Walking with Offa 11: The Top of the World to Bucknell

Walk directions

1. Step 1

   Start in Church Road (off Station Road), Knighton
   Walk up past the Bowling Club, straight on at the junction and past the church. Turn right (Cemetery Road), then left, and right at the Cemetery to follow the road to a gravelled parking area. Take the footpath by the river Teme. Soon the Offa’s Dyke National Trail (acorn sign) joins from the left which you follow. Continue through three gates and a meadow, before crossing the river and the railway to emerge at a road.

2. Step 2

   Beyond the gate opposite the path appears to split, but all routes meet up where the hillside opens out. Take the track that climbs steeply past two fingerposts to a third post at a path junction.

3. Step 3

   Turn left here and follow Offa’s Dyke (acorn sign) as it undulates for 1¼ miles (around 30 minutes), giving fabulous views of the Welsh hills across the Teme valley. Shortly after passing a barn you go through a gate onto a cross track, where you turn right, leaving Offa’s Dyke.

4. Step 4

   Follow this track through two gates, then stick close to the fence on your right and go past a small wood. When the fenceline swings right you carry straight on
   descending to a gate in the distant corner of the field. A short grassy path takes you to a road by Five Turnings Farm.

5. Step 5

   Carefully cross this busy road and take the byway opposite. Soon the road goes through a gate and becomes a rutted track, which you follow for ¼ mile (around 6 minutes). Keep a sharp lookout for a waymarked gate on your right which is hidden back in the hedge / tree line.

6. Step 6

   Bear half left through the gate and cross the field. Go straight through the next gate and up the hill opposite (no clear path) and make your way up to the topmost point of the hill. Here, a waymarked post guides to you a gap in the far hedgerow and a double stile. Maintaining your direction proceed across four fields and stiles, at which point at the fifth you should see another stile on the horizon. Cross this stile and head across the middle of the field, bear left towards the hedge to take the left of two gates.

7. Step 7

   Cross the field bearing left and up through a pedestrian gate in the oncoming fence. Continue in the same direction to climb to the top of the field and though another gate. As you climb you are heading towards an obvious gap in the trees on the skyline and across the top of the wooded valley. This stretch offers panoramic views of the Malvern Hills to the south-east, the Black Mountains to the south, the Welsh Hills to the west and the Shropshire Hills to the north. The path goes through the trees (a short distance to the right of the gap) to a stile. Bear half left and go across the next field to another stile, then aim for the gate to the right of the gap ahead. Follow the farm track as it swings right around the wood and then down via two fences through open farmland. Another fantastic panorama now greets you, stretching from the Long Mynd and Stretton Hills in the north to the Clee Hills in the east, and the Teme valley ahead.

8. Step 8

   At the bottom a gate leads you onto a farm track. Continue straight on this track and then it descends into deciduous woods. Near the end of these woods look for a waymark post on the left. Turn left at this post and pick your way down through the wood to the fenceline, turn left inside the fence to reach a sunken lane and descend
   here to exit via a gate. Turn left onto the track and follow this down to the farm at Weston. Go through the kissing gate and down some steep steps. Turn left onto the lane below and follow it up through a gate to an open field, where the lane turns into an obvious farm track curving left gently uphill. Keep right at the fork and drop down slightly. Continue along the track to reach the next field and take the stile 100 yards to your right.
   You are now entering Cwm Cottage Reserve. The reserve is managed by the Vincent Wildlife Trust, and the cottage here is a summer roost for Greater and Lesser Horseshoe bats.

9. Step 9

   Turn right at the building onto the forest track. Over the stile and soon bearing right onto the higher track. Continue on this wide track ignoring a path right as it rises, to meet another track. Turn right again and follow this track gently down through the wood. Near the bottom the track bends left, but you carry straight on over a muddy ramp to join the path below.

10. Step 10

    Bear left and keep on this path for ¼ mile, when you come to a road. Go across and bear right down the path opposite. You then rejoin the road and follow it down to Chapel Lawn road in Bucknell at a bend, where you carry straight into Bucknell.