Hambleton Peninsula

Thu, 2015 Nov 5 9:38 AM GMT

With Harry and Gordon. Drizzly at first and quite warm. Good underfoot. About 8 miles.

From the parking space just before the barrier on the road at the eastern end of the peninsula, we walk up into Hambleton village, continue on the main road past the church and along to the angler's track, which we follow downhill.

This leads to a footpath by the road, which we follow until we cross over and turn right along the track to the water's edge. We're walking east on the south side of the peninsula.

This is always pleasant, though drizzly today, and takes us past the rather chilled-looking statue contemplating the water.

We cross the road between the Old Hall and the Old Hall Cottage and continue on the anglers' track, past a lot of benches, wet and uninviting this morning, then through the woods.

We stop at the car for our essential coffee break, and as we have done a good four and a half miles by then, there is less than half of the walk to go.

A lot of trees are now showing their winter skeletons.

Harry and Gordon striding along.

Autumn colours are still lingering, even in the greyness.

We reach the point on the north side of the peninsula where we joined the track earlier. Here we turn left and head uphill and back into Hambleton village.

AD 1898

and finally make our way down hill along the road and back to the car. 

In spite of the drizzle early on, and the forecast of rain to come, we stay pretty dry, and what a joy it is to have decent terrain underfoot.

Map and details

Brampton Ash, Braybrooke, Dingley circular.

Mon, 2015 Nov 2 9:38 AM GMT

Led by Mel, with Norma, Tommy, Gordon and me. Very misty, quite muddy, some navigation problems, partly due to mist - and some of us tearing ahead too fast. . .?  One railway crossing now closed. just over 8 miles.

A huge contrast with the weather on Saturday and Sunday!  This walk turned out to be more demanding than expected - mainly because of the weather and muddy conditions. Most of us ended up with soggy socks.

We started from Brampton Ash St Mary's church, and walked east along the main road to Braybrooke Road. 

Leaving Braybrooke

Cows in the mist in the next field

 We turned off following the Midshires Way/Macmillan Way until it joined the Jurassic Way. At that point we turned right and followed the Jurassic Way/Macmillan Way/Midshires Way with Hermitage Wood on our right until we rejoined the road at Hermitage Cottages.

Here we go

Leaves have fallen

 We walked along a path close to the A6 then crossed at the roundabout.

Down the rabbit hole?

 We went under the railway bridge and headed for Braybrooke.

The site of Braybrooke Castle

Braybrooke Millenium monument

November cobwebs

Snack break over

Yep - the river Jordan

Neither deep nor wide

 The next section proved tricky, as we missed the proper turning for the Midshires Way, and took a diverging footpath instead. We found our way back to it whn we realised what had happened. We came out on the road towards Dingley, crossed the A6 again and walked along the quiet road uphill to Dingley. 
A left turn along the old A427 tooke us to a footpath heading north, which soon turned east towards Brampton Ash. Back across the road to pick up a footpath through a field and out behind the church to our starting point.

Brampton Ash church

Between Brampton Ash and Braybrooke, and then Dingley and Brampton Ash the route is very similar to this one from 2011.  Our route from Braybrooke to Dingley goes further to the east, though.

To Kirby Hall

A Halloween walk of around 4 miles. The late afternoon sun enhanced the autumn colours.