Brigstock and Bocase Stone

Thursday 03 November 2016. With Gordon. Just under 6 miles, Flat, a little muddy along Harry's Park Wood.

We walked from Brigstock, starting in the main square. Just past the Green Dragon, we walked up Stable Hill, and turned left near the top along a footpath across fields to the A6116 . Not a bad place to cross, as you can see for a fair way in both directions. 

After climbing the grass bank on the other side, and the stile, we continued north east to Mounterley Wood and along the edge of Samby Sykes. Then it's a left turn to head north to the Benefield Road  at Lodge Cottages near Fermyn Hall. 

We didn't divert to look this time, but turned right and walked laong the road for about 100 yards, then turned  left along bridleway leading to Blackthorn Lodge.

A short distance before the end of the field, the route of the path cuts diagonally to the corner of Cockendale Wood, then continues along field edges, until we reach our path which turns left and continues just inside Harry's Park Wood. This section can be muddy, but there is a slightly longer route, if needed.  

Time for a rest?

In this place grew Bocase tree - probably a boundary marker between Brigstock and Benefield
see below.

Knight in armour

We continued for a mile or so to reach the Bocase Stone and Bocase Farm, then slightly downhill along the quiet road past Bushy Lawn Lodge and on to cross the A6116 once more. Again it's not a difficult place to cross. Then we follow a track slightly on the left on the other side of the road, taking us into Brigstock past the old boot factory. A few hundred yards and we were back at the main square.

Lots of red kites in evidence today - I always wonder if they're waiting for unsuspecting walkers to drop dead so that they can eat well.

Brigstock Woods Trail and info

Bocase Tree and Stone
BOCASE STONE AT NGR TL 9504 8775 (THAT PART IN BENEFIELD CIVIL PARISH)
BOCASE STONE AT NGR TL 9504 8775 (THAT PART IN BRIGSTOCK CIVIL PARISH)
Monument. Date indeterminate, probably C18. Limestone ashlar. Rectangular slab. Inscription at bottom of slab, "Here Stood Bocase Tree", and inscription at top of slab, "In This Place Grew Bocase Tree". Probably a forest boundary marker. (Markham, C.A., Stone Crosses of Northamptonshire, p.30).

Robin Hood in Corby?

In Corby can be found the magnificent Rockingham Castle - where records show a man called Robyn Hode was imprisoned in 1354. Robin Hood is not normally associated with this part of England, but there is a reference in Dryden’s Memorials Of Old Northamptonshire (1903) to a boundary stone near Brigstock called the Bocase Stone – so called, intriguingly, because Robin himself is said to have hidden his bow and arrows in a tree that once stood at the spot after slaying Sir Hugh de Hanville.