Dave Ashbee

The following walks emanating from the Old Spot Inn in Dursley have been kindly prepared by pub-regular, Dave Ashbee, a retired Rednock English teacher.

Dave does a lot of work around the local countryside, looking after local footpaths and bridleways. He is a keen rambler and an extremely knowledgeable Real Ale enthusiast. His poetry books are well worth a read, and he's pretty damn good at Shakespeare too!

If you're interested in purchasing any of his books, would like to join his poetry club, or attend organised walks, please contact him in the Spot. Also, if you fancy giving him a hand with his Warden duties, I'm sure he'll be glad to see you too!

1. THE OLD SPOT CIRCULAR WALK - 3.5 miles; shortened via road - 2.75 miles

Turn right out of the pub , follow Cotswold Way signs to bend, then on right take the left-hand path up through wood to Golf Club . From here, go right, following CW (Cotswold Way) alternative Circuit around Stinchcombe Hill for 2 miles until the path splits. Avoid the right turn into trees, following sign to Dursley only as far as the tarmac road by the Golf Car Park.

Take the road right for 100 yards and turn left at end of houses. Almost immediately take the first of 2 paths on the right. The shortened version stays on the road - no pavement - back to the pub. The footpath for the longer route splits soon - go left. Follow this for over half a mile, avoiding any turn to right. At a junction of paths above new houses, go back to your left and steeply down between houses and a cottage to a bend on a road .

Either go left along Hunger Hill then right down May Lane to the pub, or go straight on down hill enjoying a grand view, to turn left at a cross-lanes along The Slade .

2. THREE ROUTES LINKING THE OLD SPOT WITH THE OLD CROWN, ULEY.

A - Hilly. 4 miles.     B - level over fields     C - a 5-mile-plus ramble through fields & woods
[Route A is described as from Dursley to Uley.    B & C given as for reverse direction.]

A - The Old Spot, Dursley to the Old Crown, Uley.
Hilly 4 miles
Turn left out of pub and follow Cotswold Way signs through the town and for another 3 miles towards and over Cam Long Down and up a long steep path through woods to The Wardens' Bench near a road. Leave Cotswold Way here by going right through a gate onto Uley Bury, an Iron-age hill-fort. The suggested route goes left soon after the gate. (Going right would extend the route by a mile or so and afford wonderful views but would make it less easy to find the path down to Uley. The circuit would bring you back to the start near the gate, if you wished to then back-track to find the path down.)

Going left, continue to the first sharp curve and go left down the side of The Bury. This path should take you to Uley by meeting another path down a slope at right angles on the edge of the village after about half a mile. Go left onto this, around the church, and onto the main street almost opposite The Old Crown. There are several unmarked paths on the woodland section. Try to keep straight ahead. If you should veer left and emerge onto a road, take this road to the right, downhill. The pub is very close.

B - The Old Crown, Uley to the Old Spot, Dursley.
Level over fields. 4 mies.
Leave The Old Crown via the rear entrance behind the kitchen and toilets. Go down steps into the car-park, in the left-hand wall of which is a door. Turn right beyond it into a charming lane between cottages and out into a field. Go straight ahead down the slope, over a brook and a footbridge. Here turn right so that the large house formerly a mill is on your right and follow the streamside path for half a mile to a road opposite the entrance to Stout Hill Timeshare.

Slightly to your right from here is a lane signposted Elcombe and Shadwell. Follow this to its end where it becomes a track. ROUTE C DIVERGES AT THIS POINT. For route B, continue on the waymarked footpath to the left of the track. You should find youself directed diagonally through a paddock behind a house after a few hundred yards. The path now runs parallel to the Uley-Dursley road (to your right) with a fine view of Cam Long Down and the tree-crested hill known locally as Smallpox Hill (Downham Hill on maps).

Approaching Dursley, the paths diverge. Keeping left ( see *) below the line of the wood will bring you onto the A4135 at the south-eastern edge of town, by the last house. Turn right here to reach The Market Hall in about 10 minutes, where you go left along the main shopping-street, then left at traffic lights to see The Old Spot sign 100 yards ahead.

* Bearing right below the wood will bring you out into either of the 2 housing estates that flank the Uley-Dursley road. Once on this, go left, passing The Carpenters' Arms, to a mini-roundabout where you turn right to The Market Hall. Then proceed as in previous paragraph.

C - The Old Crown, Uley to the Old Spot, Dursley.
Ramble through fields & woods with a couple of steep climbs. 5 miles plus.
Follow route B to the far end of Elcombe. Just before the road becomes a track, there are 2 paths up to your left beside cottages. Take the first of these. In the wood, keep bearing right until you see steps going up steeply to your right after about 5 minutes walking. This section can be muddy, including the farm you go through above the steps. Cross the road with care - it is the A4135 - and take the waymarked path to the right of a lodge cottage. Go over rough pasture and a boggy area by a spring until the path forks. Bear right - the left-hand path is not a right-of-way - towards a gap between woods. Follow the trees on your left until you meet another path emerging from a small gate on your left. Turn right here so that you are looking downhill towards a wood. Slightly round to the right of a corner of this wood, the path enters it and goes down steeply through trees to emerge into fields.

In the largest field, bear 45 degrees right to a stile in line with a tree higher up that marks an old field boundary. Beyond the stile is another into the wood. Go up the steps installed in 2006 by The Cotswold Wardens and turn left onto the track. After several hundred yards, another track comes in from the right. Just after that, bear right, avoiding an inviting but wired gate onto a lane. Go behind a cottage garden to reach the lane. Turn right onto it and after a few yards you will be at a junction on the A4135. Go left onto the A4135, then left again, onto the lane signposted Stinchcombe Golf Course. Almost immediately you will find an unmarked path into the trees on your right. Follow this, looking for signs marked JT (Jubilee Trail). The golf course road is never far away on your left with many gaps onto it. You could use it if you prefer. Keeping to the path through the trees for about half a mile should bring you to a track by a metal barrier, with another track on the right marked "Transverse Drainage Humps." (To get to this point by the road, go past Breakheart Quarry and turn right onto a footpath just after a lane goes left down a steep hill.)

Go through the gap by the metal barrier and follow the track, avoiding a fork to the right, until you reach a clearing. There are 3 ways out of this. Take the middle one. This will drop gradually at first, then steeply, to go between new houses on the right and a cottage on the left. At the junction of 2 lanes, you have a choice of going left (Hunger Hill) then right down to The Old Spot, or straight ahead enjoying a good panorama, turning left where the hill begins to level out at a cross-lanes, and take the tarmac footpath called The Slade to reach the pub.

Enjoy,
DAVE ASHBEE

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