Cleeve Hill
330 metres
1083 feet
12th September 2024
Shower Dodging in the Rough
When I mentioned to the owner of the studio apartment I was staying at near Great Malvern, that I was hoping to visit Cleeve Hill near Cheltenham, he said that I might be able to park at the nearby golf club for a token fee. So long as it had nothing to do with the National Trust, with its diabolically shoddy pay by phone provider, I was happy with that.
Approaching in the car from Bishop’s Cleeve, I worked up through debris-covered narrow lanes, with the wind whipping through the dense tree cover above. Whilst the sun seemed to be winning the battle in the sky, I wasn’t entirely sure it was going to win the day, and as soon as I pulled onto the B4632, instead of trying to find the golf course I parked up at a handy layby, threw on the walking boots and headed straight for a gate immediately opposite Stockwell Lane.
Ahead, numerous steep paths presented obvious options to the top. I didn’t fancy “steep” so soon into the walk, so took a more gradual route heading north, past a large old quarry to the left, and towards the golf club.
I Dig A Quarry
Despite the ominous clouds scudding relentlessly from the chilly north, plenty of people were out taking a risk. At the golf club a wide path headed south and up. I had assumed that this was another area of chalk down land, but as I passed a huge crater, evidently another old quarry (unless it was one of the dastardliest golf hazards ever created), it was becoming clear that this was an area of limestone. Brilliant! I love limestone. Sadly, up until quite recently, so did garden centres, and as a result some of the country’s most picturesque upland landscapes were denuded on an industrial scale for the sake of our rock gardens. If we do end up returning the Elgin Marbles to Greece, maybe the next restorative approach could be returning our expropriated limestone pavements to the north Pennines.
Tank trap on the 13th
Past the bunker from Hades, I continued up to a ridge where a wide valley opened out. One of the golf greens stretched out below and the path tracked just above. Leaving the main track, I diverged slightly to the right, through an area of gorse and then to higher ground. I hadn’t realised it at the time, but I was already past the high point. It didn’t matter. The views were getting more impressive by the step. I descended again, with the golf green just to my left. I stopped for a moment to get my bearings. Over to the east I could see into a valley with a small town and significant church steeple. I walked on for a short while and stopped momentarily. Looking east again, the outlook had completely changed. The town and church steeple had gone, obliterated by an ominous looking downpour.
Winchcombe no more
Despite the obvious threat from the sky, a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree scan seemed to suggest that for the moment the area was safe from attack. I continued. A single tree on the ridge above was an obvious target point. Double checking that it was still safe to proceed, a quick look east confirmed that the weather bomb had missed by a whisker.
I don’t think this sort of cloud has a name, but if it does, I expect it would be Run or Be F…….
I crossed another fairway, wondering who had the bright idea of putting a golf course on one of the most exposed points in the south of England. The single tree at the top of the hill, and the long view down to the Severn valley to the south-west, testified to how exposed to the elements the area was. You could shout “four” up here and it would be blown into the ether and beyond the intended recipient well before the ball connected with an unfortunate skull.
Lost balls under the Memorial tree
I reached the memorial tree, which was as good as its word. Cheltenham was below, but looking beyond it was just possible to make out the beginning of the Severn estuary and further to the west, the Black Mountains. Which was lovely, but then looking back in the direction of the wind and the Malvern Hills, it was obvious that the intensity of the rain raids was escalating, and that avoiding a cold soaking was becoming a priority.
Resistance is useless. Head for the trees? The Malvern’s take a battering
Following a track back I headed in the approximate direction of the high point. It wasn’t entirely obvious where that was but keeping the route I had come to my right I figured that I was on track. Two to three hundred metres on, and after a slightly steeper section, I found the trig point.
The high point looking towards Cheltenham and the Severn valley
Just beyond the trig point was the second toposcope in two days, its centre missing and the bare stainless-steel base reflecting the ominous sky above. There must have been a special toposcope funding stream in these parts at some point because every hill seemed to have one, although the centre disc for this one seemed more likely to now be a unique coffee table top in someone’s front room.
“Pass the sugar love.” Cleeve Hill toposcope missing its “scope”
A group of golfers, seemingly undeterred by what was coming our way, stood on a nearby raised tee. One was holding out his hand and showing a ball to the others.
“See this ball,” he said. “It’s impossible to lose.”
The other golfers looked on, one scratching his chin. “I don’t believe it,” he observed.
“No, straight up,” the owner of the ball replied. “You can hit this into the longest grass, hundreds of feet off the green, and you’ll always find it.”
“How does that work then?” another of the group asked.
“So, quite simple really. It’s got this tracking system linked to the phone. All I have to do is follow the signal and Bob’s your uncle.”
“Amazing! Must save you a fortune?” the other acknowledged. “Where did you get it?”
“Well, that’s the thing. I found it.”
A short distance on from the county top, on the route back down the hill towards the road, stood a small stone commemorating seven young men from Canada and Britain who died when their bomber crashed at the spot on 26th August 1944. I later read that there had been an eighty-year memorial ceremony at the site just a few days before my visit. A BBC article interviewed the daughter of one of the Canadian crew who had died when his wife (her mother) was four months pregnant. It was poignant, but it was obvious that the visit, after so many years, and across the ocean, had been a significant moment. *
Eighty years before
I sat a short distance above the memorial for a couple of minutes, but there was no getting away from the fact that the dirty big clouds to the northwest were on a direct trajectory, towards me!
The descent took me down a steep and highly pitted area of ground which suggested either another quarry or area of significant slumping. A few minutes later I was back at the layby, just as the first large spots of rain began to fall. Moments later, and in the car, the heavens truly opened.
As short walks go (just 2.5 miles) it had been entirely satisfying. I’d got lucky with the weather, but the stormy conditions had somehow elevated the views and enhanced the landscape. Whoever chose to site a golf course at over 1000 ft, on an exposed Gloucestershire heath, had been either foolish or brave. Other than flailing around on the local corporation nine-hole course in my teens and early twenties, where the motivation (to reach the bar before last orders), and objective was to complete the course without being completely crushed and humiliated, I’ve never been tempted by grown-up’s golf. Whilst many golf courses seem to possess the land, the one at Cleeve Hill integrates and complements the landscape without intruding. If I had been twenty years younger, and lived round here, well, I might just have…
El Colmado 57 