Ringstead to Higham Ferrars

We left the car park and retraced our steps from last week along the southern edge of Kinewell Lake, and then slightly to the north on the western edge to the point we could exit to the road and rejoin the route of the Nene Way. We continued to the east on the road past the second lake, passing an entrance that made it clear that only those who were members of the relevant fishing club would be allowed anywhere near. Further along the road we reached the old railway line that we’d crossed last time; we’d seen various car parks around here but guessed they might be private; that was indeed the case, with parking here for members of [a different?] relevant fishing club. We reached the River Nene, in one of its complicated sections, with multiple strands including a lock, and a paucity of Nene Way signs. We managed to find our way across, then climbed across fields to the village of Little Addington.

Little Addington is a pretty place, with a church up on a hill to the left of the Nene Way’s route through the village, so a bit difficult to photograph. From the village we headed across a ploughed field – we haven’t had one of those for a while, but fortunately it wasn’t too muddy and we managed to work out the correct route without too much difficulty, not always reaching field boundaries at quite the right spot, but not too far off.

We were descending towards Stanwick Lakes, and had good views to all the flooded gravel pits. However we didn’t go all the way to the Lakes, rather turning right along the northern bank of the river. The path was quite narrow in places, but easy enough to follow for the next mile or so, passing the Frontier Adventure Centre to our right, with a swan standing on the Centre’s landing stage to our left. We passed a lock, then took a track which diverged from the river, and a man advised us to take the road rather than the path in the section ahead, because the path was rather overgrown. The road led past a hospital and supermarket to the A6 on the outskirts of Irthingborough.

The A6 here is a single carriageway road, but it was rather busy, presumably partly because of re-routed traffic from the A45, which crosses the A6 at a roundabout about a kilometre to the south, and on which there were roadworks which had closed one carriageway today. Eventually we managed to cross the A6 and continued across the floodplain of the River Nene towards to memorable church tower in Irthingborough. It is described as being a lantern tower, built to guide travellers across the Nene Valley in poor visibility. It is certainly tall and distinctive, but from closer to in looks like what it probably was – a fairly conventional church tower, with an octagon section built on top of it and a little spire at the top of the whole thing. It is also the case that the tower is only just connected to the main part of the Church (perhaps through the vestry or somesuch – it certaintly doesn’t join to the nave in the usual way) and, if I’m honest, the whole thing gives the impression of being stuck together in a most haphazard fashion.

The Nene Way signposting, which had been less good than in the previous sections for the whole of today, gave out completely before we reached the Church, However we worked out that we needed to be on the other side of the churchyard, which was correct. From here we descended back towards the river on a residential road, back towards the tarmacked “Greenway”, signposted to Higham Ferrers. At this point, following the mapping shown on the Ordnance Survey (including the current online version), we’d expected to take a rather longer route, off the Greenway by one strand of the river to the A6 viaduct we could see across the floodplain, then back by another strand before crossing the A45 and walking into Higham Ferrers, but at the first strand of the river there was clearly no path across what is now a nature reserve, so we continued along the Greenway. Eventually, at the point where we rejoined the other end of the route shown on the OS map, there was a sign indicating that the route we took is the correct one, and when I checked Mia Butler's "Exploring the Nene Way" on our return home, I discovered that this is the route they show – the guidebook has a copyright date of 1992, so there is really no excuse for the incorrect mapping on the Ordnance Survey’s record.

The section of the river which we had expected to be following back to the route we were now on was attractive, with a lock in view. Having got used to using our initiative in route finding, in the absence of Nene Way signs at appropriate points and of reliable OS mapping, we were happy to take the bridge over the A45 rather than attempting to cross the carriageways, as implied by the OS map. However from this point there was reasonable agreement over the route back to the car park. We were on a convenient green passageway between modern housing estates etc., with very sensible signs reminding cyclists to be careful of walkers – and to thank them appropriately. Oh how I wish that these signs could be reproduced across the country, and noted by the many, many rude cyclists who assume that walkers will give way to them and never say thank you! So, Higham Ferrers was doing well!

The passageway emerged onto a road along which we continued straight ahead until we reached Saffron Road and so the car park. On the way, we passed the back of Chichele College, a chantry college (residence of a group of priests who shared a communal life that was less strictly controlled than that of a monastery) founded in 1422 by the locally born Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury. We peered through the gate towards the English Heritage-managed buildings and the recently restored medieval garden. We then walked straight through the car park and out through the arch at the far side for a quick look at the delightful historic centre of the town, around the Market Square and the parish church. Then we headed back to rescue the car from Ringstead and so home to Norfolk. It rained whilst we were driving to Ringstead, so we were pleased both to have avoided the rain today and to have squeezed in an enjoyable walk despite the changeable weather at the moment.

Following leg