Ebrington Hill

261 Metres

865 feet

20th December 2024

A Winter Warmer

Despite Warwickshire being almost bang central England, when I came to think about it (other than driving through parts of it, mainly on the M6), I had only ever been there twice. Once, for a day trip nearly forty years ago when visiting Stratford upon Avon and Warwick, and once to visit Coventry in my 50th year (by which time the fair City was no longer in the county).

That said, there was one other occasion, and it lasted about a year. I was born in Coventry in late 1957 but had left the city a few months later. In 1957 Coventry was enjoying a relatively short number of years (132 to be precise) back in Warwickshire, after being banished from the county in 1451, and not re-establishing its presence again until 1842. It was dispatched again, to become part of the West Midlands Combined Authority in 1974, where it remains. Looking at a modern map of Warwickshire it looks like a sea cucumber type creature that’s taken a kick in the stomach, with Coventry being the tip of the boot that’s sticking it in.

If you have been keeping up with this irrelevant preamble, you’ll see that by the respective dates, at the time of my birth, Coventry was in Warwickshire. That makes me a son of the county. Who knew? When I was fifty, I thought it was about time I took a diversion on a journey further north and investigate where I’d spent my first few months. By then of course, it was no longer part of Warwickshire (see above!). I arrived at the large estate to the northeast of the city centre and found the road where I knew the flats were located. Except they had gone. Demolished, presumably, as part of an estate regeneration program. From what I could see of what was left, it was going to take a lot more than a regeneration program, or a visit from Michael Heseltine, to breathe any life back into it. I didn’t get out of the car, and drove on with a sense of outrage and shame. * 

But this is not about Coventry. It’s about Ebrington Hill, the highest point in Warwickshire, (located on the boundary with Gloucestershire, to the very southwest of the county), how I got there, and then home.  

A week before Christmas, and a couple of months since I’d last topped a county (Oxfordshire and White Horse Hill), and I was getting twitchy. I had a family appointment in Bedfordshire on Wednesday afternoon. Normally I would have made the journey and then driven the three hours plus trip back home. But I didn’t much fancy that prospect. I looked at a map. Where could I get to in an hour or so after my visit that didn’t take me too far from home, and gave me an option on a summit the next day? 

It didn’t take too long, and the day before I left, I booked a reasonably priced room in an hotel in Royal Leamington Spa, a place I knew with all certainty that I had never been to before. On the day I arrived just before 8pm, and as quick as a flash had made it into town and sequestered the only remaining seat in the Copper Pot inn, just in time for kick off. Tottenham v Manchester United in the League Cup quarter final. I’m determined to avoid football references as much as possible in these accounts, but for 60 minutes I felt as if I was in a dream after Spurs marched into a three-goal lead, and with no hint whatsoever that United were going to be able to lay a glove on the boys from the Lane. And then, inexplicably, our goalie (good, but old, and not first choice) managed to pass the ball directly to an opposition forward, and it was 3-1. Then, just a couple of minutes later, the same goalie dithered on the ball in his own box, and another opposition forward, half his age, nipped in and slipped the ball into the net to make it 3-2, and suddenly Spurs were on the ropes. My little daytrip treat to myself was now beginning to feel like a monstrous mistake. But then, with just two minutes of the ninety left on the clock, Son Heung-min swung the ball directly into the net from a corner and it was 4-2, and we were safe. The United fans behind me at the bar, who had been urging their team on after the two self-inflicted calamities, were mercifully silenced and the United goalie spent the next two minutes running around after the referee claiming he’d been fouled. It was comically embarrassing. At least the Spurs goalie had just shook his head and taken his shots. With five minutes of extra time United made it 4-3, and despite a final nervous moment Spurs had won and were in the semi-finals. I hadn’t been that happy in years, and on the way back to the hotel popped into a nice local pub where the TV was showing an interview with the droll Spurs antipodean manager. I just sat with my beer giggling. 

The next morning, and after a hearty breakfast, I went back into town strolling the Georgian streets and the charming riverside park (even in mid-December), scratching my head and wondering why I had never been to Leamington Spa before. By the time it was time to go I had made a mental note that a visit on a warmer day would not be without reward, but also made a note not to bother revisiting the station, unless I was going to be arriving by train. Art-deco is not generally my thing, but I understand that at the time it was a valid art and design form and has occasionally produced significantly important architecture (think Hoover building at Perivale, or the Carreras Cigarette factory at Mornington Crescent). Whoever was responsible for the brutalist art-deco station in Georgian, Royal Leamington Spa (Percy Emerson Culverhouse to be precise), had clearly come from a splinter faction influenced by certain, in vogue at the time, European dictatorships.  

