Mancetter - Broiled chickens, bean fields and Baronets

This was our second foray into the wilds of Warwickshire, just over a year after we did our first Warwickshire walk from Alcester to Stratford-upon-Avon.  Modern-day Warwickshire is a funny, kidney-shaped county and feels imposed upon by urban neighbours such as Coventry, Solihull and Birmingham.

The lurch of the urban sprawl into Warwickshire has left the county more or less divided into two parts - south Warwickshire, which we walked in last time - has the big tourists draws of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick town and Kenilworth Castle.  Rugby holds the middle ground, or the neck of the county and Nuneaton is the main settlement in north Warwickshire and was the focal point for our Mancetter walk.

One of the main reasons that we're doing this 'chester' series of walks is so we can visit parts of Britain that we wouldn't otherwise have visited and, I think it's safe to say, that north Warwickshire is somewhere we might never have been to, if it hadn't been for our Chester quest and the fact that the Romans found Mancetter to be a reasonable enough place to settle down in!

Lodgings and victuals

The Old House BnB in Witherley

We started our north Warwickshire experience by jumping off the train at Atherstone, which is the nearest station to Mancetter.  It was the last day of school for many teenagers around England and, during our walk along the Witherley Road, we were amused to find a trail of torn-up notebooks and other shredded remnants of academia, all leading triumphantly to the local high school!  I guess we've all been young at one point and the joy of 'School's out for summer' hasn't diminished since the days when BAM and I were in short pants!

This was one of those lucky occasions when we were able to find lodgings on a former Roman road, this time Watling Street, which was the road that ran from the Kentish ports to Wroxeter.  We had a lovely stay at the Old House BnB in Witherley and there was, very conveniently, a great pub opposite, The Bull Inn, which served up a mighty fine meal and great regional ale.

Witherley to Mancetter (0.4 miles/0.6 kilometres)

It's a short walk across a couple of fields to get from Witherley to Mancetter.  Witherley is actually in Leicestershire, so this short walk also included crossing the county border into Warwickshire.  The county (and regional) border is formed by the River Anker, a small river that runs from Nuneaton to Tamworth in nearby Staffordshire.

River Anker at Mancetter

The Roman name for Mancetter was Manduessedum which comes from the Celtic for 'horse chariot' and it's clear that Mancetter was a strategic staging point on the great road north.  It's believed that the Battle of Watling Street, when Celtic tribes rose up against the Romans, might have taken place around Mancetter.

These days Mancetter is quite a sleepy place and, as the traffic rushed by to the excitement of bigger towns and cities, we pottered around the Parish Church of St Peter's and marvelled at the sundial above the church door, which accurately told the time as 10:35.

Parish church of St Peter's in Mancetter

Church sundial at 10:35am

We were also quite impressed by the facade of Mancetter Manor - a privately owned house that dates back to the 14th century.

Mancetter Manor

An interesting piece of local history-in-the-making is the very visible campaign against a 'Chicken broiling' facility, which is proposed for the Nuneaton road, just south of St Peter's church.  I thought broiling was a cooking technique but, apparently, it refers to chickens that are bred purely for their meat and local residents are horrified by the impact on their village, of 40,000 chickens being bred to be slaughtered.  The villagers have successfully managed to block one application for the Chicken Broiling facility and they're currently resisting the appeal against this.

No Chicken Broiler in Mancetter

Mancetter to Oldbury Grange (1.5 miles/2.4 kilometres)

With thoughts of massacred chickens still on our minds, we took Quarry Lane out of the village and crossed the railway tracks and the Coventry canal, before skirting around Quarry Farm and making our way uphill towards Oldbury Grange.

We've seen quite a few canals on our travels, but the Coventry canal at Mancetter looks particularly un-canal-like, in that it's not very straight but meanders, much like it's wilder cousin, the river.  The Coventry canal dates back to the 1760's, so I guess it was one of the earlier canals of the Industrial revolution period.  We met the canal again at the end of our walk in Nuneaton and it was a lot better behaved and more canal-like there!

