To Higham Ferrers from Great Doddington

Walked by Sally and Richard, Saturday 22nd August 2020

7.4 miles of walking (3 hours 10 minutes of walking including an early lunch break), miles on route of Nene Way

For photos of this leg of the walk click here

We'd initially thought in terms of walking just from Higham Ferrers to the outskirts of Wellingborough today (i.e. doing a shorter walk and in the "correct" direction), but we altered that because the initial plan seemed a little short. Then, having decided to extend the leg to Great Doddington, we were unsure about parking there, so decided it would be best to arrive for the first time together in one car; this meant walking the leg "in reverse". As things turned out, it was a good thing that we didn't walk just from Wellingborough to Higham Ferrers as I suspect we'd have missed a rather significant signpost and so not realised that the route has changed, no longer going via Irchester Country Park. I'm sure that the Country Park would have been lovely, and we were fascinated by Little Irchester because for some time the iPhone Maps App read the direction to Lt. Irchester from the A45 as going to "Lieutenant" Irchester! Somewhat to our disappointment, this has now been corrected (although "N.Pagnell" in the same area is read as "North Pagnell" rather than the correct "Newport Pagnell"), but it makes us laugh every time we leave the A45 at this junction (which is quite frequently because the junction also leads to the A509, which goes to Milton Keynes). However, the Nene Way now avoids Irchester: if we had followed the route shown on our 2015-copyright map, we'd have descended to the river and found a footbridge closed off - and we'd have faced a long diversion in order to get to where we needed to be on the other side of the river. So everything worked out very well, and it was a varied and very pleasant walk. The landscape was more industrial than it had been on previous walks, but it was still attractive.

So today's walk included a mapping issue, as last week's had, though for today's walk the up-to-date Ordnance Survey mapping is correct; I just didn't think to check it. Also as last week, I was travelling from our flat in Milton Keynes whilst Richard was coming from our house in Norfolk, and we made an early start, today because I was anxious about the time because we had arranged to visit Richard's Mum at 4pm, back in West Norfolk. As last week, we met in the car park at SP959685 off Saffron Road in Higham Ferrers, and today Richard then drove to Great Doddington, with me as a passenger. Before leaving home we'd spotted, on Google Maps Streetview, a roadside place to park on Wilby Lane, out of the way of other road users and pedestrians, and now we were here it did indeed look like a good place to park. But first of all Richard drove up Wilby Lane and turned the car around, returning to park near SP880647. We were just preparing to leave the car when a man came walking towards us, obviously keen to say something to us, and he opened the passenger door of the car just by where I was standing... Oh dear, he's going to tell us off for parking here...Not at all; apparently he sometimes operates a speed camera on the road through the village, which we'd agree is quite twisty so anyone would be stupid to break the speed limit though we can well believe that they do. Anyway, the man had noticed Richard's careful driving up Wilby Lane and had stopped to congratulate him; or perhaps he just wanted a chat. Whatever, I wished he hadn't stood quite so close to me, given that Covid-19 is still very much on the scene.

We set off walking at around 8.30am, soon joining the Nene Way as it followed a minor lower road through the village of Great Doddington (pretty, though I struggled to do it justice in a photograph and the Church remained hidden behind houses ). We then descended quite steeply towards the river, with attractive views both down to the now-familiar flooded gravel pits, and back up the hill to Great Doddington. We reached one of the strands of the River Nene, near the site of a mill, where the mill itself has obviously been replaced by a more modern building. We continued alongside the river, passing fields of sheep and soon joining what appears to be the main part of the river.

We continued along the river towards Wellingborough, wondering what the buildings under construction to our left were, close to what is marked on the map as a prison. It turns out that they are rebuilding HMP Wellingborough as a "superprison". We were now passing lakes and tributaries, while Whitworth's Mill, on the other side of the A45, was clearly visible in front of us. A boat approached us from behind, but it had to moor in order to negotiate Wellingborough Upper Lock. We passed swans, and a couple walking the other direction and continued by the river as it passed underneath the A45 to emerge opposite Whitworth's Mill, with more swans for company.

We'd expected to leave the river here and to take a route back under the A45 and so to Little Irchester, Irchester Country Park and Irchester then back to the river, but there was a clear Nene Way sign pointing straight ahead along the embankment. We were anxious, but after last week's experience of incorrect mapping, we followed the sign not the map. We were soon in a park, with loads of swans. The car park we had intended to use in Wellingborough is here (it's the "Splash Park" car park, though the Splash Park is currently closed because of the Pandemic) hence my realisation that we'd probably have missed the critical sign routing us along the river if we'd parked here. We continued along the embankment, passing a woman and child feeding the swans.

As we continued onto scrubland, then past Wellingborough Lower Lock and into an area where there were multiple strands of the river and lakes, it was clear that we were on a route where others had walked, but the previously infrequent Nene Way signs had disappeared altogether and we weren't sure whether we were where we should be. It was only at this stage that I did what I should have done some time ago and got my phone out to check the OS Maps app; the route alongside the river is indeed now the correct one, but we had ventured too far to the north, so we retraced our steps to the lock and then found the correct route - it's amazing how signposts appear when you know where you are, but are strangely absent when you don't.

We passed the closed footbridge where we had expected rejoin the River Nene, and continued alongside the river towards the railway viaduct, which had been visible in the distance for some time. The railway line seemed very quiet and we eventually realised that it must be closed; the only locomotive we saw looked like a maintenance vehicle, and then we spotted people walking on the line. We passed underneath the railway viaduct, actually a double viaduct, presumably to carry two lines built at different times. The landscape of river, lakes and scrubland continued and, although there was quite a lot of activity on the lake to our right, including speedboats, this was the other side of the river, and our route was not always entirely clear. Out came the OS Maps app again.

We emerged at Ditchford Bridge, passing a heavy horse and foal just before doing so. Although we were now due north of the Ditchford Lakes and Meadows Nature Reserve, our route initially continued through a slightly tatty landscape, with the road to the Sewage Works to our left. I'm not selling this am I! However it was perfectly pleasant, and we stopped for a very early lunch (to avoid getting back to the car before eating), sitting on some convenient logs. We reached a more civilised but therefore busier section soon enough, with the detraction of more people (unsurprising given we were just north of Rushden Lakes Shopping Village, with footpath signs pointing to it), but the attraction of a lovely section of the river.

We followed the river as it came closer to the A45 then took a footbridge (not signed as the route of the Nene Way, though it obviously is) over the river and the main road. There was another lake on the other side of the road, and another strand of the river, then a little area of parkland. We took a footpath, up towards the centre of Higham Ferrers, and then followed the signed route along a road and so to the recreation ground just opposite the car park where we had left my car. This last part of the route is still not shown correctly on the OS map, but it was easy to follow and the route that is shown would also be fine here. We returned to Great Doddington to collect Richard's car (with me driving very carefully in case the our friend the speed gun operator was watching!) and then on to Norfolk.

Following leg