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| As you leave the Holst Museum after your visit, turn right out of the front door and then cross
Clarence Road at the marked crossing place near the junction. In front of you are the gates
which formed the original entrance to Pittville Park. |
| The Pittville Gates form the entrance to Pittville Park, and lead from Clarence Road
into Pittville Lawn, with its fine early 19th
-century houses. The Gates were erected in
1833; the six stone pillars and remaining cast-iron railings are original. The
elaborate wrought-iron „overthrow‟, with the Borough‟s coat of arms, was added in
1897, in time for a visit by the Prince of Wales during Queen Victoria‟s Diamond
Jubilee year. |
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| Go through to the road behind the gates (Pittville Lawn), follow this and cross into Pittville
Park. Continue walking in the same direction through the park until you reach the lake. Skirt
the lake to the left, and then walk across the park to the impressive building with a green
domed roof. This is Pittville Pump Room. |
Pittville Pump Room is perhaps the most famous example of Regency architecture in
Cheltenham – a town that has an abundance of buildings from this period. The
Pump Room is a monument to more than 100 years of fame which Cheltenham
enjoyed as a Spa town. The waters were first discovered in around 1716 on a site
now occupied by Cheltenham Ladies‟ College. In 1788 George III and Queen
Charlotte came to take the waters. A pump and fountain can be found inside the
Pump Room now, but it is not recommended that walkers take the waters today!
For more information see www.cheltenhamtownhall.org
The figures on the parapet of the Pittville Pump Room represent Hygeia, the Greek
goddess of health, holding a serpent drinking from a saucer, with her father,
Asclepius, on the left also holding a serpent and a large staff. The remaining figure
is the physician, Hippocrates. The original stones were sculpted by Lucius Gahagan
in 1827 and these replacements are the work of the local firm of R.L.Boulton and
Sons in 1965 |
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| Leave the Pump Room by the road to the right, East Approach Drive, with a view of the
Cotswold edge, and at the end of the road turn left into Albert Road. At the end of Albert
Road, by the mini roundabout, cross the road and turn right, then take a public foot path off to
the left a few metres from the junction. Follow this path between houses and over a stile until
it meets the race course perimeter path. Here turn right, keeping the race course on your left.
As you begin to reach the top of a small incline take the marked footpath to the right towards
a stile and signposted Cheltenham Circular Path. Cross the stile into Park Lane and at the end
of Park Lane cross diagonally by the post box to enter Shaw Green Lane. |
After about 200 metres, take a footpath to the right between the houses (marked Cheltenham
Circular Path) and follow it across a field towards the church until you meet a road. Turn left
onto the road (Mill Street) past The Plough and at the end cross the busy main road and
continue on up Mill Lane. At a cross roads take the left turn into Queenwood Grove
(Queenswood on some maps) and follow this. The road curves round to the right and
approaches Cleeve Hill. At this point look up and you will see three large radio masts on the
top of the hill; this is where you are heading. Ignore two footpath signs, one to the right and
one to the left, then, at very nearly the end of the tarmac, take a footpath to the left, by the
side of a house named Highcroft.
Follow this path over a stile into a field and then continue up the hill bearing right to reach a
stone stile. Go over the stile and walk between a small orchard of Christmas trees and a
larger wood. Both are part of Queens Wood.
Follow the footpath up the hill crossing a stile into fields stretching up the hill beside the
wood. Cross two fields and three more stiles and then turning right toward a small meadow
reached by crossing a further stile. |
| Queens Wood and the meadows (known as Wheeler‟s) are owned by the Adlard
family. Philip Adlard (1927-2007) was a forester and a founder member of the
volunteers and friends of the Holst Birthplace Museum. The wood is covered in
bluebells in season.
This meadow is a site of special scientific interest because of its wild flowers: (there
are many different orchids and cowslips in season). For information on SSSIs go to
http://tinyurl.com/3yvhkxo |
|
| As you emerge from the meadow follow the path and after a few yards bear left until you
come to a junction of several small paths. Bear left again up to a broad path (this is the
Cotswold Way) across a grassy field. Follow this path to a gate you can see 100 metres or so
ahead. Go through the gate onto Cleeve Common. On your immediate left is a small copse
planted in memory of Hugh Denham, a local chairman of CPRE. |
| Detour 2: Cleeve Hill loop. |
| For a longer walk you may prefer to follow the Cotswold Way around Cleeve Hill, in which
case go straight on looking always for the Cotswold Way waymarks. This longer walk will
take you about 2 hours to reach Belas Knap, but does have the merit of some excellent paths
and a refreshment stop at the golf clubhouse which is open to the public. |
|
At this point you turn right and make your way up hill towards the radio masts. When you
have nearly reached them, when the common plateaus out, bear left across the common going
between or beside some patches of gorse until you meet a wide green path that has come from
the left. This leads to the old Cotswold Way and is marked in places by signs indicating the
Cotswold Way Circular Walk, although somewhat confusingly these signs only appear on the
reverse side of the posts in the direction you are walking. Continue on the broad green path
until you reach the edge of the common and go through a gate, again with a circular walk sign
on the post the other side of the gate. Follow the path (which is the old route of the Cotswold
Way) to the remains of Wontley Farm buildings, where you turn left. The new route of the
Cotswold Way joins from the left in about half a mile. Then after another half mile or so turn
right on the Cotswold Way towards Belas Kna |
| Belas Knap is one of the best preserved long barrows in the Cotswolds (although it
has been heavily restored). Some 38 skeletons were discovered when it was
excavated in the 19th
century. |
|
| Leaving Belas Knap, you head north along the edge of the wood, still following the Cotswold
Way, and then turn right steeply down through a field and then a belt of woods to emerge on
Corndean Lane. |