Meadow near Oldbury Grange

It's quite a pleasant walk from Mancetter to Oldbury Grange and surprisingly rural, considering how much urban sprawl emanates from Nuneaton.  This was a strange walk in many ways, as we spent the entire day skirting around Nuneaton and we were never more than a half a mile from Nuneaton's suburbs.  Yet the landscape was strangely peaceful and empty, despite the nice weather - I suppose most people don't venture too far from 'civilisation'.

There are great views from Oldbury grange across three counties and the nearby Hartshill Hayes Country Park attracts local walkers, runners and families escaping the cities to go on a day trip.  We had a short rest at the park's Tea kiosk, before heading off again in the direction of Ansley Common.

View from Oldbury Grange

Oldbury Grange to Ansley Common (0.7 miles/1.1 kilometres)

Just outside Oldbury Grange, we picked up a way-marked trail, part of the 99-mile Centenary Way, the centenary in question being the 100th anniversary of Warwickshire County Council.  True to form, the Warwickshire Centenary Way does a kidney-outline of the county, cleverly avoiding Coventry and other former parts of the historical county.

Warwickshire Way markers

There seemed to be a bit of competition going on in terms of the name of this trail and it sometimes felt as though the local Rotary club had been more successful in getting their way marks on the various wooden posts we passed along the way.  BAM seemed quite fond of the North Arden trail, whilst I preferred the officially sanctioned Centenary Way with it's way marks showing the symbol of Warwickshire; the bear and ragged staff (which you can also see on Warwickshire's flag).

Ansley Common to Robinson's End (2.4 miles/3.9 kilometres)

Anyone who's spent time in England this summer will know that it's been a pretty poor summer, weather-wise.  Cold, rainy and cloudy, our walks have felt more like autumn than anything else. However, it seems to have been a great summer for plants and our walk through the bean fields and meadows between Ansley Common and Robinson's End, saw us getting scratched to pieces by a range of brambles, nettles and crops, which seemed to have taken over the landscape in a scene reminiscent of Day of the Triffids!

BAM in a bean field

Wheat field and farm house near Robinson's End

This part of the walk involves getting around the main Leicester-Birmingham railway line and it was alongside the railway line that we found our flower of the day, the Rosebay Willowherb, also known as the fireweed.  

Rosebay Willowherb

At Robinson's End, we could see the suburbs of Nuneaton up-close, although it would still be a couple of hours before we made it to Nuneaton itself.

Robinson's End to Bermuda (2.8 miles/4.5 kilometres)

It was quite a zig-zaggy route from Robinson's End, through fields around Seeswood Pool, where we had to pause for a minute to let a local farm pass in his tractor, mid-crop chopping.  There was quite a sad memorial on Astley Road, for a group of young people who were killed in a car crash in November 2000, another local drama for us to bear witness to.

Coots on Seeswood pool

Turning right off Astley Road, we followed the trail across the driveway that leads to Arbury Hall, the historical home of the Newdigate Baronets.  Unfortunately, we couldn't see the Hall from the driveway but, by all accounts, it's a pretty impressive Elizabethan building in Gothic style.

Arbury Hall driveway

Continuing as far as the Nuneaton Academy, we turned right again and followed the path through farmland, all the way to Harefield Lane and the curiously named suburb of Bermuda. A former pit village, Bermuda was named after local aristocrat, Edward Newdigate, who became Governor of Bermuda in the 1880's.

Bermuda to Nuneaton (2.9 miles/4.7 kilometres)

The last three miles into Nuneaton took us over the A444 Coventry to Nuneaton road, through the Bermuda Industrial Estate, along the bottom of the Hill Top estate and across the Turn Over Bridge, where we turned left to follow the Coventry Canal towards the town centre.

Turn Over bridge near Nuneaton

We didn't quite know what to make of Nuneaton - it's a strange mixture of abandoned buildings and cautious new developments. They're building a new railway stop at Bermuda Park and there seems to be a lot of investment in the Nuneaton to Coventry line, so it's only a matter of time really, before Nuneaton itself becomes a suburb of that bigger city which is, after all, a mere nine miles away.

