Middleton Cheney to Banbury

This walk was our first serious engagement with the Jurassic Way and a little research prior to writing it up has confirmed that we last started a new long-distance path right back in 2022, when we started the Shropshire Way. We'd not intended to be walking this end of the Jurassic Way today, indeed we'd not expected to be in the area at all, but we were unexpectedly in Milton Keynes,to keep an eye on a plumbing issue in our flat, and the drive from Milton Keynes to Banbury only takes about 45 minutes. We knew this because we'd visited Banbury last weekend to visit some of the places that Richard remembered from when he lived here as a baby and young child. Thus it is that, while most people might think of Banbury Cross or the "fine lady upon a fine horse" in association with the town,  for us it was just as important to visit his old house and school (shown) - both of which he left aged 7!

I was childishly excited to be starting a new path. The weather forecast was for a dull but dry day, but as we drove from MIlton Keynes the "mist" seemed distinctly wet, so we settled on a relatively short walk. After leaving one car in the Compton Road long-stay car park  (just £1.80 for all day parking on a Sunday, as indeed seems to be the case for all Banbury's long stay car parks,  and we noted that the town seems to have rather a lot of car parks) we drove the short distance to the large village of Middleton Cheney. Here we parked in a convenient lay-by in front of the School and Library (SP499417); it being a Sunday we weren't in anyone's way, and Richard had a brief chat with a friendly dog walker, whose dogs took an interest in his socks as he was changing into his walking boots.  We took some photographs up the High Street then turned in the opposite direction onto Astrop Road, heading south out of the village.

We crossed the A422 (the busy road along which we'd driven earlier) on a bridge and almost immediately turned right onto a footpath. Although only a short distance from the bridge, you actually want the second path not the first here, after passing a bungalow, not before, but - great excitement - the correct path is indicated as being the route of the Jurassic Way by a signpost, albeit a boring green metal one. However, the real joy of this section was the speed with which we were out into typical glorious Northamptonshire rolling countryside.  We descended a slope to a little wooded area with a bridge over a stream, then ascended more gradually. 

If it weren't for the faint traffic noise (which wasn't intrusive) we could have been in the middle of nowhere. It was lovely. We skirted around the edge of the village of Overthorpe, with aconites and snowdrops reminding us that winter doesn't last forever. A fence to our right prevented us from seeing much of Overthorpe, but, through the mist, we had atmospheric views to Warkworth Church, which is actually partway between the two villages.

If the Church is in the middle of nowhere it is because "the church is a sole survivor of a complex of medieval and Jacobean buildings which constituted first Warkworth Castle and from the 17th century a large Jacobean house". I found that gem on the website "Visit Northamptonshire: Britain's best surprise!". I agree with the strapline entirely; it is so easy to think of Northamptonshire as a "nothing" county, bisected by the M1, M40, A14, and west coast mainline and notable only for the manufacture of shoes, but our (so far limited) exploration on various footpaths has revealed gorgeous countryside, pretty villages, and a fascinating past. However, I have to admit that I associate the name Warkworth, and in particular Warkworth Castle, with the village in Northumberland.

We emerged onto a road in the hamlet of Warkworth itself, and turned right, passing some attractive houses. The road was slightly busier than ideal, but we only followed it for a short distance before turning right onto another road for a short distance then turning left on a track. This section was perhaps the least attractive of today's walk, especially in the area where we crossed a disused railway line, when the track became rather muddy and  passed some rather tatty buildings. We could see the M40 ahead of us (and we'd been able to hear it for some time) but we couldn't initially work out where we'd cross it. However we correctly veered left onto path across scrubland leading to a bridge over the railway, and from here we could see the tunnel under the M40 that we were aiming for.

The tunnel is shared with the River Cherwell and, a short distance from the motorway, we climbed up onto bridge and crossed the river. From here, we only had to walk across a couple of fields to reach the Oxford Canal, which the route follows to Banbury. The route lies along the nearest (eastern) bank, but  I decided to climb up onto the bridge (Bridge 172) at the point we reached the canal to take a better look, and Richard photographed me here. However, first of all a dog being walked on the opposite side started barking at me ferociously, and in my haste to get away from it, I slipped and nearly fell on my way down the surprisingly steep little slope from the bridge.

The route from here to the end was very straightforward, on the towing path of the Oxford Canal all the way. Julia Thorley's "Jurassic Way" book says that "the last couple of miles are not the prettiest, because they go through an industrial estate". It is true that there is a section through an industrial estate towards the end, you get more than a mile of lovely canal-wide walking before you reach this. One of the unusual features of this section is the lifting bridges; sadly I suspect that  few of these are operational now, and some don't even have the bridge any more, just the narrowing of the canal where a bridge would have sat. 

As we approached the centre of Banbury, there were modern housing developments on the opposite side of the canal, and we did eventually reach an industrial and rather tatty section on both sides of the canal. This soon gave way to the modern buildings of Banbury's shopping centre, though sometimes old buildings had been renovated and given a new use, as for example in the Mill Arts Centre. Elsewhere, historic parts of Banbury, e.g. Tooley's Boatyard, retain their original use, albeit now surrounded, somewhat incongruously, by modern buildings. Tooley's has one of the oldest working dry docks on the Inland Waterways, working continuously since 1778.

We weren't sure exactly where the Jurassic Way ends [or begins] but it is somewhere round here, perhaps at Banbury Lock, just before Tooley's. After taking the obligatory photos at that point, we went to celebrate with a cup of tea in Connie's, a café housed in the Banbury Museum which is also adjacent to the canal. Then we returned to our car, crossing the Tom Rolt bridge,  named in honour of L.T.C. Rolt, canal campaigner and author, who wrote "Narrow Boat" in 1944, describing a four-month adventure on the canals with his new wife; the boat is attributed with the post-war growth of boating on the canals as a leisure activity.

OK, since others might want to explore Banbury at the end of the walk, I'll relent and give with a photo of Banbury Cross (taken a week ago). 

In case you're unfamiliar with it, the famous nursery rhyme, in the version I was brought up on, goes thus:

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,

To see a fine lady upon a white horse;

Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,

She shall have music wherever she goes. 

No-one seems sure what the rhyme means, or who it refers to. There is some evidence to support medieval origins, though ironically Banbury's various town crosses were destroyed by the puritans around 1600. The current Banbury Cross was erected in 1859  to commemorate the marriage of Victoria, Princess Royal (eldest child of Queen Victoria) to Prince Frederick of Prussia. The nearby statue of the fine lady upon a white horse was only unveiled in 2005, by the current Princess Royal,  Princes Anne.