Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
age a little over 20 miles (32km) per day, although this is most definitely
a route to be walked at a leisurely pace. As a rough guide, for a route of
this length about 2½ miles (4km) an hour will probably be maintained by
most regular walkers. When calculating how long any given stage is likely
to take, do not forget to include time for rests, photography, consulting
the map or guidebook, studying something of particular interest, or admir-
ing a view - all of which add substantially to the day's activity. In hot, wet
or windy conditions your pace is likely to be slower than normal, so take
the weather into account too.
At the beginning of the description of each section of the route, you
will find the distance quoted in miles and kilometres (metric equivalents
are rounded to the nearest half). Details are given of specific map sheets,
and a note of where accommodation and refreshments may be found.
Throughout the route text you will find items or places of interest high-
lighted in bold type, and nearby, in a box, additional information on the
subject.
Occasionally grid references are quoted to allow you to locate a given
position on the OS map, which is divided by a series of vertical and hori-
zontal lines to create a grid (the British National Grid). Each of these lines
is allocated a number which is quoted at the top, bottom and either side of
the map sheet. Numbers increase from left to right for vertical lines (east-
ings), and from bottom to top for horizontal lines (northings).
To identify an exact position on the map from a grid reference, take
the first two digits from the six-figure number quoted - these refer to the
'eastings' line on the OS sheet. The third digit is calculated in tenths of
the square moving from left to right. Next, take the fourth and fifth digits,
which refer to the 'northings' line, and finally take the sixth and last digit
to estimate the number of tenths in the northing square moving up the
sheet.
THE COTSWOLDS
The landscape
When walking a long-distance route it is useful to know something of its
history, and the landscape's background. About 180 million years ago, the
region now known as the Cotswolds was covered by a warm, shallow sea.
On its bed settled the shells of tiny creatures along with sediments of sand
and clay. Over untold millennia these sediments were compressed into the
