Navenby to Lincoln
Walked by Sally and Richard, Saturday 27th September 2014.
About 12.75 miles of walking, 11.5 miles progress on the Viking Way (5 hours plus time spent pottering around Lincoln).
Click here for all our photos from this walk.
Today's walk was not only an opportunity to get out in the continuing Indian summer and an opportunity to get away from work, it also enabled us to escape from our house with no functional windows (repairs to the render are ongoing) and to visit Lincoln, Richard's birthplace, though he left the city when he was a few months old.
We parked outside the King's Head pub in Navenby and walked back down Clint Street to "The Smoots", where we rejoined the Viking Way at about 9.30am. It's a pity that the path doesn't go through the centre of Navenby, which is an attractive place, but the route around woodland between the village and "The Cliff" was pretty too, if meandering and not brilliantly signposted.
We descended partway down The Cliff then climbed up again through woodland. We'd noticed on our last walk on the Viking Way that Wellingore and Navenby both have villages on the top of the escarpment and "Low Fields" down below, and the other villages we walked through today were similar. The photo shows the road from Navenby to Navenby Low Fields and is typical of many.
After Navenby, the Cliff Villages followed every 2 km or so, and they were all pretty places. We walked along the cliff to Boothby Graffoe, then Coleby and then slightly inland and briefly along the A607 to Harmeston (photo shown) and Waddington. RAF Waddington is the other side of the A607, but we were hardly aware of it - with just occasional helicopters flying overhead (retrospective googling suggests this may be because their runway is currently being repaired).
After Waddington we returned to The Cliff, now with views to the villages on the outskirts of Lincoln. We stopped for lunch and skirted to the cliff-side of Bracebridge Heath. There were occasional glimpses of Lincoln Cathedral ahead, and somewhere down below us was Rookery Lane, where Richard lived as a baby.
We crossed the A15, briefly confused by a signpost which had been rotated to make it appear that we needed to turn right onto the road. This is not correct - you turn left onto the A15 for 100 yards or so, then off onto a tree-lined track to the right. We hadn't expected the tree-lined track either. It was delightful, but the views over South Common to the city centre were only occasional.
We reached the B1188 and skirted around South Common, then through several cut-throughs towards the railway station and the ciity centre. Sometimes the route was signposted "Viking Way", sometimes it wasn't - and we followed other people on the basis of the fact that they were likely to be heading in the city centre too. As were approached the Football Stadium we realised that this assumption was flawed ... though in in fact the two men we were following also went down Cross Street (a good route for us) to a fish and chip shop. We left them there, and found our way without difficulty to a footbridge close to the Railway Station and close to the Bus Station (which we would need later).
We walked up High Street, a very obvious route if busy with Saturday afternoon shoppers. We climbed up "Steep Hill", stopping for a cup of tea at Bunty's, a delightful tea shop, with photos of the 30s, 40s and 50s on the tables; somehow very appropriate for our visit to the city in which Richard was born in 1956, and less than a week before his parents' diamond wedding anniversary (though they were married in Ely not Lincoln and we'll be going down to their current home in Sussex for the celebrations).
We were too mean to pay £8 each to go inside the Cathedral, but we had a lovely wander around, enjoying bursts of music from the Halle Orchestra (the "local band" from my birthplace) who were rehearsing for a concert this evening, delightful gargoyles and a statue to Tennyson, Lincolnshire's other famous son...
We retraced our steps down Steep Hill and High Street, made some half-hearted and unsuccessful attempts at shopping for new clothes and walking boots, then diverted to the Brayford Waterfront (modern and not quite our thing) then back alongside the river to High Street.
We reached the Bus Station and joined the long queue for the 4.15pm Number 1 bus, but there was room for all. We had a good journey home.
