Chelveston, Yelden and Melchbourne

Thursday 02 March 2017. With Maureen.  9.6 miles.  Weather quite windy, with occasional sun.
A very similar route to the one I followed with Marta on February 14th. 

Once again we called in to the churchyard, where the snowdrops were starting to fade, but daffodils were popping up here and there.

We walked away from Chelveston, through Caldecott and past the Crescent, and took the bridleway straight ahead when the road bends to the right.  The path took us into Yelden, with its Norman motte and bailey. 

We took the footpath to the right of the castle mound heading south east across the meadow.When we had negotiated a stile we followed the path to our left along the field edge then continued to the fairly quiet road and turned right. We stayed on the road until we reached the St John Arms pub. Here we turned right and walked into Melchbourne village. We had a short break outside the church. 

We took the street close to the church, turning left. Very soon a footpath goes off to the right. this leads to the road, opposite the Day Nursery and farm. 

An odd photograph . . .

Across the road we picked up the path again. a little muddy at first, but soon easy to walk on. It took us alongside fields to Crowfield Farm buildings, and we followed the surfaced track out to the road.  We turned left and walked past one footpath sign on our left before turning left ourselves at the next one, and rejoining the route we had taken from Yelden earlier, and retracing our steps to the motte and bailey.

We walked along the road with the castle on our right, then turned left along the Three Shires Way, past Bottom Farm, turning left at the sign to Middle Lodge. We followed the path through the caravan storage place, up to the wind and solar farm at the top.  The path took us straight through and down into Chelveston. 

The walk felt longer than the nine and a half miles, probably because of the wind!