Coventry Street, Nuneaton

United Reformed Church in Nuneaton

The Victorian novelist, George Eliot, was born in Nuneaton and we found a George Eliot statue in the town centre.  George Eliot lived at a time when rural England was experiencing a great deal of change, due to the Industrial Revolution.  In many ways, her novels champion the simplicity of country-living and deal with themes that are as relevant today, as they were more than a century ago.

Statue of George Eliot in Nuneaton

With our city-dwelling clocks ticking, myself and BAM struggled to find somewhere that we could eat at 5pm in Nuneaton, but we finally settled on the Istanbul Grill, a really convenient cafe not far from Nuneaton station and six-thirty train back to London.

Access for wheelchair users

Path through crop fields

To be honest, very little of this walk would be accessible to wheelchair users and certainly not in a continuous way, although we did occasionally walk along country lanes. 

Hartshill Country Park is a nice place to visit and there is some accessible walking there which might suit wheelchair users.

Image credits: 

All photos were taken by me - please feel free to reuse them under the following Creative Commons license:

Attribution (especially to this blog post)
Share-alike
Non-commercial

Winchester - Kings, Watercress and White Campion

"Wintonia" by Zacwill16 

Winchester was one of the original 'chesters' that we had in mind, when we undertook to visit all of the 'chesters' in Britain, almost five years ago!  Since then, we've visited 33 'chesters' and we're just over halfway through our list!  By that reckoning, this project will keep us busy until 2020 at least!

Winchester is a wonderful place and it was with no small amount of excitement that we boarded the busy Weymouth-bound train at Waterloo station, on a Friday evening after work.

Whilst the other passengers loosened their ties and slipped off their high heels, after another busy week in the office, we contemplated the passing greenery of north Hampshire and wondered about the delights that Winchester would have to offer.

Lodgings and Victuals

Our first stop was for dinner at The Chesil Rectory, Winchester's oldest house.  It's a wonderful building, dating back to 1450 and the food is divine! Accommodation is quite expensive in Winchester, so we'd decided to economise by staying at the Premier Inn on Easton Lane.  Not quite as old as the Chesil Rectory(!), but a nice place to stay all the same - as with our Leicester experience, everything went smoothly, the staff were very friendly and we had a good night's sleep.

The Chesil Rectory in Winchester

I've never had to reserve a table for breakfast before, but it was worth it, for the gorgeous breakfast served up by The Corner House on Parchment Street. It's quite a trendy little cafe and soon filled up with hungry tourists looking for Eggs Alresford and home-made waffles!

Breakfast at the Corner House

Bishop's Sutton to New Alresford (1.5 miles/2.4 kilometres)

We decided to start our walk in the countryside and make our way back in to Winchester, as this is an easier way to manage things and make sure we have time for dinner before jumping on the train back to London.  We took bus number 64 from Winchester bus station and this follows the Alresford Road, along the top of Temple Valley, with good views of the South Downs on the way.

We jumped off the bus at Bishop's Sutton and set off up Whitehall Lane for the 1.5 mile walk to New Alresford.  Walking along Whitehall Lane reminded me of a time, many years ago, when I spent six weeks picking apples near a village called Swanmore, in the south of Hampshire.  It was a stark contrast from the damp October days trudging along the Droxford Road, to this pleasant early summer walk along Whitehall Lane.

Bishop's Sutton

Whitehill Lane near Bishop's Sutton

We very quickly found our 'flower of the walk' on Whitehall Lane, as there was an abundance of silene latifolia or white campion named after the Greek satyr Silenus - the flower, like the Greek deity, is a symbol of the forest and, despite the rather cold summer we're having this year, we'll always remember our Winchester walk as a bright green one, with incredibly foliage and trees reaching across the lane ways over our heads!

White campion

I was also quite interested to see a field full of solar panels - a new kind of 'plant' that wasn't around when I first explored the Hampshire countryside!

Solar panels near Whitehill Lane

New Alresford to Ovington (1.2 miles/2 kilometres)

We didn't actually visit New Alresford, but skirted along the bottom of the town on Tichborne Down. New Alresford is famous for its watercress and we walked past several watercress beds on Spring Gardens.