You can’t blame WW2 for this one

I set off from outside the hotel just after 10.30am and straight into a traffic jam that refused to release me for the next half an hour. A tad frustrating, but eventually I was just south of Warwick castle and looking at the map to find my way south to my objective. There were several options, all pretty much the same in terms of time, but the route that would take me along Flat Rabbit Road appealed, I guess for the obvious curiosity factor. Somehow, I must have missed the turn for Flat Rabbit Road, because a while later I was turning right at a roundabout and onto the Fosse Way and hadn’t seen a single flat rabbit. 

Taking the Fosse Way (the old Roman road from Lincoln to Exeter) had not been in my route plan but after a few minutes, as the virtually straight road rose and took the high ground, and with fine views across the Midlands, I was overcome by a sense of nostalgia. Forty-six years before, and living in Leicester, a housemate in the student digs I lived in offered to take me for a weekend in Bristol, near to where he lived. We set off in his moss-covered classic green Austin Morris 1000 Traveller, and instead of doing the obvious, taking the M1 and then M4, and probably because the engine was ill-equipped to pass muster, we stuck to the Fosse Way for most of the journey. As I drove on southwest, taking in the vastness of the unfolding views, the original journey was coming back to me in spades. My friend Andy was one of those people who just made life worth living. An intelligent bright spirit, great footballer and full of life, and who was so funny you could be in tears of laughter for hours. 

Generally, I loathe driving but fittingly my iPod, as if it was sensing the occasion, started chucking out some bangers. The volume went up and the miles passed by with the likes of the Manics and Jimi Hendrix pounding out the soundtrack. Every so often, red and white signage at the side of the road reminded people that it was a High Risk Crash Route, and came with casualty statistics. It made grim reading, and whilst I was doing my best not to get carried away, and sticking to the speed limits despite the motivational music, I could easily see how less disciplined motorists might find it very tempting to put the pedal to the metal on the Fosse Way.

For three or four years after leaving university I kept in touch with Andy, but eventually the letters stopped, and we went on to have our separate lives. There was nothing particularly odd about that in those days. Decades on, and with the ability to connect to anyone on the planet with the touch of a keypad, occasionally I have tried to search him out, but to no avail. I guess, having a Christian name that at the time would have been one of the most common in the country, and a surname that very much is the most popular in the country, my failure to track down the charming man, has perhaps not been unexpected. I miss him and his company. Thanks for showing me the Fosse Way, Mr Smith. 

At Halford the road I’d hoped to take to Armscote was closed. With a bit of guesswork, I found another narrow back road that took me into what appeared to be a very exclusive village. I headed west out of the Armscote and some minutes later arrived in the larger village of Ilmington. I parked up on Grump Street, which overlooked a large green, and checked my bearings. I could see from the directions on the phone app that I was near my destination, but for the moment I took a few seconds to look over the green towards the fine solid buildings, and beyond the stone tiled roofs of the village. Without exception, and despite the overcast conditions, every building, old and new, radiated an exquisite orangey, yellow colour that I assumed to be sandstone. (Nevertheless, and overcome by a sense of curiosity, I later looked at the area on the British Geological Survey’s Geology viewer. Much to my surprise I discovered that this was the start of the Cotswolds, and that the building material in the area was Oolitic limestone). On another day I would have parked up and walked through the village and found a way up to the top of the hill. But rain was in the air, the wind was whipping up and it wasn’t another day.

Driving out of the village and heading west, the road suddenly started a steep climb that continued for about a mile. Instinctively I knew I was heading in the right direction, the direction being up. The bright low midwinter sun of the early morning that had illuminated Leamington Spa, was now a distant memory. The road began to flatten out and large muddy fields opened out on either side. The last remaining leaves were being cleared from their parent branches and being flung at the windscreen. Now driving west on Nebsworth Road I knew I would soon arrive at a small road on the right. Moments later, and about a hundred metres on, a small and immaculate vintage sky-blue tractor pulled out of a turning on the right and started towards me. A contented looking man sat on the open seat. From what I could see the tractor was pulling a small trailer with a couple of bales of hay. I hadn’t seen a quaint rustic sight like this in decades, but one thing was for certain, that turning was my road. I could very easily have missed it if the farmer hadn’t chosen that moment to deliver some hay to his flock.

