Deathly drama at Moyles Court

Somewhat ironically, the turbulent days of the Monmouth Rebellion and Judge Jeffreys’ Bloody Assizes are the focus of this gloriously peaceful walk. But first, a little context.

Monmouth’s rebellion

When Charles II died on 6 February, 1685, following a fit four days earlier, a shadow hung over the succession of the throne. Despite fathering at least a dozen children illegitimately, Charles and his queen remained childless. In the absence of any legitimate children, his unpopular Roman Catholic brother was proclaimed James II of England and James VII of Scotland.

In the meantime the Protestant Duke of Monmouth, the eldest of Charles' illegitimate children, was living in exile in the Netherlands and raising support for his claim to the English throne. Hearing of his father’s death and James’ accession, he sailed for England with his supporters, landing at Lyme Regis on 11 June. After some adventures and skirmishes in the West Country, Monmouth was pushed back onto the Somerset Levels and finally defeated by a Royalist army at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July.

A local tragedy

Monmouth’s supporters scattered and in the aftermath of Sedgemoor, the notorious Judge Jeffreys rounded up fugitives from Monmouth’s army for trial in his Bloody Assizes. Two of them, Richard Nelthorpe and the Nonconformist minister John Hickes, arrived at Dame Alice’s door in Moyles Court on 20 July and were given shelter for the night. But the following morning the two men were arrested along with Dame Alice who, despite her denials that the men were in her house, was tried in Winchester and convicted of treason for harbouring the King’s enemies. Jeffreys sentenced her to be burned at the stake – though, following pleas for clemency, James II commuted her sentence to beheading.

Dame Alice Lisle was executed in the Square at Winchester in September 1685 and is buried beside the porch at Ellingham church.

Walk back down the car park access road, cross the ford and follow the road for 150yds (137m) past Moyles Court School. Turn right through the kissing gate onto the Avon Valley Path (AVP), walk up between the paddocks and turn left, continuing beside the woods to a kissing gate.

Keep ahead, following the waymarked AVP as it follows the contour around the hillside and bears right, with more paddocks opening up beyond the fence on your left. At the end of the paddocks keep left beside the fence, turn left at a short, stubby AVP waymarker post and follow the signposted route across a boardwalk and then a plank bridge and up to a track.

Leave the AVP here and turn right along the track, past redbrick stables, climbing steadily past a wooden barrier and following the track up onto the open heath. As the track levels off, look out for a pond down the slope on your left.

Turn right here taking the clear path through the heather. Continue as the path drops steeply off the plateau, then follow the raised gravel track to cross a footbridge and walk ahead up to a road.

Cross straight over and climb steeply, staying with the path as it levels out and dives through a narrow belt of silver birch trees to a wider gravel path immediately beyond the trees.

Turn right and keep right at the fork a few paces further on. From here, follow the clear, level route past the old workings on your left until it joins an old metalled access road and drops down past a barrier to the car park.