Blockley and Batsford Arboretum

England seems to be a country of trees. Walking through Gloucestershire you are surrounded by many native species, but when you visit Batsford Arboretum, you will encounter 50 acres (20.3ha) of woodland containing over 1,000 species of trees and shrubs from all over the world, including 90 species of Japanese magnolia, maples, cherry trees and conifers.

The arboretum was originally a garden created in the 1880s by the traveller and diplomat Bertie Mitford, 1st Lord Redesdale and grandfather to the renowned Mitford sisters. Posted as an attaché to the British Embassy in Tokyo, he became deeply influenced by the Far East. Throughout the park there are bronze statues, brought from Japan by Bertie Mitford, and a wide range of bamboos. Not long after his death, Batsford was sold to 1st Lord Dulverton and his son who transformed the garden into the arboretum we see today.

Batsford village is comparatively recent, having grown up at the gates of Batsford Park, a neo-Tudor house built between 1888 and 1892 by Ernest George for Lord Redesdale. Batsford Church was constructed earlier, in 1862, in a neo-Norman style. It has several monuments to the Mitford family and a fine work by the sculptor Joseph Nollekens from 1808.

This walk starts in the unspoilt village of Blockley. It was originally owned by the bishops of Worcester, but it didn’t really begin to prosper until the 19th century. At one time no fewer than six silk mills, with more than 500 employees, were driven by Blockley’s fast-flowing stream. Their silks went mostly to Coventry for the production of ribbon. Blockley was one of the first villages in the world to have electric light – in the 1880s, Dovedale House was illuminated through Lord Edward Spencer-Churchill’s use of water to run a dynamo. Blockley’s church tower predates the silk boom by about 100 years, and inside the large church are several imposing monuments, at least two of them by the eminent sculptor John Michael Rysbrack (1694-1770).

Keep the church and post office on your left and walk through the village, turning left at School Lane. Follow this down across a stream and up to the main road. Cross over and turn left on a short path signposted Quiet Lanes Footpath. Re-join the road at the bottom of the hill. Just before Lower Brook House turn right onto a lane, walking up for 0.25 miles (400m) until the lane bears left.

Continue ahead to pass to the right-hand side of a barn. In the next field, follow its right-hand boundary to another gate. Pass through to walk between pastures. Pass into yet another field, and after passing through the next gate go slightly right to a gate leading out to a road.

Go straight on and follow the road down to a crossroads. Turn right to pass through Batsford, to a junction from where you can visit the church on the right. After visiting the church retrace your steps to the junction and walk down the lime tree avenue. At the next junction turn right.

After 100 paces turn right onto a footpath and follow this through a succession of fields, negotiating stiles and gates where they arise. Batsford House will be visible above you to the right.

Eventually, go through a gate into a large field at a signposted junction of tracks, then turn right to a gate just left of a lodge at a drive. Cross this (the entrance to Batsford Arboretum), pass through a gate and follow the path up the field to a stile. Cross and continue to a track. Follow this up until it bears left. Keep right here (Monarch’s Way) to continue the ascent with the park wall on your right. Keep going until you reach a stile onto a road.

Cross the road to join a track, then go through a gate and pass through two fields until you come to a path among trees. Turn left, follow this downhill, then turn right over a stile into a field with Blockley below you. Continue down to a stile at the bottom. Cross into the next field and pass beneath Park Farm on your right. Cross a drive and descend to a stile. Keep ahead on a field path to a gate and stile, then follow a lane until you come to a road. Turn left at the Quiet Lanes Footpath and then, where this ends, cross the road carefully and return to your starting point in the village.