Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The earth ramparts of Sodbury Hill Fort were constructed during the Iron Age
Bear right. Along the road you will come to a junction by St Adeline's
Church in
Little Sodbury
(grid ref: 757833). Turn right, and a few paces
later go left beside a cottage, then half-right by the back door into a field.
Follow the left-hand boundary hedge and maintain direction through suc-
cessive fields, passing below a farm reservoir in a dip and up the other
side, still in the same direction, then through the middle of a last field,
along a short drive, and out to the village street in Horton.
Turn right, and a very short distance later branch left at a junction by
the village school on a lane signed to
Horton Court
.
Horton Court
must be
one of England's oldest inhabited buildings, for parts in use today were built in 1180.
The Norman hall and a detached ambulatory (Italian-style loggia) are open to the pub-
lic by the National Trust on set days between April and October.
Within a few paces
leave the lane to go through a kissing gate on the right, then up a slope
to a second kissing gate which takes you into a sloping meadow. Wander
along its lower edge, then angle up towards a stone-built folly erected as
a millennium project to encourage nesting swallows and barn owls. Main-
tain direction beyond the tower and enter Horton Hill Fort. Cut diagonally
through this to the far left-hand corner, then walk along the left-hand edge
of a hilltop field. The way now enters a belt of trees, through which
Hor-
ton Church, a
you descend a zigzag path into a lower field. The contin-
snatched view
uing path leads to more woodland, which you enter through
a kissing gate. On coming to a path junction cross almost directly ahead
and weave among beech trees along the top of the slope, then out through
a gate into a scrubby meadow.
