A walk with a fine vintage

The view from Julian Temperley's farmyard is of apple trees, neat rows of them covering 150 acres of Somerset countryside. At this time of year they are laden with fruit, just about ready to be picked. Pass Vale Farm lies outside the village of Kingsbury Episcopi below Burrow Hill, the rounded hump of which topped by a single tree that forms a natural landmark. From the top is a 360-degree view: to the north are the Somerset Levels, once an inland sea and now a vast expanse of reclaimed plain; to the south a patchwork of fields is bound together by hedgerows.

The Somerset cider orchards are among the best in England. The county boasts some 150 varieties of apple; Julian Temperley grows 40 of them. Their names, such as Kingston Black and Brown Snout, are as intriguing as the cider-making process itself. "You blend apples together," Temperley tells me, "and it's always surprising what comes out at the end." He admits that cider-making is something of an anachronism, "but you have to do something with all these apples", he says. At his farm he also turns them into juices and vinegar; and he produces cider brandy, some aged for 15 years in oak barrels imported from France. A heady alcoholic aroma lingers around the barns and outbuildings.

The visit to the cider farm is the final destination on day one of a two-day hike organised by Foot Trails, a Wiltshire-based company set up six years ago by David Howell and his wife Alison. The couple provide walking holidays, self-guided or accompanied, through the villages of Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire and the Cotswolds, and they are passionate about sharing their surroundings with visitors. "Everywhere has a story to tell – every piece of land, every village," says Alison. David, who leads the guided hikes, is an enthusiastic advocate of holidays in England. "It has so much to offer; there is so much to see," he believes. There are four of us following this Vintage Cider Trail with him, and as he leads the way, he points out badger setts, identifies a distant cat-like sound as the call of a circling buzzard, and brings sleepy villages to life as he recounts their history.

Our walking weekend began under an oak tree in the village of Lopen. In medieval times this was venue for a lively fair: horses were bought and sold, and cider and mead were consumed. The future Cardinal Wolsey, then a curate, is believed to have visited the fair and been put into the stocks as a punishment for his drunken behaviour. Down the road beyond the tree is the local church, provided for the village by the Poulett family, local landowners whose legacy we were to encounter again and again on our route through south Somerset.

Heading north out of the village we passed through our first orchards. One of our group picked a windfall from the grass, bit into it and passed it around; in turn we all winced at its dryness, a sure sign of a good cider apple. As we reached South Petherton, our guide David began to recount its history, telling us that this was once a frontier town on the southern boundary of Saxon England. Evidence has been found of a Mint in the area, and some people believe that the Saxon kings may have had a winter palace here.

The modern village is dominated by the market square – market rights were granted by King John back in the early 13th century. Carved into the stone lintel of a private house on one side is a wheatsheaf symbol, marking the site of an old tavern.

The feature that dominates South Petherton is the octagonal church tower. One of the largest of its kind in the country, it is an indication that this sleepy village was once a prosperous community, in contrast with the next village, East Lambrook, where the church is smaller and less ornate, with thick stone walls and a plain wooden pulpit. The highlight here is a secular one: the Manor gardens, created by Margery Fish in the Fifties, are a masterpiece of cottage garden style, with densely planted beds and meandering paths.

The emphasis of the Foot Trails hikes is as much on good living as it is on walking, so flasks of coffee and pub lunches were a feature of the walks. Our base for the weekend was the Lord Poulett Arms in Hinton Saint George, voted Gastropub of the Year in a recent survey.

Local, seasonal produce is the basis of the menu: breakfast sausages and bacon are produced on nearby farms, and Saturday night's dinner was an opportunity to try the new season's mussels cooked in a sauce of Somerset cider.

Upstairs above the bar the pub has four rooms, all comfortably appointed, and each with a slipper bath, ideal for a long soak after an eight-mile walk.

The Poulett family, after whom the pub is named, lived in Somerset for centuries, and ran an extensive estate. At its heart was Hinton, a picture-postcard village that sprawls along a high street lined with attractive hamstone cottages.

At one end of the street is the Priory, a magnificent thatched building that may have been the village's original manor house. Less grand are the long houses, typical of Somerset, built one room deep with the chimney in the middle of the façade. And the village can still boast a medieval cross, which would have been a local meeting place.

The second day of our walk took us through some of the countryside that was once part of the Poulett estate. Now a mixture of cornfields and woodland, in the 18th century this was a mixture of landscaped gardens, stone follies, deer and paths for carriages to drive along; these days they make good walking tracks. At the bottom of one steeply sloping field is Diana's pool, an expanse of water that was the highlight of the estate's wilderness area.

Our meandering route took us through some glorious countryside and charming villages, places such as Allowenshay, a rural hamlet that looked like the kind of place where Thomas Hardy would feel at home. We strolled along ancient lanes gouged deep through ivy-clad banks; beech and sycamore trees arched above us, their distorted roots clinging precariously to the soil. The hedgerows were alight with rosehips and clusters of Arum lily berries, while ripening blackberries provided us with tempting snacks.

The final stop was Dinnington, a tiny village that sits on the Roman Fosse Way, and where, some six years ago, fragments of mosaic, now shown to have belonged to a vast Roman villa, were discovered in a field.

As we brushed the mud off our boots and headed into the local pub for a pre-lunch drink followed by a Sunday roast, our guide, David Howell, summed up the appeal of a walk through the villages of Somerset. "It's the sense of space and freedom," he confessed. "The opportunity to get away from it all."

For other ideas on getting into the countryside, see www.enjoyengland.com/ruralescapes

TRAVELLER'S GUIDE

Somerset Cider Brandy Company and Burrow Hill Cider (Pass Vale Farm, Burrow Hill, Kingsbury Episcopi; 01460 240782; www.cider brandy.co.uk) opens 9am-5.30pm Monday-Saturday.

East Lambrook Manor Gardens (01460 240328; www.eastlambrook.co.uk) open 10am-5pm daily. Admission is £3.

Lord Poulett Arms, High Street, Hinton St George (01460 73149; www.lordpoulettarms.com)

The writer was a guest of Foot Trails (01747 820626; www.foottrails.co.uk)

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