Distance 3 miles (4.8km)
Classification Easy
Duration 1 hour 30 minutes
Begins Ewe Pen Barn car park
OS grid reference SP146123
Walk in a nutshell
Wildlife, both real and represented, is the prevailing theme for this pleasant walk around the gentle Gloucestershire countryside. Discover a mystery two-part word by finding 13 letters hidden along the route. The first is in the building where the sheep used to shelter in winter ...
Why it's special
The circuit has been beautifully thought through with families and children in mind. There are information panels in Ewe Pen Barn, where you begin, and purple waymarkers to guide you round. The sculptures you will encounter en route were made with help from children at the local primary school. One carving in the fallen branch of a 200-year-old beech tree depicts the life cycle of a stag beetle; as it rots, the carving itself becomes a habitat for real beetles.
Keep your eyes peeled for
… Thirteen cleverly concealed mystery letters. (See the step-by-step instructions for clues.) The fields, woods and wetlands that you pass through simply teem with a combination of badgers, foxes, woodpeckers, robins, hares, partridge, roe deer, skylarks, kingfishers, bats, field mice, voles, toads, grass snakes …
Recover afterwards
A small shop sells light refreshments at Lodge Park, which is 2.5 miles south-west across the A40, where there are also picnic tables. Otherwise, there are two lovely old pubs in Northleach, about four miles west of the sculpture trail along the A40: the Red Lion Inn, which serves great cask ales, and the slightly smarter, recently refurbished Sherborne Arms .
If it's tipping down
Birdland is about 9 miles away, in Bourton-on-the-Water, with a soft play area and indoor aviaries. Bourton is also home to the Cotswold Motoring Museum and Toy Collection (. An eccentric, but not inexpensive, choice would be the World of Mechanical Music in Northleach, which houses a large collection of restored antique music boxes and automata.
How to get there
The Swanbrook bus number 853 goes from Gloucester station, and stops just a mile from Sherborne.
Step by step
1 From the Ewe Pen Barn car park, look out for the buildings where sheep used to shelter in the winter. Here is where you'll find your first letter.
2 From the car park turn right and follow the track. Bear right at the gate to walk along the stone wall. Look out for an elder bush against the wall at the end of the tree line to find your second letter.
3 Keep on the track and pass the football pitch until you come to the avenue of beech trees. One of the first four trees has letter number three hidden among its branches.
4 Go back to the track and follow the edge of Quarry Wood. At the end of the plantation that borders the wood, just before another wall starts again, you'll find the fourth letter.
5 Stay on the track until you come across a metal gate on your left. Go through the gate to enter the pleasure grounds and follow the path down. Before the path goes up, you'll see a gap looking like a valley on your left. The fifth letter is hidden in this area.
6 Continue on the same path to a beech tree, just before the metal gate. Look up and you'll see a flying bat sculpture. Somewhere around the tree is the sixth letter.
7 Walk through the gate and find the ice house for the seventh letter.
8 The path will lead you to another metal gate. Follow the track and keep bearing right to follow the edge of the parkland. At the point where the two fields separate is a fence. Letter number eight can be found on a conifer tree on the woodland side of the fence.
9 Stay on the path until you reach the sculpture with the life cycle of the beetle on it. Somewhere on the tree is the ninth letter.
10 Go back towards the bench and keep bearing right while following the path. Look up to find letter number10.
11 Look out for letter 11 on an ash tree in the wooded area, just before the waymark post.
12 Follow the path straight on and climb the hill where a yew tree surrounded by the circular seat stands. You'll find letter 12 on the tree.
13 Run down the hill to the right to find a rock standing on its own. You'll find the last letter here. Now you've found all the letters, put them in the right order to make a two–part word.
14 Once you've figured out the word, follow the path back to the beetle sculpture and continue down the bowling alley, which follows the boundary of Sherborne House gardens.
15 At the war memorial turn left and continue on the pavement through the village of Sherborne, passing Dairy Farm and the bothy. Continue along the pavement, passing Sherborne House on your left and allotments further on.
16 About 50m after the allotments, you will see a gap in the stone wall on your left. Go through it and follow the path to climb the hill in Ragged Copse. Near the top is the deer sculpture, made of gardening machinery from the estate.
17 Further along the path look out for the shepherd and his dog overlooking Sherborne House.
18 Continue on the path along the fence and ha-ha until you reach Ewe Pen Barn. Turn right and then left to get back to the car park.