Watercress beds near New Alresford

New Alresford is also the meeting point for the Wayfarer's way, a 70-mile drover's track from Walbury Hill in Berkshire to Emsworth on the Hampshire coast and St Swithun's Way, a 34-mile path from Winchester to Farnham in Surrey.  We were mostly following St Swithun's Way to Winchester, although this overlapped at times with Allan King's Way, the Itchen Way and Pilgrim's Way!

Wayfarer's Walk

We've been on Allan King's way before, as it links Portchester to Winchester and we walked the first ten miles of this path back in November 2010.  It does feel a little bit like assembling a giant jigsaw with these 'Chester' walks, or perhaps we're connecting ley lines together, as part of some noble pre-historic project!

Ovington to Itchen Abbas (2.2 miles/3.6 kilometres)

Ovington is a sleepy little hamlet, in the middle of a small wood and we got our first real sight of the Itchen river, as we passed an attractive-looking riverside pub called the Bush Inn and crossed a couple of footbridges to reach the neighbouring hamlet of Itchen Stoke.  After Itchen Stoke we crossed the river again and made our way along Lovington Lane until we got to Yavington Farm.

River Itchen near Ovington

At Yavington Farm we left the lane and climbed up a small hill through wheat fields towards Avington Park golf course and a road which took us across the river again to the village of Itchen Abbas.  We got a glimpse of the 16th-century Avington Park House in the distance and there was an interesting breed of sheep in the field below the golf course, which I believe were Black Welsh mountain sheep.

Countryside near Ovington

Black Welsh Mountain Sheep

Itchen Abbas is another pretty village, with a lovely old mill - apparently it was the inspiration for Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies.  

Itchen Abbas to Easton (1.5 miles/2.4 kilometres)

From Itchen Abbas we followed a small lane behind the church and then a pathway along the bottom of the villagers' gardens, across the lane at Chilland and through a meadow leading to Martyr Worthy.

It was interesting to pass through a field with pigs in it, as we haven't seen many pigs on our walks, although we've seen cows, horses and sheep-aplenty!  We also passed through a herd of white bullocks that looked rather picturesque as they cooled off in the Itchen River.

Pig near Itchen Abbas

White bullocks in the River Itchen

At Martyr Worthy, we started seeing the first obvious signs of the Pilgrim's Way, another path that starts at Winchester and follows the ancient Pilgrim's route from Winchester Cathedral to the grave of Thomas Becket in Canterbury.

Pilgrim's Way sign post at Martyr Worthy

From Martyr Worthy, we headed downhill and crossed another footbridge over the River Itchen to get to the village of Easton, a wonderful place full of thatched cottages, where we had a refreshment stop at the village shop, basking in the afternoon heat.

Cottage in Easton

St Mary's church in Easton

Easton to Winchester (2.9 miles/4.6 kilometres)

We zig-zagged through Easton, past the Cricketer's Arms and St Mary's church, before following a path through some fields, leading to the M3 underpass and the dubious outskirts of east Winchester, made up in equal part of industrial estates, homeless camps and teenage drinking spots!

M3 underpass between Easton and Winchester

Arriving in Winchester, we found that the sun was shining gloriously and people were strolling along the High Street and having picnics in the gardens in front of the Guildhall.

Winchester Guidhall

We were quite interested in Hamo Thornycroft's statue of King Aelfrid, that stands in Winchester's Eastgate and it reminded us of the former glory of Winchester, which was once capital of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex.  Actually, Winchester has a very long history and was the capital of the Belgae Celts, even before the Romans came along and made it one of their main settlements.

King Aelfrid by Hamo Thornycroft

Another piece of the jigsaw puzzle, Winchester had strong connections with the Roman fort at Silchester, as well as a couple of 'chesters' we haven't yet visited, Chichester and Dorchester-on-Thames.

Buttercross in Winchester

We continued to contemplate the map of Roman Britain as we treated ourselves to some standard 'pub grub' at the Bishop on the Bridge, before making our way uphill to the station and our train back to London.

