Winchcombe Rocks

Gloucestershire has an extremely rich and varied geology.

From the Carboniferous Limestone and Pennant Sandstone of the Forest of Dean that is underlain by huge thicknesses of Old Red Sandstone, through the ‘New Red’ sandstones and Lias clays of the flatter Severn Vale, to the Middle-Jurrasic Oolitic Limestone that forms the Cotswold hills, there is a lot going on.

For crying out loud, it’s recently taken delivery of some extra-terrestrial deposits all the way from the asteroid belt; just off Jupiter.

Winchcombe itself, the focus of this piece, sits very near to the edge of the Cotswold escarpment; nestled within an undulating, natural bowl formation with the escarpment to the south, Langley & Gretton Hills to the northwest and north, respectively, and Stanway Hill and Sudeley to the northeast and east, respectively.

This natural formation makes winchcombe a unique place. It has myriad hills and numerous rights of way or trails navigating many of them. These include The Winchcombe Way, The Gloucestershire Way and the Cotswold Way, which stretches all the way from Chipping Campden to Bath.

From churches to humble cottages, like most Cotswold settlements, Winchcombe has been imbued with a mellow, warm character from the golden yellow colour of the stone - to which many ‘honey-pot’ Cotswold towns owe their modern popularity and prosperity.

Once a significant settlement earning mention in the domesday book; its residents’ coffers filled by the wool trade, it was, at one point in history, regarded as the capitol of england (check reference). Winchcombe is now a simple, market town - although, it rarely hosts a market.

Whilst the prosperity that saw Winchcombe ascend to such lofty heights has gone, there remains many fine examples of high quality homes, some of considerable size or architectural quality, that demonstrates historic wealth. Almost all are built from the local stone; the characteristics of which make it a very good, and highly sought after, building material.  

The gargoyles of St. Peter’s Church offer a really fine example of the affinity of Cotswold stone for not just Ashlar but banker work and stone carving, as well as more regular rubble and walling material. Out on the trails, this can be witnessed up close courtesy of the Guiting Hare and Frog statues (place pin marker and photograph).

The Cotswold Hills are composed from three different geological stages of the Jurassic period; dating from between 210-140 million years ago. The steep escarpment to the west of the Cotswolds exposes sections through Lower and Middle Jurassic rocks. It is these Middle Jurassic rocks that are the characteristic 'Cotswold Limestones'.

‘Cotswold stone’ is subdivided into the Inferior and Great Oolite Groups.

The Inferior Oolite, which caps the main north-west facing escarpment, is composed of up to 100m of oolitic limestones including the Cheltenham freestone - quarried most extensively at Leckhampton and used widely in the distinctive Regency architecture of Cheltenham.

The Inferior Oolite Group can be seen in the numerous exposures along the western facing scarp of the Cotswolds. Composed of up to 100m of oolitic limestones, including the Cheltenham freestone - quarried most extensively at Leckhampton and used widely in the distinctive Regency architecture of Cheltenham, this group is described as soft, yellow, sandy limestone at the base, but gives way to more solid rocks as the sequence moves upwards to thick beds of fine-grained oolitic limestones of the Birdlip Limestone Formation (found most clearly at Cleeve Hill, Leckhampton), which were widely used as a high quality building stone.

Towards the top of the Inferior Oolite the limestones become more fossiliferous and are widely referred to as ‘grits’ due to their coarser texture. Unfortunately, the way the Inferior Oolite is exposed, particularly in places like Cleeve Cloud, as a broad vertical face of stone, it is not possible to appreciate the grip afforded by the exposed grit and fossils but, as I ride by in blur, along the thin ribbons of trail that criss-cross the cloud, I often see climbers taking full advantage of it.

In reality, riding trails in the Cotswolds, particularly if you venture away from the escarpment itself, you’ll most likely, with infrequent exception, experience conditions more attributable to the Great Oolite.

The Great Oolite, sitting above the Inferior Oolite and forming the base to much of the rather barren Cotswold plateau, encompasses a variety of oolitic, shelly, sandy or marly limestone beds, many of which are used for building purposes such as dry-stone walling and roof tiles. Generally paler, off-white to grey, in places varying to brown, and course in texture.

Where exposed, the stone is often fragmented and comes in all shapes and sizes; from dinner plate (and bigger) sized slates with ragged edges and course surfaces, to small, fist sized stones. These loosely assembled pieces of stone are all glued together, mostly, by a sandy, gravelly silt that dries almost as hard as concrete in the summer (before blowing out entirely to emulate beach like sand) but in wetter conditions becomes a killer of components with its grainy, abrasive texture.

Further afield (away from the escarpment, right up on the plateau, the golden hue of the stone has mixed with the overlying muds to create something even worse. Of a sticky, claggy, clay-like consistency and orange in colour, when wet, Cotswold Mud is the devil’s work.

Up on the plateau, there are small areas where traffic, weather, erosion has exposed more of the stone beds; particularly on steeper topography, which leads to the presence of pockets of loose, rocky trails. Away from the escarpment, however, these tend to be isolated sections where the trails are more focussed but, in most cases, the trails and bridleways pass through open fields and common land that undulates with less amplification.

The trails themselves are more indicative than defined and the ground more ‘muddy’ than rocky. This stuff, in wet conditions, will very quickly stick to your tyres, making them appear as though some new form of fat fat tyre and making a mockery of bike design and tyre clearance; eventually, bringing the whole motion thing to an unquestionable halt.

