Whissendine, Wymondham, Edmondthorpe, Teigh, Whissendine

Mon, 2013 Dec 2 9:41 AM GMT

Led by me, with Barry, Gordon and Maureen. Misty start, then cloudy. Some mud underfoot, but dry and not cold. 9.7 miles.

  We leave Whissendine by the path just uphill from the White Lion car park. It is not long before we meet our first stile of the day.  

 We keep the stream on our left, and head over the fields, one or two a little muddier than ideal, but we have known worse. 

We are hoping that the sun will burn its way through the mist, but the promise remains unfulfilled. 
We follow the clearly marked path over fields as far as Station Road, where we turn left and walk for around a mile, before turning right at a T-junction, and passing this des res, just before a railway crossing.

 The path goes off to the left directly after the level crossing and heads northwest slightly uphill over more arable land.

still misty

Unfortunately we don't see much of the view over towards Wymondham - maybe we'll revisit on a bright day.  We have to go downhill fairly steeply before joining a wider track which takes us to Wymondham with its fine church.

 We turn along a small back road just before the church, and follow it west, over a road and along until we almost meet another one. Here we turn right along a footpath and head south towards Edmonthorpe.  Part of the path is alongside a wall. Once we reach the road we turn left for a hundred yards or so, then follow the footpath which leads off to the right.  It crosses fields, passes the corner of a small wood, and then goes uphill to a field corner. We go through the gap in the hedge and turn very sharp right to join the Rutland Round path.  At the field boundary we turn left, and after some distance turn right again, alongside a disused canal.

 At this point the path bears right, diagonally across a field, and on to a track which leads to the Teigh Road.  Here we turn left.  We walk past the road to Whissendine, and take the next turn right into the village of Teigh, and to the church.  Opposite the church we find the path and follow it easily with its markers until we reach a long narrow bridge.

After the bridge we should go diagonally right, but use the field edges to avoid mud. The path takes us to a bridleway, and we very soon cross the railway line once more.  The bridleway continues for about a mile and a half, meeting the road into Whissendine at the top of a steepish slope. Here we turn left and in a couple of hundred yards take the footpath to our right. this goes diagonally across a field, and over a stile just after the church.  

We turn right when we reach the road and follow it downhill to our starting point.

Map and details

Langham, Ashwell, Whissendine circular

Thu, 2013 Nov 21 9:36 AM GMT

Led by Barry, with Gordon and me. A few muddy sections. We missed any showers, and had glorious sunshine for most of the way, though the wind was cold. Just over 10 miles.

Beautiful sunshine, but a cold wind as we walk through Langham. 

An unusual wall decoration

 We take the road (no unauthorised vehicles) which leads past the sewage works, and carry straight on, along a walkway with anti-motor cycle gates. 

Now, I can appreciate the bit about damage, but wouldn't it be great if they'd put a boot-cleaner nearby. Whose mud is it anyway?

 We walk past a large house (Mickley Lodge, and then turn left and can either walk round a fenced outside some fields,  or follow the path over several stiles through the fields. We go behind Langham Lodge and follow the footpath way markers around the field boundaries.

Are you blocking our path or showing us the way?

We emerge on a narrow hedged path, where we can turn continue ahead, or turn left.  We do ahead and realise that this was not the way when we cross the railway at Great Tambourine Bridge, and arrive at the Oakham to Ashwell Road. About turn!  Retrace footsteps and take the correct route, which brings us out at the road between Langham and Ashwell, which is much quieter. Here we turn right and follow the road into Ashwell.

Some of these people were alive in the reign of Charles II

There is a bench in the churchyard, sheltered and sunny. With just under four miles under our belts, we award ourselves a snack break.

Ashwell church

 We leave the village on the Whissendine Road, crossing the railway again, and after about half a mile our footpath goes off to the right.  

The way is clear enough, but we make the mistake of going round a muddy field instead of across, and add an extra half mile to our walk.  One of those places where the marker is very clear when you look back, but was invisible from our original direction.

No matter, onwards! The path goes up a short hill,  and down and up again, then gently down into Whissendine, past the church, the pump and a couple of pubs.

St Andrews, Whissendine

The village pump

We come to the village green and the sign, and turn left over the bridge, then left again, to find our footpath. (Not the one near the children's playground).  It takes us through a wooded area - it's a little tricky underfoot after the recent rainy weather, but easy to follow. 

This part of the path is quite steep and tricky in parts since it is wet.

