On paper this looked a very straightforward circular walk starting at Bozeat. As you can can see from the completed Strava Map on the left this was far from the case.
The planned walk starts in Bozeat, which lies some 6 miles south of Wellingborough. From there it heads towards Wollaston & then across to Strixton.
The weather was good as we set off from St Mary's Church in Bozeat mid morning looking to an early afternoon finish.
The walk starts proper at the junction of Allen's Hill & Harold Road. It is Walk 168 on the Northamptonshire walks site.
Crossing a stile into the site of an old quarry, not much to see now though. We move into another field which is a riot of colour and wildflowers.
So far so good and all is fairly straightforward. We are walking very close to the border with Bedfordshire. We do though get de-railed by a footpath to the right and a footbridge. It looked so tempting that we followed it.....Unfortunately it was in the wrong direction. A lady with horses soon pointed us back in the right direction and we were off again.
We needed to be headed towards Poplar Farm which with relief we could see in the distance. Passing the farmhouse we emerged into a large field that was clearly marked for walking.
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Three fields safely negotiated, and following the edge of a stream we arrive in Wollaston. Probably not the most scenic part in all truth as it is an Industrial Estate. Leaving the IE we walk along the Hardwick Road and pass some nicely kept allotments.
A lot of the houses in Wollaston are decorated with bunting and banners. This is in honour of local Paralympian Maisie Summmers-Newton who is from the area and has been competing in Tokyo.
She is due to return home very shortly after a hugely successful Olympics winning two swimming gold medals and breaking records too. Great to see that she is getting a very warm welcome back to the County.
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Moving down to the playing fields a cricket match is in progress. Wollaston first team are batting first and piling on the runs 160 -0 against Old Northamptonians seconds. A smashing day for cricket, just the sort I loved playing in, with the sun on my back.
We walked past the right of the cricket nets, crossing a busy A509 into the field opposite. We take the second path across to the spinney. We are now on the way to Strixton.
We have a little wander around the small hamlet of Strixton.The name Strixton dates back to the 12th century & is thought to mean ‘Farmstead or village of a man called Strikr’. There are less than 20 properties.
St Romwold’s Church dates back to the 13th century & in the 19th
century attempts were unsuccessfully made to rededicate it to St John
the Baptist. St Rumwold (different spelling), after
whom it was named, was a medieval infant saint said to have lived for
three days in 662.
Our path is opposite the Church and we head off in search of the plantation. There were some lovely Sloe bushes so I took the opportunity of picking a bagful for future use.It is around this point that things start to get confusing. There are several paths that disapear in different directions. We stayed on the track which turned out to be our biggest mistake.
The path finally brought us out in the village of Grendon..... Making our way uphill past the church to find a footpath to take us back in the direction of Bozeat.
Once again the directions are far from obvious. My companion suggests getting a taxi... a last resort. We continue onwards crossing a recently harvested field. What I thought was a footpath sign turned out to be a white flower. But at least we were able to find a gap in the corner of the field and make some progress.
In the distance is a Church spire, I'm really not sure if it is Easton Maudit or Bozeat? Time is pressing and we can't afford another wild goose chase. Thankfully a dog walker confirms that it is indeed Easton Maudit Church.
Continuing on the footpath at least we knew we were in the right direction. A young Fox is stalking a hedgerow, at least until it sees us and hastily disappears.
It is with some relief that we reach our destination of Bozeat a little later than scheduled.
In total we have covered over over 11 miles, stressful at times but always enjoyable!
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