Little Birch and Aconbury.

The Holy Thorn.

Fields, lanes and mature woodland. 3.25 miles.

Short, but moderate, quite hilly walk.

Map: OS Explorer 189, Hereford & Ross-on-Wye.

LITTLE Charley Chiseller was looking forward to the “real” Christmas.

The merchant from Hay had been to the cottage to collect five dozen dolls’ heads and told his father about the Wye freezing over.

Christmas Eve, which the traveller called December 24, had been the coldest night in Herefordshire for 100 years.

Abel Chiseller had brought his family to Aconbury Hill from the Forest of Dean ten years before in 1868.

Like their parents and grandparents before them, the incomers knew that some plants and creatures had their own ideas about Christmas time.

It was on Twelfth Night that bees would leave their hives and hum. And it was on Twelfth Night that cattle would sink to their knees and weep in their stalls. Some said this was done only by the three-year-olds and others just the seven-year-olds – the same age as the ones who were at Bethlehem.

Because it comes out “only where the missus is master”, the rosemary herb at the wood carver’s cottage was always destined to flower at midnight on the real Christmas Eve.

Harriet Chiseller was a formidable woman. Hearing that only the very first water to be drawn from St Anne’s Well on the real Eve was invaluable for curing problems with the eyes, she had gone to the Aconbury side of the hill.

Abel had banged his left eye with a mallet, and she was aware she might even need to use her fists to land the first bucketful.

Leaving his father with sister Nell and Grip the Raven, little Charley gamely struggled down the Little Birch side of the hill to the lane below the Castle Inn.

Wrapped up in his late brother’s muffler against the biting chill, Charley was also on a compassionate mission. He was bound for the tree known as the Holy Thorn, said to have been grown from cuttings taken from the Glastonbury Thorn, which itself came into bud from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea.

The hoopmaker’s son had told Charley that if he could collect a sprig from the Holy Thorn when it blossomed at midnight on Twelfth Night and keep it for the rest of the year, it would bring his family good fortune.

And the Chisellers needed a change of luck. As an apprentice to the thatcher, Charley’s big brother had fallen off a roof and broken his neck. Nell had lost her position at the rectory as a maidservant.

So Charley followed a group of ploughmen down from the pub and was amused to hear them toasting their oxen one by one. As usual a large throng had gathered with their candles in front of the tree.

Proclaiming “none of this new Christmas for us”, the giant blacksmith held Charley aloft on his shoulders so that he might be able to see the Holy Thorn burst into bloom in spite of the intense frost. Half an hour later Charley clambered back up the hill clutching a sprig to his chest underneath Toby’s straw-coloured coat.

On the other side of the hill, Harriet Chiseller had managed to keep her place at the front of the queue, but the water in St Anne’s Well was frozen and her bucket still lay empty.

So the haemorrhage in Abel’s eye prevented him carving any more dolls or grotesque images of Queen Victoria until February.

His wife was reluctant to let Grip perch on her bruised knuckles for a fortnight before she resumed chopping wood as fearsomely as ever. Nell’s fortunes improved when she was taken into service at Castle Nibole by the end of the year.

With his withered arm and club foot, Charley knew in his heart of hearts that he’d never become an engine driver.

But in 18 months he joined the Great Western Railway as a ticket clerk.

Hopes hung on a thorn THE ROUTE 1. Aconbury Church. Park near church. With your back to the front of it, TL to bend just beyond Aconbury Court, leave road and TL across stile. Bear L down paddock towards pool, cross stile, go ahead between pools and bear R up farm track into large crop field.

Follow tree-lined R edge for 200m to cross stile (R) into “Guys Estate”. Follow path just inside wood perimeter rising gently until you reach broad forest cross path.

2. Wallbrook Wood. Go across path, very slightly L. Go up broad grass path into trees, soon bending R, climbing more steeply, (ignore R) and then TR in front of silver birch tree. Now TL, still climbing, out of wood on to road via stile. Go straight across road over stile, bear R down field (with farm below L), bear L across farm drive up over stile into crop field.

Go L to find waymarked stile in far top L corner. Cross and bear R through gate into hedge-lined lane. Follow lane out through gate on to broad cross path.

3. “Bwthyn Tir Glas”. TR and, at brick bungalow (L), fork L down tarmac road to pass Cherry Cottage, descend past Prospect House and bend R at Ordnance Cottage. Keep on downhill to junction and TR. Follow road to obvious junction and bear L for 30m beyond Walls Pool approach.

Now leave road up track (L), marked Violette Szabo Trail until you reach the Holy Thorn on R (with its 2007 graft marked by plaque).

4. The Holy Thorn. (Twelfth Night site of pilgrimage). Check blossom(!), carry on up lane past Holly Cottage (L) to Parish Notice Board. TR past Castle Inn down (Pendant) Pitch and just beyond post box TL along drive for 60m. TR up past Fernleigh to reach Model Cottages. TR for 40m, then T very sharp L on to byway. Climb up to Priory Stone.

5. “Priory Stone”. Go straight across road, up grassy lane to reach clearing (before a wooden gate and a path L towards cottages).

Instead TR across stile, and follow tree-lined L edge down field. (Wave to May Hill). Cross stile in bottom L corner and TL down to (original) broad forest path. T sharp R for just 25m, TL very steeply down through trees to emerge into field with view over Aconbury. Descend towards church, R of copse, and at bottom, TL for 40m on to road. TR past pool to Aconbury Church.