Bratho two

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This route travels through a busy and intensively-farmed area of South Gloucestershire - not an area I would pick for a leisure walk - but the gently rolling farming country was a lot more enjoyable than I expected, and thus succeeded in dragging a four-star rating out of me.

Although there is a fair amount of walking through wheat fields and lush mowing grass, and road noise from the A38, M5 and M4 rumbles around it at various intensities almost the whole way, this area has lots of pretty little copses and old hedge lines full of mature trees, and the undulating country offers some long views west over the River Severn and east towards the Cotswold Hills along the way. Access is via the usual rural mixture of kissing gates, footpath gates, stiles and farm gates, and does include quite a lot of old wooden structures, some of which have seen better days. Expect livestock, including horses, plus long grass in the meadows in early summer, and some muddy gateways and fields in winter. I don't remember noticing a pub or shop directly on the way but it is a relatively short route. Both ends are very well served by bus routes.

I walked from Thornbury to Bradley Stoke. The route skirts the town through playing fields and some sheep-grazed pastures, crosses the B-road and takes a municipal bin-flanked path around the back of the leisure centre before heading out into the open fields and climbing a gentle hill up to Alveston. There are wide views across the Severn Vale from here.

The route then fiddles around the edge of the village and crosses the busy A38. Take care here, but the crossing does have reasonable sight lines and a footway/verge to stand on either side. The path east around the back of the houses after crossing the lane a little further on looks as if it might get a bit overgrown in the summer, but also look to be walked regularly, as do the ongoing paths through the arable fields and pastures on the way to Rudgeway.

Beyond Rudgeway, the route heads along and then gently down a hill to cross the M5 and there are long views east, with three big wind turbines in the foreground. At the bottom, the path runs alongside the M5 for a few hundred yards before crossing it on a little concrete footbridge with steps on both sides. The path isn't quite as shown on the OS map here as it edges around a scrambling track made of piled earth and tractor tyres. This showed no sign of recent use when I passed through but might be a bit of an experience if you were walking by when there was any action.

Once over the motorway, there is more arable and grassy fields, with more views around. The section of the route from here to Gaunt’s Earthcott doesn't look to be as well-walked as the paths further north are. Signage is a bit patchy and the path infrastructure not always great, with access mostly through field gates, and one plank footbridge across a small shallow ditch (at approx w3w clouding.crafts.unsigned) in poor condition. In places the route deviates slightly from paths shown the OS map where, for example, farm storage has got in the way, a nearby gateway has taken over from a scrubbed-up footbridge, or the path has been re-routed to avoid a private garden, but navigation isn't generally difficult.

Eventually, approaching the edge of the city, the route leaves farmland behind, crosses the Hortham Brook and, tracking briefly uphill through a little scrubby wood, pops out into the entirely different, sculpted Tellytubby landscape of Woodlands Golf and Country Club, complete with lakes and a fountain. Again here the way through is not precisely as shown on the OS map but it is easy to follow the meandering stony track through and past the clubhouse without feeling much menaced by flying golf balls.

From the country club entrance, a lively local road leads over the M4 into Bradley Stoke. The pavement doesn't start until the bridge itself but there are verges on both sides. From here a short walk through a modern housing estate and across a pretty piece of remnant woodland leads to the end of the walk at the big Willow Brook Shopping Centre.

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