Every Common’s awesome

“I’ve just don’t change that much ‘cause who’s to impress?
There’s nobody around when I’m at my best.
I should get out more, I should get out more.”

Room Temperature by Faye Webster

We’re not going to make the case that walking is good for you, or that being out in nature is brilliant for your peace of mind, there’s enough of that sort of thing already. What we are going to do is make it easier for you to get out and experience the natural and human landscapes around us.

We’ve got some walks here that join up the paths around and through and between our Commons and village greens.

Commoner than you think

Minchinhampton and Rodborough Commons are ‘urban commons’, so as well as being available to locals for grazing livestock, they’re intended for people to enjoy open, rugged green spaces. Besides them, there’re many other, smaller commons around us. Some like Bownham and St Chloe Green are fairly well known, others are absolutely obscure – maybe scarcely more than verges or hidden in woods.

(Commons can be woods. The term ‘Common’ is more about the rights common people have to be on the land, not about what grows on them.)

By our reckoning there’s 31 separate bits of Commons and village greens around here, and if you do all of our walks, you’ll visit all of them.

Respect nature

We’re showing you paths and routes that’ll take you through some of the most important and rarest natural spaces in Britain and sometimes even Europe. Our parish is vital to the existence of many plants and animals. If we’re careless with them, that’s it.

• Whatever you bring to the Commons, take it back home with you. Don’t leave anything behind.
• Don’t damage any plants, don’t dig or rut the ground, be careful of ground-nesting birds and the cattle.
• Be patient for the cattle, and remember that sometimes they sprint to join the rest of their herd, without looking both ways for traffic.
• Keep your dogs and other animals well under control. Yes we mean ‘other’. A gorilla once lived in Uley.
• Animal mess is your mess. There’s bins for it.
• Park in the parking areas. Every time you go on the grass you squash plants and crush soils. All of it is damage that takes ages to fully recover.

The Walks

Here’s the walks. We’ve planned a fair few others, and they’ll appear here as soon as they’ve been tested. Map and instructions. Collect them all!

Snakes-Lane-Watledge-Hill-instructions-v2