Balsall Common to Henley-in-Arden

Although we were walking from the Balsall Common Premier Inn this morning, we had quite a lot of driving at both the beginning and end of the day as we had to start by driving one car to our planned end point in Henley-in-Arden. Here we found a very convenient car park by the Medical Centre on Prince Harry Road (SP153658) before driving back together to the Premier Inn (SP235781). [At the end of the day we repeated this route in the other car then drove both cars to Arrow Mill near Alcester, the next place we were staying.]

We set off walking just before 9.30am, on a lovely sunny morning, and we were amazed by the speed with which we left the build up area of Balsall Common and the noise from the A452 behind us; within minutes we were walking along a country lane, with horses for company. Well, horses and airplanes that is...as we followed paths across fields, we passed underneath the approach flight path to Birmingham Airport.

After crossing Balsall Street, we took Magpie Lane and we followed the advice in the guidebook to go just slightly further than necessary in order to have a proper look at the delightful black and white building of Magpie Farm. Our walking across fields then resumed, passing a tractor out harvesting and eventually more horses and foals, one which seemed quite young.

We passed through Chadwick End and reached the Baddersley Clinton Estate. We had decided to stop here for lunch, but entrance to the house is by timed ticket, so we decided to look at the house first; it's a lovely moated manor house that was owned by the Roman Catholic Ferrers Family for many years, so comes complete two priest holes (last time we visited they thought they had three priest holes but that's just plain greedy and they have revised the story!). After looking around the house and enjoying a pleasant lunch, we resumed the walk, initially sharing our route with one of the walks from the House, but soon leaving the families behind. The weather turned a little threatening, but it remained dry.

We soon reached the Grand Union Canal and followed it for a very short distance to the Kingswood Junction where we took a short spur to join the Stratford-upon-Avon canal. At this point the instructions in the guidebook were just plain wrong (thankfully the OS map and signposting gave the right route - which is to stay on the left hand towpath of the Stratford-upon-Avon canal); had we have followed the instruction to turn right and cross the canal to the right hand tow path, we would have very soon been stuck! We followed the canal for a couple of miles, past a number of locks with pretty bridges and unique barrel-roofed lock-keepers cottages. The canal passes underneath the M40, a real mixture of transport of different centuries.

We left the canal at Lowsonford and stopped for a short rest in the village then we returned to the cross-country paths, through woodland and around various farms. We were just trying to work out the route around Holly Bank Farm (where the path has been rerouted) when we got a phone call from the residential home where Richard's parents are now living to say that his Mum was unwell, but they had the situation in control. We have every confidence in the care home staff, and Richard's brother had insisted we should get a proper holiday, so we just carried on. We passed a bird of prey which had just captured another bird and continued to climb, eventually emerging onto the scarp slope to the north east of Henley-in-Arden.

We descended then ascended again, now onto what is known as Beaudesert Mount, the site of an ancient hill fort and then a Norman stone and timber castle. From here we descended again, past St Nicholas Church and over the River Alne to Henley-on-Arden's pretty High Street (with another church). We were just looking for the path back to the car park! We found it without too much difficulty (signposted to the Medical Centre from the High Street).

After collecting the other car from Balsall Common we drove to Arrow Mill by way of the pretty villages of Wootton Wawen, Little Alne and Great Alne. This area of Warwickshire really is delightful. Reviews of Arrow Mill are a bit mixed, but our experience was generally good and you certainly can't argue with its glorious location; the heron we saw when we went for a walk before dinner was so still that we weren't initially sure that it was real. Then, for our (delicious) dinner we were seated at a table overlooking the mill pond, complete with several families of ducks. It's an amazing place.

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