Hope Farm in Clifton lies along this beautiful route.

SAINT Bartholomew's Church at Lower Sapey is a simple, charming Norman building which fell into dereliction through disuse but was sensitively restored in the 1990s.

Many people feel that it has a very special atmosphere and few would deny that it has a wonderful setting. It stands at the end of a narrow, sunken lane on the western edge of the county where fast-flowing tributaries of the River Teme have carved out small, steep, secluded and idyllic valleys full of trees, ferns and mosses. Just as lovely are the open sweeping views across the landscape enjoyed on the descent to Lower Sapey via Pound Lane and Hill Farm.

FACT FILE

Start: Clifton upon Teme; grid ref SO713615.

Length: 4 miles/6.4km.

Maps: OS Explorers 203 and 204, OS Landranger 149.

Terrain: Pasture, arable and woodland, mildly hilly in places.

Footpaths: Mostly fine, but with notable exceptions. Perversely, waymarking is absent at the places it's most needed. The path from Hollands Mill to Hope Lane is substandard and so obstructed at one point less agile walkers may find it impossible. Two easy alternative routes are described below, but both involve an extra 600m of road-walking. Rights-of-way officers have been informed.

Stiles: Minimum four, maximum nine, depending on choice of route to Hope Lane.

Parking: Clifton.

Buses: 310, Mon-Sat only; www.worcestershire.gov.uk/ bustimetables or Traveline 0871 200 2233.

Refreshments: Pub and shop at Clifton.

DIRECTIONS

1 Walk down Pound Lane, opposite the Lion Inn. Take the first footpath on the right, which is also the driveway to Hill Farm. When you reach the farm keep roughly straight on, passing just to the right of the farmhouse and its garden. Continue down a grassy track, passing a pool.

2 The track ends at three gates. Go through the one on the right and walk along the left edge of a field. Turn left at a corner and then turn right in the next corner (don't go through the gate), with woodland now on your left. Follow the field edge for another 400m and then go through a metal gate into the wood. A muddy path descends through the trees then past Coppice Cottage to a lane. Turn left, and look out for a bridleway on the right, after about 200m, labelled British horse society long distance route'. Continue a little further along the lane to Lower Sapey. Having visited the church, retrace your steps to the bridleway.

3 Go obliquely left across a field, climbing a slight rise then following tyre tracks up to a gate at the top of the field, where the bridleway meets a footpath. Go through the gate and take the footpath, turning right along a field edge. After 300m you'll pass the top end of a narrow strip of woodland and will then see another bridleway on your right. Follow it downhill beside the wood, cross a brook, turn left past Hope Mill and then continue along its access track to meet Hope Lane. Turn right for a few paces.

4 Take a footpath at a stile on the left. Cross a footbridge and go straight on to join a driveway. Follow it to Hollands Mill then turn right (no waymark) up a steep bank to a stile in a hedge. Go straight across a field to another stile near the far right corner. Proceed along the edge of the next field to a path junction. The path ahead gets difficult so if you want to bail out now, turn right here and walk to Hope Lane, then left to Clifton. Otherwise, head to the far right corner of a large pasture, with an overgrown stile near the corner, and another chance to take an easier route. If you decide on the easy option, turn round and walk back across the field - not the way you've just come, but along the left edge. Cross a stile in the corner and proceed to Hope Lane.

5 If you intend to tackle the obstructed path, cross the overgrown stile and proceed along the next field edge to an even more overgrown stile on the right. Beyond the stile is an impenetrable tangle of very tall bracken and brambles. You might be able to get through, but it would be irresponsible to recommend an attempt. The vegetation is so dense and of such a nature that it's impossible to see what hazards might lurk beneath - rabbit holes maybe, or barbed wire, or pretty much anything. The law allows walkers to find alternative routes around obstacles and it may be safer to ignore the stile and continue to the next corner. If you were to climb over the barbed-wire fence here and turn right you would find a well-trodden path (which suggests walkers have been forced to use this alternative for years) running alongside a brook to the site of a former footbridge opposite a stile on the other bank. The footbridge has gone now, but a little further there's a place where one can simply step over the brook and then turn left to the stile. The path then goes obliquely left across a ploughed field (and has not, at the time of writing, been reinstated after ploughing) to meet Hope Lane just 400m from Clifton.

9:05am Monday 22nd October 2007

Black-and-white buildings in the pretty village of Clifton.

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