Wimpole Hall to Tadlow
Walked by Sally and Richard, Sunday 2nd October 2016
5.4 miles, approximately 5 miles on the route of the Clopton Way
Click here for all our photos of this walk.
The Clopton Way ends or, in the direction we were walking it, starts at Wimpole Hall. Wimpole has been continuously occupied for more than 2000 years, with signs of Anglo Saxon, Roman and medieval dwellings then a four gabled Manor House with a moat which was demolished by the Thomas Chicheley, MP for Cambridge, in the 17th Century. The Chicheley family also laid the foundations for the current Hall, though it was the first Earl of Hardwicke who rebuilt the north and south elevations in red brick with Portland stone. The final private owners were Captain George Bambridge and his wife Elsie, the only one of Rudyard Kipling's children to survive to adulthood. Elsie use her inheritance and the royalties from her father's books to refurbish and refurnish the house.
The Wimpole Estate, with its grounds landscaped by Cabability Brown and others, is now owned by the National Trust and when our children were small it was Home Farm that we visited most. Today, after leaving one car back at Tadlow (just off the B1042 at TL276477 - down a road which the Apple Maps app is convinced you can't drive down, but you can) and driving back past signposts to the delightfully named Shingay cum Wendy, we left the other car in the overflow car park at Wimpole. The weather forecast had predicted a dry afternoon but it was very threatening; somewhat worrying because I had left both my waterproofs in the place I rent in Sherington and I wasn't sure that the spare cagoule I had borrowed from Richard would fit. There were a few spots of rain as we walked across the Wimpole Estate to the West (Arrington) Gate. Near the gate there were small children gathering conkers.
We passed through the gate and crossed the A1198, which here follows the route of the Roman Ermine Street. We passed a village sign and walked up through the village to the Church. We turned right and walked towards a footpath heading up to the left, but a man and a woman were standing vaguely in the way, with a younger woman, probably their daughter, standing nearby looking a bit embarrassed. It turns out that they are due to be leading a walk next weekend, and were doing a recce. However there was a herd of cows in field that they - and we - were about to enter, and amongst them there was a bull. The woman in the reconnaissance party was saying that she didn't think that next week's group would be able to cope; I can't help wondering if the anxiety was really hers! Anyway, there is nothing like someone else's nervousness to give you confidence so, rather uncharacteristically, I went striding on past the cows.
We walked across an attractive undulating field, but unfortunately the correct route out of the field was not clear. We turned to the left and climbed, but the way was barred. We retraced our steps slightly and climbed on a similar line, and here there was a way through, even with a footpath sign. We emerged onto a slightly overgrown field edge and followed this along the ridge, with good views to the south. We passed the Croydon Solar Farm and reached a track heading down to Croydon. But was this the right route? There were plenty of signs on the gate of the solar farm, but none referring to the route of the Clopton Way - not helpful! - so we got Richard's iPad out. Yes this was the way we wanted to go and we descended an attractive tree-lined avenue, passing the pretty Croydon Church. We reached Croydon High Street and turned right along the round through the village, passing pretty cottages.
We reached another road at right angles to the one we were on; this is Croydon Hill. We crossed the road and continued past a bungalow on a track, and soon we were again passing through undulating countryside with lovely views. We reached the site of the medieval village of Clopton - now just bumps on the ground - and continued on our path, passing New Forest. Imagine a pub quiz question: where can you find Croydon within 30 minutes walk of the New Forest? There were again a few drops of rain, but again it didn't come to anything.
We crossed the track leading up to Top Farm, and half a mile further on, somewhat bizarrely, our route was signposted to the other side of the field boundary. We did as we were told and then (without signs) immediately turned left to follow a field edge on the opposite side of the hedge. I'm not entirely sure that this was the correct route, because when we emerged onto the road within sight of our car, the Clopton Way sign appeared to point back down the track we'd left in crossing the field boundary. However there were no barriers in our way and by leaving the track we had kept ourselves out of the way of several horses which had been ridden down the track as we walked in parallel to it.