And, you don’t need to venture far from the escarpment to find such conditions. Over the top of Cleeve Common, the exposed trails aren’t too bad but even here, where less obvious, they can become quite messy in winter. However, even where compacted, the binding is more sandy than claggy, and rideable, but venture over to the far side, at the end of the Gallops, and the trails change from the blonde, sandy colour to a much deeper shade of orange. In the summer, these trails ride fine, eventually joining back to the more rocky, exposed trail behind Belas Knapp but in winter they will stop you in your tracks, quite literally.

I quite like a ride to be rounded in terms of trail type, technicality and flow and some of the best routes in the Cotswolds tick all three with blinding sections of singletrack mixed with some wooded loam, some high tech drop ins and flat out rocky descents. I think I tend towards the technical jeopardy of rockier trails compared to mud/rooty trails and, as such, the majority of my favourite trail sections within the Cotswolds are located somewhere along the escarpment and orientated downwards.

From Broadway and Stanton all the way to Cleeve and Leckhampton there are a fair share of rocky descents to pick from but, some of my favourite routes actually venture much further in to the depths of the plateau where peace and quiet can be appreciated amongst beautiful views and serene singletrack. They are, however,  also far more prone to weather and conditions so not as rideable as often.

Snowshill is a good example. Starting/finishing at the bottom of the escarpment, there is myriad choice of great, rocky descent back in to Laverton, Stanton, Stanway & Hailes, to name a few, but the top is just not worth it unless preceded by a few weeks of dry (and warm) weather or off the back of a heavy frost, lest you want to carry the bike for the most of it  (yes, that has happened - i thought it’d get better. It didn’t).

The great thing about the Cotswolds is that no ride is ever the same, there’s too much to choose from to be so restrictive and, no matter what the weather and trail conditions are, they’ll always be a route that works. Getting the maps out and piecing those routes together is half the fun of it (for me, at least) and knowing which routes will work and which are best avoided is simply down to experience and knowledge (I have been caught out enough times from ill begotten ventures down unsuitable trails, only to find myself scraping the clay from the tyres cos they simply won’t turn anymore before eventually giving up and dragging the bike to more suitable conditions, to know where is crap and when).

 

Headspace

20 months ago, I became a father. It was the proudest, happiest, most emotional day of my life.

The immense joy I had at seeing mini me arrive safely in to this world, and the ongoing pleasure I get seeing my little chap grow and develop, is immeasurable.

But, in a seeming attempt at balancing the scales, fate has decreed that, as compensation, I must now suffer a significant reduction in riding time. I can’t have both.

That’s ok. It was hard to come to terms with at first; I knew it would happen but, nonetheless, I was still unprepared.

Watching YouTube clips and Instagram stories from friends’ and associates’ rides, and matching that up to their Strava feeds has done nothing but feed the thought of being left out. I should just put my phone down and block it out but, you know, we all suffer with insatiable appetites for social interaction. Keeping on top of everyone else’s goings on is a huge part of that.

I mean, how can I be influenced if I don’t check out the influencer’s channels.

Anyway, What has actually struck me most since this change in circumstance is not the lack of bike time - although that is very obvious in its absence - but the lack of me time, in general. The importance of headspace. Or, more specifically, the ability to engage with it; or the time to, has become very prominent.

I can’t say the same for everybody (I’m not a psychologist) but I know from personal experience that not having enough time to myself can lead to feeling repressed. For some, this may not be a lot. For other’s, time for reflection is a considerable element of their social wellbeing.

Me, personally; I’m like a dog scratching at the door, or holding the lead in front of its owner. I need to get outside. I like it there. It helps give my brain a chance to breathe.

I always find a good bike ride allows my consciousness some time off, giving my unconscious thoughts the room to grow. In a creative capacity, this can be very liberating. With my brain left to undertake base functions only, such as breathing (literally), there is more room to breathe (figuratively); and space for ideas to bloom.

I have had some of my more creative thoughts whilst in the midst of a hard as f**k climb up whatever hill I’ve decided is the days torture.

Before M arrived, I would ride 2 or 3 times a week, averaging 30km a ride (2-3 hours a time). Some might say this isn’t actually a lot but it was enough for me. Since M arrived, however, this has dwindled to the point that between Christmas (2019, in case you were wondering) and the end of April, I’d been out once on my bike.

Babies/children take up a lot of time; so much so that it can be hard to find the time or space to think about anything else. You spend 90% of it trying to prevent them from killing themselves and the other 10% trying to calm them down after they throw a Hissy fit due to your interventions.

Since his birth, I think I’ve been so engrossed in this little being, that requires all the help I can give him to survive, that I’d sort of forgotten about myself and, in the midst of his arrival, getting out for a bike ride became difficult; so I took up running.

However, running is is nowhere near the same (for me) - for a start, I’ve found it is a lot harder to get rid of an ear worm whilst running than it is out on the bike. Seriously, if it’s not Hey Duggee, I’m humming the theme to Mr ‘effin tumble, constantly - but it does help with head space.

I have found proper mountain bike riding time hard to come by, which itself is depressing at first. I have, simply, had to revise how and where I get my fix for the time being; linking up local bridleways and gravel tracks to create half an hour of off road freedom still provides a break for my mind.

I can vary the routes, to mitigate boredom, but they’re not hugely technical and not really that interesting. The important thing, however, is the ability to get lost in my headspace.

When I’m on the mountain bike, it doesn’t really matter where I’m going. I’ll happily ride to the shops (the long way round, obvs) if it gives me a chance to draw breath.

Babies demand 100% of your attention and energy most of the time; whatever is left is usually reserved for a cup of tea (which inevitably goes cold) but there are ways to get some headspace, if you are willing to compromise and determined to find solutions.

Mine is on my bike and, thankfully, it’s always there when I need it.