and occasionally rides a bike.
A word of warning. The walk descriptions are not detailed enough to guide you - please take a map. The batteries never run out, and you always have a signal. Oh, And don't take left or right as gospel!

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Irthlingborough, Rushden Lakes, Higham Ferrers

Monday 18 March 2019, with Norma, Kate and Eddie. A pleasant day with less wind than of late. 7.8 miles in all.  The day we went to Higham by way of Ebbw Vale! (Apologies to GK Chesterton.)

More urban than our usual walks, but using the Greenway, a path and cycle track currently running between Rushden and Irthlingborough, but planned to run all the way to Peterbrough.

We parked in Irthlingborough near St Peter's Church, and walked through the churchyard, where the view down to the Nene valley was clear today, through the bare trees.

We turned left along St Peter's Way to join the Greenway path near the junction with Meadow Way. We followed the path downhill until we reached a signpost to Ebbw Vale (!) - the name of part of the town. Here we turned right along a grassy path. After almost a mile we reached a junction with the disused railway track, and decided to turn right again towards the new shopping development at Rushden Lakes, where there is also a WT Centre (Wildlife Trusts). 
We weren't tempted into the shops, but there are public toilets and coffee shops. We almost went for the coffee, then decided to leave that for Higham Ferrers.
The next section hadn't been preplanned... we crossed the huge white pedestrian bridge then walked through a newish business estate area. As we were unsure whether there was a pedestrian route, we asked people. They showed us the Greenway route, which took us which took us to the south of Higham for almost two miles, along a pleasant mostly traffic free route. We had a little road walking, past the Transport Museum.
Almost sunny!
When we reached the Ferrers School, we turned left and into the High Street. By now coffee was definitely needed, and as it was close to lunchtime we had sandwiches as well. The Griffin Inn was a congenial spot for a break.


From the pub we took Hind Stile and the High Street again as far as Cemetery Lane. We turned left then right along Saffron Road, which eventually becomes the Greenway once more. This took us over the A45 on a footbridge, and we followed this path directly back to Irthlingborough, rejoining our original route at the Ebbw Vale signpost.



2 comments:

Ida Jones said...

Different from your usual walks - and, for a moment, I thought you'd walked even further! Must have been an interesting change for you though.

aliqot said...

It was actually a good walk, and will be even better if we do it another time, now we know the way!