63 miles to London

Access for Wheelchair users

BAM on the path from New Alresford to Ovington

The walk, the way that we did it, jumps between country lanes and riverside paths, so would not be completely accessible to wheelchair users.  An alternative, accessible walk could be created by sticking to the country lanes only, although there might be some difficulty getting over the Alresford Road to Ovington.  

By skipping the Itchen Stoke bit and following Lovington Lane out of Ovington, you could pretty much continue all the way to Easton on the left-bank of the River Itchen. Wheelchairing on roads, even quiet ones, can be pretty dangerous, so I would follow this route with care.  

Winchester itself is a very pretty place and I'm sure that there would be enough wheelchair-accessible paths around the city to make a visit worthwhile.  

Image credits:

All photos were taken by me, please feel free to reuse them, according to the Creative Commons license:

- Attribution (especially to this blog post)
- Share alike
- Non-commercial

Lanchester to Ebchester - Farm shops, steel and stark plantations

We don't often get to travel to the far north for our Chester walks, so it was with no small sense of excitement that we boarded the train at King's Cross station, destination Durham, a healthy three hours train ride from London on the East Coast line.  This was our second walk in County Durham, the first one being Chester-le-Street back in September 2011.

County Durham has to be one of Britain's most undiscovered counties, as it tends to be ignored in favour of the more dramatically scenic areas of Northumberland and the North Yorkshire moors.  The great thing about this series of Chester walks is that it brings us to undiscovered areas and places we would normally by-pass which have a beauty and merit all of their own.

Lodgings and victuals

This was another 'double whammy' Chester walk, as we managed to get two Chesters for the price of one.  We'd initially drawn Ebchester using our random selection app, but when we realised that we could walk there from Lanchester, we decided to stay overnight in that larger town, as it had more accommodation options.

Lanchester Village Street Map

Lanchester is a nice enough place and we were really lucky to stay in The Old Post Office, a newly-opened B&B on Lanchester's Front Street.  It's funny how the name for the central street of a town has regional variations in England - it took me a while to get used to the term High Street for what we call (in Ireland) Main Street.  Front Street seems to be the North-East equivalent and suggests a place along a roadside, where carriages would stop on their long journey to Edinburgh.

Lanchester Front Street

We had dinner at Crinnion's bar and restaurant, next door to the B&B and caught up on our respective lives, as we always do on these weekend walks!

Lanchester to Knitsley Farm Shop (2.9 miles/4.7 kilometres)

This was a really easy walk, in the sense that we were able to follow an old railway path the entire way.  Whilst it's sad, in many ways, that many of England's railways have fallen out of use, particularly in former industrial areas like the Lanchester and Derwent Valleys, it's good that they have been transformed into cycling routes, which anyone can access if they want to get a break from the nearby cities of Newcastle, Gateshead and Sunderland.

Lanchester Valley railway path

Lanchester was a stop on the Durham to Consett branch line, which closed in the 1960's. The path felt quite remote and windswept as we made our way out of Lanchester village and along the western ridge of the Lanchester valley.  This part of County Durham has rich farmland and the great industrial cities of the North-East felt very far away, although they're only twenty or so miles distant.

View over Lanchester Valley

At Hurbuck Farm we dipped down into the valley and met our first paved roadway, the Humberhill Lane. From there, it was a short walk to Knitsley Farm shop, a really lovely place to buy some fresh farm produce or have a bit of lunch.

Hurbuck Farm

Cows and calves in West Knitsley Grange

Knitsley Farm shop and cafe

Knitsley Farm Shop to Consett (3.5 miles/5.6 kilometres)

From the farm shop, we followed the Lanchester Valley Railway path to the outskirts of Consett. Meeting a junction of cycle paths and footpaths, we ended up taking the wrong one - having been distracted by a bright red disused railway carriage, we missed the more direct path into Consett and were seduced by the more prominent Consett and Sunderland Railway path, which took us slightly off course, as it tried to convince us to walk all the way to Sunderland!

Red train near Consett

The Consett and Sunderland Railway path follows yet another former railway line, the Stanhope and Tyne Railway. It's 26 miles from Consett to Sunderland, so doable in two days, if you're interested in walking this route.  This path is part of the much longer Sea to Sea cycle path, one of Britain's most popular cycling routes, which runs from Whitehaven in Cumbria and finishes 140 miles later in Sunderland.  It's great to get so much off-road cycling/walking and it's much less dangerous walking or cycling on these former railway lines than on country lanes.

