Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
PAINSWICK BEACON
Painswick Beacon has several other names: Painswick Hill (on the OS map), the
Castles, Castle Godwyn and Kimsbury Hill. Overlooking Gloucester and the Severn Vale
it was settled as a hill fort by late Iron Age tribes, was used in 1052 as a temporary
camp by Earl Godwyn (a Saxon leader in conflict with the Earl of Mercia), and again in
1643 by Royalist forces following the lifting of the Siege of Gloucester. The 250 acres
(101 hectares) of common land are speckled with birches and the manicured fairways
and greens of Painswick Hill Golf Club.
The route across the golf course is extremely pleasant and relaxing to
walk, with no hills to tackle and few alternative trails to confuse. On the
far side you enter Pope's Wood and join a metalled lane. When this curves
right you continue ahead on a clear track. It soon comes to a minor road,
which you cross and continue ahead, then veer right alongside the bound-
ary wall of Prinknash Park. After about 100 metres reach a junction of
roads at Cranham Corner, also known as Prinknash Corner.
Prinknash Abbey
lies down the slope about ½ mile (800m) to the north, where refreshments can be had at
the visitor centre.
On the outskirts of Painswick the route crosses a golf course below Painswick Beacon
Cross the A46 and walk ahead along Sanatorium Road, then fork left on
a path among fine beech woods. Waymarks direct you along the correct
path as there are several alternative tracks, some rather enticing. Brock-
worth and Buckholt woods are linked by a short and well-waymarked 'cor-
ridor', and the route continues to wind its way, now among ash, sycamore
and birch, as well as the ubiquitous beech, until at last you emerge to an
open grassy glade on
Cooper's Hill
, with its maypole at the head of the
