Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and continue over the next two fields towards a barn. On reaching the barn
at Lilliput Farm turn left along a narrow lane, or track (grid ref: 734710).
The track forks and you take the right branch over a cattlegrid. In a
dip there's a second cattlegrid and a stream ford. Now ascend the right-
hand hillside, bearing halfright, where two steeply sloping fields linked by
a stile bring you to a flattish hilltop field. Walk ahead over this to a kissing
gate giving onto a track. Bear right along this track, and when it ends go
through a gate and keep ahead along the edge of a sloping meadow. Near
the top right-hand corner you'll find a stone stile in a wall, together with a
white commemorative stone and an illustrated board giving details of the
Battle of Lansdown which took place here in 1643. (There is a very fine
view to the south-east.)
GRANVILLE MONUMENT
The Granville Monument marks an area known as the Battlefields on Lansdown Hill
where, on 5 July 1643, Royalist troops pursued a Parliamentarian army led by Sir Wil-
liam Waller into what became remembered as the Battle of Lansdown. During the pur-
suit up the hill, Waller's men fired their cannon into the Royalists, but Sir Bevil Gran-
ville stormed the hill on horseback in an attempt to stop the guns. He was success-
ful, causing the Parliamentarians to retreat, but at the moment his Cornishmen broke
through, Granville was hit and mortally wounded. He was carried to Cold Ashton Man-
or where he died the same night. (Of some 2000 Royalists taking part in the battle,
only 600 are thought to have survived.) The monument was erected in 1720 by Sir
Bevil's grandson, Lord Lansdown.
Cross the stile and walk along the right-hand side of the battlefield be-
side the wall. When the wall ends, slant away half-right on a narrow foot-
path into a small woodland, alongside a low mossy wall, then over a stile
to the
Granville Monument
- a fussy memorial surrounded by iron rail-
ings (grid ref: 722704).