The land that carried this one-track road appeared to be flat. Hardly the stuff of county peaks, but after a quarter of a mile I recognised Lark Stoke transmitter station on the left-hand side. I had read that the highest point was just nearby. Despite the narrow hedged lane, a verge on the left (and just short of the transmitter entrance), allowed enough room to pull over and park up (remarkably I had noticed this tiny detail when I’d checked out the location on Google). I changed into my boots and stepped out into a gale. For some reason I had imagined that at this moment twenty Disney cartoon red breasted robins would descend chirping merrily from the nearby trees and knowingly escort me to my destination. But, for some reason they didn’t, and I was left to my own devices.  

Just opposite the transmitter station (a building that looked like it had another more sinister purpose to that advertised) a signed footpath led me between two fields. I tiptoed through muddy puddles for about a hundred metres until I was certain that the land was beginning to dip away, turned my phone camera into the brutal wind, took a single shot (my eyes were streaming so much I couldn’t be arsed to take a second), and beat the retreat back to the car.

Somewhere around here, I think. Ebrington Hill and a seasonal crop?

I had just enough interest in the moment to have a glance around and took a second photo of the wide-open landscape to the west, where hills cropped up here and there and onto the horizon, before surrendering and falling back into the car. I had had my moment on the Birdlip limestone peak of Mount Ebrington. **

Lark Hill Transmitter – Not the right direction to the top

Whilst I wasn’t entirely sure that I had taken the right path (some posts about this location give the misleading impression that the top of Ebrington Hill is along the track past the transmitter station, near a trig point set in a wall), I was pretty certain that I had been there or thereabouts. I may have missed it by an inch, but it was getting on and I needed to get home. 

I didn’t bother changing back into my trainers. Turning the car around and heading back south, some distance down the lane a couple with a dog were sauntering in my direction. As I neared them it was obvious that the road wasn’t wide enough to allow continuous safe passage, so I stopped to let them pass. As they neared it suddenly struck me that being in such a remote setting there would be customs to observe, and it would be rude not to say something (although of course I could have just smiled and nodded). They were virtually by the side of the car when I let the window down. The problem with my plan was that, at just the moment they looked down at me, I hadn’t come up with anything to say other than an awkward “hello.” Whatever the impulse was that had led me into this potentially disastrous course of action was now horribly exposed, but they smiled, and I knew I had to say something more. The problem was that the “something more,” which had suddenly popped into my head, was going to sound so insane that initially I couldn’t spit it out. Nonetheless, I could see they were hanging on, as if waiting for a punchline.

“Ehhmm… err.. I err.. hmmmm,” (I had made an appalling start), “was wondering if that err.. field back there is… errrr… the, hmm….,” (I knew they were now worrying for their personal safety), “maybe the hmmm.. highest point in…. ehhmm…err…. Warwickshire?”    

It seemed (from my perspective at least) that the tension was broken, and indeed they both smiled a bit more confidently. “Yes, yes,” the woman said, “just down the path a bit and at the hedge opposite the wireless station.” It was a huge affirmation, which of course I hadn’t really needed, but hey!

To my great relief, and almost certainly as a consequence of being spared further embarrassment, I immediately turned into a chirpy cockney type, gave them a big smile, said that that was great and I could now tick it off my list, and then thanked them profusely. They smiled back sympathetically, giving looks that implied they were asked the same question every other day. I figured that the local neighbourhood watch would be notified regardless (and correctly), and with a little wave set off south. 

I should really end this narrative around now with a succinct summary, but I still had to get down South, and home, so I’m afraid there is a little bit more to consume. 

I headed off in the general direction of Chipping Campden, but would be veering back east at some point and heading for Banbury, the M40 and then the three-and-a-half-hour journey beyond. It was the Friday before Christmas and the radio was alive with warnings about it being the busiest day on the roads all year. Great!! I hadn’t factored that scenario in at the planning stage.

