the creation of quarrymen. Next, you can see where mortar and such has been used to keep it glued together. Then there was this safety obsessing viewing platform with steel railings painted in teal.
 
On the return to the car park I clung to the escarpment edge, passing several evenly spaced wooden benches, each probably dedicated to the memory of a person who appreciated the view. At one point, where the path was just inches from the edge, I was struck by this blast of red in the distance. It was the netting from a wreath hung from a tree. There was another on a nearby bush. There were no clues to explain why. Here they are in the picture, with a view over Crickley Hill.
 
At the car we went through a list of potential pubs we could visit on the way home.  Our top selection was the Farmer's Arms at Guiting Power. It was closed. Three or four others visited on the way proved way too popular to be likely to accommodate us. In desperation we plumbed for the Wetherspoons at Stratford.