The Consett and Sunderland railway path

One of the main benefits of our detour, was that we saw an amazing public art installation called Terris Novalis by the Liverpudlian sculptor, Tony Cragg.  Consett had a very proud tradition as one of Britain's main centres for high-quality iron and steel production.  Even until the late 1970's, the Consett steelworks was profitable and provided hundreds of jobs locally but, in what seemed to be an ideological attack on an area famed for industrial action and strikes, Margaret Thatcher's government closed the Consett steelworks in 1980, making more than 3,000 people unemployed.

Terris Novalis sculpture detail

Terris Novalis sculpture by Tony Cragg

Consett has a quietly demure feeling about it these days and it's hard to get a sense of what has happened in those intervening years.  There's very little left of its former industrial heritage, apart from public works of art. The landscape is now dominated by the hospital building at Shotley Bridge rather than the Steelworks, an apt symbol of 21st-century Britain, in many ways!  We found an interesting blog post about the Terris Novalis sculpture - well worth a read.

Consett had a long history of steel-making

Public seating where the steelworks used to be

Consett

Consett to Ebchester (2.3 miles/3.7 kilometres)

We'd originally intended to finish our walk at Ebchester, but things were going so swimmingly on the relatively easy railway paths (no being chased by cows or stung to death by nettles) that we made a decision, quite early on in the day to push ahead as far as time would permit us to go, considering it would be a bus journey back to civilisation and the 7pm train from Newcastle to London!

Derwent walk leaving Consett

It was a nice walk from Consett to Ebchester and fairly busy with cyclists, dog-walkers and even a couple of people carrying their shopping on mobility scooters!  Whilst it was tempting to stick to the railway path along the ridge of the Derwent valley, we felt it would only be right to descend into the valley and visit Ebchester, our second 'chester' of the day!

Ebchester village

Known as Vindomora in Roman times, Ebchester was founded as a Roman fort on Dere Street, the main Roman road from York to the north.  I'd say it was a pretty miserable outpost, back in the day, but nowadays it's a very pretty little village that looked peaceful in the late afternoon sunshine.  We debated the origin of the suffix vin- related to wine (BAM's theory) or wind (my theory) - actually it's more likely to be a word of Celtic origin meaning white, like the modern Irish modern bán.

St Ebba's Church in Ebchester

The useful map in this photograph shows Binchester as well, a place we haven't yet visited, but one which is firmly on our list.

Durham in Roman times

Ebchester to Lintzford (3.5 miles/5.7 kilometres)

From Ebchester we followed Shaw Lane and then a public footpath out of the village and back up to the ridge and the railway path.  From there on in, it was a pretty dreamy walk, feeling miles away from anywhere, as we skirted along the Derwent valley with the villages of Hamsterley and Hamsterley Mill barely impinging on our rural idyll!

The Derwent Valley

The only distraction along the way was the red deadnettle which I spotted and identified using my flower app, as I'm trying to learn the names of British wild flowers.  It's called a dead nettle because it doesn't sting.

The red deadnettle

We also walked through the curiously-named Make-me-Rich plantation.  I couldn't help but wonder, as we passed the sternly watchful trees, whether or not someone did get rich from the plantation?

Stern trees in the Make-me-Rich plantation

With a close eye on the time, we decided to end our walk at a pretty little roadside village called Lintzford, where we caught the 45 bus on to Newcastle and the long journey home.

The River Derwent at Lintzford

Access for wheelchair users:

Because this walk mostly followed disused railway lines, I could recommend any part of this walk for wheelchair users. The only bit that wouldn't be accessible is the footpath from the railway path to Lintzford, so you might want to consider coming off the railway path at one of the villages, or continuing to Rowlands Gill

Image credits:

All photos were taken by me, please feel free to reuse, under the Creative Commons license:

- Attribution (especially to this blog post)
- Share alike

- Non-commercial