A mile or so from Ebrington Hill, and on a road that headed downhill, four jays emerged out of the surrounding hedges and flew (knowingly perhaps) in front of the car for a couple of hundred metres. I have never seen more than one jay at any one time, so to have four – well perhaps it was the Disney moment I’d hoped for earlier. 

The B4035, that headed east, and would get me across the county to Banbury, was picturesque, even in the bleak midwinter. Villages and small towns that were so rural pretty they looked like they had been built with the sole intention of being photographed for Christmas cards and biscuit tins, came and went. I don’t exactly know where the alleged north/south divide starts and finishes (I think it used to be Watford), or even if it has any real meaning, but judging by the apparent affluence on display in this part of Warwickshire, if this really was north the societal characteristics are being well hidden.  

Approaching the outskirts of Banbury I stopped driving and sat in a jam for twenty minutes. Forty minutes later I was slowly squeezed out of Banbury and onto the M40. The forecast of road chaos had been accurate, at least in and around the small market town, and with deep foreboding about what would happen at the M25, I started to head south. After a few minutes I recognised the tell-tale embryonic signs of a migraine, an irritating event that comes out of the blue from time to time. That said, on this occasion I had half an idea why. A long day driving the day before, followed by three pints of the local best in Royal Leamington Spa, and then being woken before 6am by the extraction system from the kitchen in the nursing home opposite my room (surprisingly, not advertised in the on-line blurb promoting the rooms benefits), almost certainly played a part. Knowing how things might pan out, a couple of miles on I pulled into Cherwell service station. An hour, and two rejuvenating strong tea’s later, I had recovered. Somehow, I’d missed a bullet. It could have been a lot worse. If it had, I may have had to abandon further travel and book into the on-site hotel. As I sipped on my tea, eye’s half closed and avoiding bright lights, I thought about the hundred or so migraines I have had over the last two decades. About 50% had been of the mild variety (like the one I was having), and about 50% had left me debilitated for hours. Fortunately, I don’t get the serious headaches that can have a major impact on other people’s lives but trying to explain to anyone what my migraines are like is an almost impossible task. As I thought back on the day it occurred to me that the next time someone asks me what one of my bad one’s is like, I would say that I felt like a flat rabbit.

As I went back to the car I checked emails on my mobile phone. There was one from a delivery company saying they were delivering a package that afternoon, and at a time I knew I wasn’t going to be home in time for. Given that I hardly every order anything on-line it was frustrating. I tried to open a link that said I could give further instructions if I wasn’t going to be home (where was that function when I had ordered it?), but there was insufficient signal so that was that. 

I carried on south, feeling okay, but increasingly anxious about the delivery and the prospect of it being dumped outside the door in the pouring rain. With the M25 approaching fast I saw a sign to Beaconsfield services. I still had an hour to influence the delivery, and so pulled in and parked up as far from the main building as possible. This time there was a signal and I managed to open the link. The options were limited (like, where was the option to leave it behind the white Grecian style planter with the eucalyptus bush?), so I nominated a favoured neighbour (and apologised in my head at the same moment). After I was as satisfied as I could be that I had completed the task, I looked up. And there it was! In the parking bay opposite, and in the photo below. Wrong colour, and the driver a different gender, but a ghost from the past, nevertheless.    

What, I wondered, were the odds?

Whatever all the fuss was about, the anticipated nightmare on the M25 failed to materialise, and I circumnavigated the south of London faster than I had in years. The migraine aside it had been a very satisfactory 48-hours, and I’d connected another bit of the puzzle. On this occasion to Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Worcestershire. The other adjacent counties, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Staffordshire, and, it now seemed, West Midlands Combined Authority, would have to wait until next year (or the next, who knows?).

The following day, browsing as you do, an ad popped up. Big Country (the band) were playing Leamington Spa in April 2025. Hmmm…?

* Just three days after writing this piece a news feed popped up on my phone informing me that, for the moment, no decision was going to be taken to merge Warwickshire with the West Midlands Combined Authority. As if that had ever been a thing! But it was, and it is. I’m going to have to check to see if the West Midlands Combined Authority is on my list and where its highest point lies. This is getting trickier. 

**The birdlip limestone at Ebrington hill is the same formation that outcrops at Cleeve Hill in Gloucester, which I had been to two months earlier. Without looking this up I would never have made any connection between these two very differing landscapes. It’s a big county indeed.  

To my old friend Andy Smith and the spirit of the Fosse Way.