To Great Doddington from Cogenhoe
Walked by Sally and Richard, Sunday 6th September 2020
6.6 miles of walking (Just under 3 hours including lunch break), about 6.5 miles on route of Nene Way
For photographs of this leg click here
For the third consecutive week of our walks along the Nene Way there were some issues with the mapping, but today's problem was slightly different. It wasn't my fault for forgetting to check the up-to-date map and neither was it necessarily the fault of the Ordnance Survey on this occasion: essentially there was a choice of two possible routes, neither exactly as shown on the map. We suspected the two-route issue as we drove between Great Doddington and Cogenhoe, after driving in two cars from Norfolk and leaving one of them in Great Doddington in the same place as last week (on Wilby Lane at SP880647). There is a prominent "Nene Way" sign on the road near White Mills Marina south of Earls Barton and the A45, but according to the map the path doesn't come this way. Apart from a section around a still-operational sand/gravel quarry, it was a glorious walk, partly along the River Nene, with occasional diversions to pretty villages. We could hear traffic from the A45 on occasion, but otherwise we could have been in the middle of nowhere, quite amazing given we were walking from close to Northampton to close to Wellingborough.
As last week, we'd decided to walk the leg in reverse because of uncertainty over parking at the far end, but we actually found parking relatively easily on York Avenue (SP827606) just before the recreation ground in Cogenhoe, where I think there is a car park, but we didn't need it. We set out walking around 10.20am, quickly joining the route of the Nene Way on Station Road then turning left along Church Street. There were some attractive houses and a particularly nice area around the church, then we took an alleyway around and past houses which emerged at a path out onto a field, with good views to the river valley beneath us. We descended quite steeply, down to Cogenhoe Mill, a nice old mill...but now surrounded by Cogenhoe Mill Holiday Park. There is a lock just past the old mill and we went down to look; it's an attractive section of the river. We returned past the mill to the footpath and as we set off along it, a dog-walker asked if we needed directions. He went on to have quite a long conversation with us, in which he told us that the walker slightly ahead of us was also walking the Nene Way.
After parting company with the dog-walker we spotted a swan and two cygnets in the reeds, then we continued alongside the strand of the river that presumably once led to the mill, with the static caravans of the Holiday Park on the other side. I am really not a fan of caravans, especially when in holiday parks like this one, but it does have a lovely location (the caravans are actually on an island). We joined the main strand of the river and left the caravans behind. There were good views back to Cogenhoe up on a hill, with its church occasionally appearing from behind trees. There were also good views to our right to the attractive Whiston Church, also on a hill. We'd driven past the church when driving from Great Doddington to Cogenhoe and I'd hoped I'd be able to get a photograph of it, so I was pleased that we could see it from the path. However photography was challenging because of an unfortunately positioned pylon and the direction of the Sun; I managed a couple of acceptable shots in the end.
After following the river for about a mile we reached a lock, where the Nene Way walker we had been following since Cogenhoe was sitting to eat a sandwich. The two routes separate from the bridge over the river at the end of the lock: there are Nene Way signs leading over the bridge but there are also signs to indicate that the route continues by the river. We were enjoying the river, so were tempted by the latter route (which would have also been shorter) but decided in the end to take the former route, partly because it is the one shown on the OS map (though, given recent history, I'm not sure how much that means...), partly because it would give us a change of scenery, but mostly because the signs pointing this way looked more modern. We stopped to photograph a family of swans and cygnets, then continued across the different strands of the river and through a wooded area.
It was as we emerged from the wooded area that the second mapping problem became apparent. The route on the map was shown continuing straight ahead, but this was now fenced off, with signs saying that we should keep out because quarries are dangerous (although the area initially just looked like scrubland with no sign of any quarrying). Instead, we turned right along the edge of the fenced-off area. We were beginning to think we would end up back by the river, but we didn't. Instead, the fence on our left turned a 90 degree corner, and it seemed that we were meant to go that way (though there were no signs) so we did, on a track between fences on both sides.
Beyond the fences there were now signs of recent were gravel extraction workings, with lakes just forming and a heron indicating, encouragingly, just how quickly nature will take over. Soon it was clear that this is an active extraction site, though it wasn't actually working, presumably because it was a Sunday, and by the time we rejoined the signed route of the Nene Way (phew), we could see various pieces of extraction machinery and an enormous pile of sand.
Our route took us over the A45 then, after passing Whites Nurseries (a wholesale fruit and vegetable supplier), the route continued along a track which ran parallel with the road towards Earls Barton. We climbed up through the village and followed the road towards the prominent church. Given the choice we'd had to make about which route to follow, we were unsure whether the uphill climb into Earls Barton would be worth the effort - it was! In the centre there is an unusual and attractive Anglo-Saxon Church, with the mound and ditch of a castle right next to it. The village is also home to a pharmacy that run by the Jeyes Family of Jeyes fluid fame (there is now a museum, gift shop and cafe behind the original pharmacy) and it is famous for its shoe-making heritage, with one of the factories being the inspiration for the musical and film Kinky Boots. There were attractive benches forming part of the war memorial outside the Church, where the Sunday service attenders (having presumably booked to attend, in the weird "new normal" of Covid-19, were drinking coffee outside). We stopped here for lunch, then continued our walk through the village. Just before turning right onto a footpath to descend back to the river, we passed the other Nene Way walker, who had stopped at another bench. Presumably he had walked past us while we were off the direct route through the village whilst eating our lunch.
We descended from Earls Barton, back across the A45 and down to the old Mill House, then we crossed a strand of the river by a weir and another stand by a lock. There were two boats in the lock and we had a brief chat with a man who was just pressing the control on the automatic lower gate. We turned left and followed the river, passing two flooded gravel pits to our right, with a large number of swans on one We could see the attractive Hardwater Mill in the distance and we walked towards it. When we got to the attractive old building we discovered a modern hydropower unit next to it and a little online research revealed that part of the mill is a self-catering cottage - it looks lovely!
We reached a minor road and used it to cross Hardwater bridge then took a path which, after some minor route-finding issues, left the river behind and climbed up to Cogenhoe, with lovely views behind us back to the river and flooded gravel pits. After collecting the car from Great Doddington we had a lovely cross-country journey to Milton Keynes.
