The Glevum Way is a 39km (24 mile) loop around Gloucester.  Many years ago (seriously, it's at least 6!) I picked up an information leaflet about the route from tourist information and have somewhat miraculously managed to keep hold of it over three house moves and a lot of decluttering.  And yet until now I'd never got round to properly walking it (some bits do often feature on our regular dog walks)

Along with a few friends we started in Cooper's Edge where the route crosses the M5, and walked clockwise through Upton St Leonards and around the bottom of Gloucester, to eventually finish at the Docks. This covered nearly 3 of the 5 sections the leaflet splits the walk into - though that describes the route going anticlockwise.

friendly cows.. not so much the field of bullocks we found half an hour later

The walking is easy going and mostly flat - we skirted around Robinswood Hill rather than going up and over. The route generally seemed to be well signed, mostly with round 'GW' stickers on the usual yellow arrow footpath markers, but sometimes with a properly named green signpost.  We only went off track once, at Naas Lane, and I think that was something to do with having just taken a deliberate detour to avoid going through a field of bullocks....

At this point we were getting closer to civilisation again, although given the amount of rubbish strewn on the road side I'm not sure that's the right choice of word - let's go with 'urban' instead...  Walking through Hardwicke, we stopped to grab sandwiches for a picnic as we'd realised we weren't going to make it to a pub for lunch (it was about 2pm by this point).  We did stop at the Pilot Inn for a drink though.

Lady's Well, Hempsted

From here the route crosses the canal and continues along the tow path before heading back into fields around Hempsted.  You walk right past Lady's Well, and after the next road crossing walk alongside the household recylcing centre.  Yup - the tip!

It's actually nicely hidden, and if you ignored the air vents and vast numbers of seagulls you might think it's just a normal field...

Soon after we found ourselves at Tank,  finishing our walk with another well deserved drink.  24km in about 8 hours, including stops.  Both dogs were suitably exhausted once we got home!  Plan is to finish the rest of the Glevum Way over the summer, probably in two smaller sections.

tags: Glevum Way Gloucester walking