 T

Lone hollyhock

 Once we come out of the trees we have to walk through fields, and there's a good view of Whissendine with its windmill as we look back.

View of Whissendine from our path

A

The windmill is still in sight

 After about a mile we reach the road from Whissendine to Langham, at the top of a hill, and walk along this until we meet the main A606.  We follow this for a short distance before turning left along Manor Lane.  We follow this round to Ashwell Lane and back to the car.

Langham church spire

Wildlife - two hares, a few long-tailed tits in a hedgerow, a buzzard.

Map and details

Rutland Round 7 - Whissendine to Braunston

With Marta. Started grey and drizzly, but after Langham (11 am) it cleared up for the rest of the day. Still some mud underfoot, views good. 11.7 miles approx. A few hilly bits.

We set off from Whissendine around 9 30, and walked up past the church,  turning right on to Foxhills, and following the road round as far as Number 21.  The footpath runs alongside this house to a field, where we turned left.  There's a gateway on to the the road, but the path turns right and follows the hedge for a short distance before joining the road at a stile. We turned right along the road as far as a left hand bend.  At this point we continued straight ahead, on a bridleway leading to Langham.

By now we were both wearing waterproofs as the drizzle persisted. The hedge was on our left for a while, but at the summit of the track it changed to being on our right.  The views here are said to be excellent, but the mizzle made them a little hazy today.  We used John Williams' book and the OS map and found the path without problem. At one or two points along the way the waymarks have faded or become overgrown.

There is a junction of bridleways at the end of the field, and here we turned right, with the hedge on our left.  In the next field the path goes over a stile after a gap in the hedge on the lef. We followed the path alongside a deep ditch on our left.  We crossed a plank bridge and then turned right when a hedge blocked the way, turning left over a briidge in a short while cutting off the corner of a field before following the hedge and waymarkers to reach Manor Lane in Langham, via a stile.

We turned right then left into Orchard Road, then at the end of Orchard Road, right then left into Bridge Street.  Just after the bridge we turned right before the Noel Arms. 

5 stars for the welcome coffee!

Well, to be truthful we were delighted to be able to buy an early coffee in the pub - the landlord took pity on our drowned rat appearance.

Ms Wet Anorak 2012?

The rain gods smiled on us and by the time we left twenty minutes later the rain had stopped.

At the end of Church Street we crossed the main road, turned right for a short distance before taking the bridleway towards Braunston, which leads off to the left.  The path climbs up hill following the left hand hedge and turning right to walk around the small wood near  Mill Hill.

At the end of the wood we turned slightly right and continued up to Manor Lane, a small road which leads into Barleythorpe.

Rutland Water in the distance

We walked down into Barleythorpe, and to the road, then turned right, along a pavement until a stile led into a playing field on our right. After this we walked along the edge of Catmose College, and through Rutland Care Village, before coming out close to the level crossing near Oakham Station.

We had our lunch stop at the Castle Café in Oakham - a very good broccoli and stilton soup.  It was still a little cool and damp for sitting out, so we went inside.

Outside the Castle Café, Oakham

We left Oakham on the road towards Uppingham and Kettering.

Floral peacock

Swooning Bridge, from where you would once have seen the gallows at the top of the hill.

Shortly after the bridge our path turned off to the left towards Egleton, crossing muddy fields which could have been a lot worse!  Of course, since the 2000 edition of the booklet, and the publication of my OS map, the bypass has been built.  It's on the newer maps, and doesn't complicate the route.

Through Egleton, we turned right along the road to the A 6003.  We crossed over the road and then the railway line to a path which leads up hill with a hedge on the left.

 At the second gateway we cut across the field slightly, joining a track past Brooke Covert East.  Soon after this the track bears right, but we took the route through a gate to the left.  The path goes downhill over a small bridge and past Bridge Farm into Brooke. 

Brooke Church

We walked through Brooke, turning right at the junction.  We passed some earthworks on our right, and a dovecote in the grounds of Brooke Priory - a house on the site of a 12th century priory.

Earthworks at Brooke

The dovecote

We took a footpath in the field opposite the priory, and walked alongside the stream, the Gwash.   After a few hundred yards the path crosses a footbridge to a bridleway.  We went across the bridleway through a gateway and over a field diagonally tot he left hand hedge. The path is clearly marked into Braunston. 

The last few steps of the Rutland Round

with a little more decorum

and a sense of achievement.

And here is Braunston Church again 

65 miles of very enjoyable walking, done on seven separate days. 


Map and details

A couple of pics from a walk in the same area in April 2009