Alcester - Hairdos, D-Day and One Direction

I'd never been to Warwickshire before this series of walks brought us to Alcester (pronounced Alster), a pretty little town on the River Arrow, about 7 miles west of Stratford-upon-Avon.  As I'd also never been to Stratford-upon-Avon before, I thought it would be a good opportunity to explore Shakespeare's birthplace and be a proper tourist for once, strolling around eating ice-cream and taking photographs.

It was a glorious sunny morning, when myself and BAM (Best Aussie Mate) set off from Marylebone Station in London, taking the wonderfully quaint Chiltern railways train to Stratford-upon-Avon.  We'd been on this railway once before, when we did our walk in Bicester, back in September 2010.

Stratford is, not surprisingly, a really lovely place to spend a few hours.  We went on a very short boat trip on the River Avon, then did a walking tour of the town, which ended at the Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare is buried.  If you'd like to see some of the photos I took in Stratford, please feel free to have a look at these on my Flickr account.

Stratford-upon-Avon

Lodgings and Victuals

When possible we try to stay at the 'Chester' we're visiting, so we hopped on the number 26 bus from Stratford and travelled along the old Roman road to Alcester, where we'd booked accommodation at the Roebuck Inn on the Birmingham Road.

Alcester High Street

The Roebuck Inn was pleasant enough and we had a really lovely dinner there, as we caught up on our respective lives and talked about our future travel plans.  The Roebuck doesn't usually serve breakfast until 10am (I guess because it doubles up as the area's local pub), but we managed to convince them to serve us breakfast a bit earlier, so we would have enough time to do our walk.

Poster advertising Alcester 1940's weekend

It was the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, so Alcester's 1940's weekend was in full swing.  It was quite interesting seeing all the flags, banners, posters and Alcestrians dressed in 1940's outfits; we saw men in army uniforms, top hats and tails, women in war-time dresses and even one man wearing an old-fashioned aviator's uniform!  I'm posting a video from YouTube below, to help you get a sense of that 1940's feeling.



I've noticed that war-time hair-styles for women are coming back into fashion in England and I've recently seen quite a few young women with retro 'Victory roll' hairdos.  It's a really interesting fashion and I'm sure it's influenced by all of the World War commemorations that are going on at the minute.

Vintage WW2 poster in Alcester shop window

The Roebuck Inn to Oversley Green (1.4 miles/2.25 kilometres)

We were fated to a slow start to this walk and, as the weather had turned really wet over night, we soon found ourselves taking shelter in the lovely Fat Cat's cafe on Alcester High Street.  Alcester has lots of little shops and is an interesting alternative to the more touristy Stratford.

Sheltering from the rain in Fat Cat's cafe

We waited for the heaviest rain to pass, then ventured out along the High Street, back-tracking down Malt Mill Lane to join the Heart of England way, a 104-mile walking trail through the West Midlands.  It was a short walk along the Stratford Road to Mill Lane and the neighbouring village of Oversley Green.

Rainy morning on Malt Mill Lane

Oversley Green to Broom (3 miles/5 kilometres)

We followed Primrose Lane from Oversley Green, crossing a footbridge over the Alcester Road, then turning right along the edge of a field towards Lower Oversley Lodge.  The countryside in Warwickshire is different than other parts of England.  It's partly Thames valley but with a good deal of Dorset thrown in! We could see the Cotswolds in the distance south, as we followed the track towards Oversley Castle, now a private property.

The Heart of England way

We could also see the impressive, Palladian-style, Ragley Hall, the ancestral home of the Marquis of Hertford, on the far side of the Arrow Valley.  The path soon wound its way downhill again, past Oversley Farm to the village of Wixford.  From Wixford we followed a path along the fields below Crabtree Farm to Broom.

A Heart of England waymarker

Broom to Bidford-on-Avon (1 mile/1.8 kilometres)

Myself and BAM have been to another Broome recently, in Western Australia, but there was no comparison with this sleepy little Warwickshire village!  Crawling through the nettles and hedgerows of Broom, we got a bit lost and followed King's Lane to a dead end (but a very beautiful cottage). We quickly back-tracked and made our way to the Bidford Road.

Cottage in Broom

My abiding memory of the Broom to Bidford path was telling BAM all about my new favourite programme, an American show called My Cat from Hell, which gives interesting insights into cat behaviour and cat psychology!

The rain clouds had moved off to the east by this stage and the sun had come out in full force, making us feel uncomfortable in our rain coats and various layers. Arriving at Bidford, we crossed the bridge, took off some of our layers and had a break on a picnic bench by the River Avon.

Bidford-on-Avon

Bidford-on-Avon to Welford-on-Avon (3 miles/5.75 kilometres)

From Bidford, we crossed a muddy meadow and walked to a small village called Barton.  Passing a caravan-site at Barton, we fantasised about buying several caravans in England and establishing a little 'caravan Empire' that would fund our future walks and travels!

BAM by the River Avon

We'd left the Heart of England way behind at this stage and moved onto the less-established Shakespeare's Avon way, which promised to bring us all the way back to Stratford, along the River Avon.  The first part of this walk, along the relatively busy Welford Road, wasn't so pleasant, but we soon turned off on a small path towards the river and the rest of the walk was a really quiet path through an extremely verdant landscape.

Verdant Warwickshire countryside

The River Avon is around 85 miles in length and comes all the way from Naseby in the Northamptonshire uplands, to Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, where it meets the River Severn.  The word 'Avon' is from the British/Celtic word for river, so the River Avon, literally means 'the river River'.  This reminded me of the way we mis-name the River Kong in south-east Asia, calling it the 'Mekong', when 'Me-' (or more precisely, mee-nam แม่น้ำ 'mother water') already means river!

The Avon isn't quite the Mekong, although the over-grown riverside flora we had to fight our way through did remind me of the Thai jungle and both myself and BAM were stung by nettles more than once during this part of the walk!

Sheep near Welford-on-Avon

Welford-on-Avon to Stratford-on-Avon (5 miles/8.2 kilometres)

We had a break just outside St Peter's church in Welford, then walked down to the cross roads before following a village path all the way to Weston-on-Avon.  From there we followed the river path again until we came to an old railway bridge and a cycle path which leads all the way into Stratford.  The cycle path follows a dismantled railway line called 'the Honeybourne Line' and used to be part of the Great Western railway's Warwickshire/Gloucestershire network.

Railway carriage-cum-cafe

We could have followed the cycle path all the way to Stratford station, but we decided to turn onto another walking path at Chamber's Crossing Halt (where an old railway carriage has been turned into a seasonal cafe).  Funnily enough, the final path we followed along the Avon to Stratford was the Monarch's Way - the same path we encountered all the way down in Somerset, during our Ilchester walk.  I have a feeling that it's not the last we've seen of the Monarch's way!

Walking into Stratford-upon-Avon

At 13.4 miles/21.5 kilometres, this was one of our longest Chester walks - but it was a beautiful one and I'd highly recommend it.  We got to Stratford in time for our train, which should have been an indirect train to London but was changed to a direct train, because the pop group One Direction were playing a concert in Wembley arena that evening - a rather random end to a very interesting trip!

Access for wheelchair users:

The accessible Greenway near Stratford

I would recommend first part of this walk, from Alcester to Wixford to wheelchair users.  This path is basically an accessible track all the way to Wixford village and the footbridge out of Oversley Green is also accessible.  After Wixford, it was a lot more complicated and the path between Wixford and Broom had lots of stiles, which you wouldn't be able to pass.  The riverside walk along the Avon is completely inaccessible, however, the cycle path/Greenway from Stratford to Long Marston would be doable, although the gate at Chamber's Crossing was closed when we passed (around 5.30 pm). 

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