Olney to Sharnbrook

From Olney, the River Great Ouse and the Ouse Valley Way make a large loop to the north and then back down to Bedford. Today we walked as far as Sharnbrook, the northernmost point on the loop. It was a lovely spring day and a delightful walk, with lots of pretty churches (the photo shows Newton Blossomville).

We started from home in Norfolk and drove by way of Peterborough, Thrapsdon and Rushden, thus approaching Sharnbrook down the A6 from the north. This is just one of several routes of almost identical length, but we decided on this one because it diverges from my usual route to Milton Keynes less than a mile from home, so it made a change! We left one car in the little car park at the junction of High Street and Church Lane (SP996597) then drove by way of O’Dell, Harrold and Lavendon to Olney. The car park at the Sports Centre, where we’d parked last time we were here, was full because of what appeared to be a visiting football team, so we drove slightly further south and parked in the little car park at the shopping centre (SP890515). We cut through to Olney High Street and walked south to Church Street and so to the Church of St Peter and St Paul, where we re-joined the Ouse Valley Way. One of Olney’s claims to fame is that it is the home of the original Shrove Tuesday pancake race, which apparently originated back in 1445 when a local housewife, who had been busy cooking pancakes in anticipation of the beginning of Lent, heard the "Shriving Bell" signalling the start of the Shriving church service, and ran to the church, frying pan still in hand, tossing the pancake to prevent it from burning.

We crossed the flood plain of the River Great Ouse, with lovely views back to Olney, then crossed the river and climbed high above it, still with good views. Soon we could see another church in front of us, and this was in the village of Clifton Reynes, a pretty little place. We walked on to Newton Blossomville, then we crossed the river again by way of a rather complicated foot bridge, complicated because the river has several braids at this point.

We emerged into a field of sheep and lambs and walked through an avenue of trees past Brayfield House (now converted to flats) in the village of Cold Brayfield. We reached the A428 and turned right towards Turvey, with good views to Turvey House. As we crossed Turvey Bridge, we at long last left Milton Keynes. We have become used to the confusion between unitary authorities and ceremonial counties, but on this occasion it does seem particularly bizarre that the Mlton Keynes boundary comes all this way out of the city. We also left Buckinghamshire and walked into Bedfordshire, and the village of Turvey.

We stopped for lunch on a bench near Turvey Church, and watched people leaving the morning service. We had a chat with a woman who was out geocaching; the cache was very close to where we were sitting but I probably shouldn’t spoil the fun by saying where. From Turvey the path crosses open farmland and people walking towards us were struggling with a cold wind; fortunately it was behind us. There were good views ahead to Carlton Church and, sometimes appearing straight behind it, Harrold Church. We reached Carlton Church, with a shiny new weather vane, and turned right for a rather long stretch of road walking through Carlton.

As we approached Harrold, we had good views to Chellington Church (now a Conference Centre) to our right. We were still walking by the road, but there was an interesting raised section of pavement across the flood plain and then we reached the ancient Harrold Bridge. Getting across alongside the traffic was somewhat unnerving (the traffic is controlled so only comes in one direction at a time, but the bridge really is quite narrow) but it is an attractive place.

We turned right into the Harrold-Odell Country Park and stopped for a cup of tea at “Tea-Zels”, a café with good lake views and good food, which probably explains why the Country Park was so busy on a Sunday afternoon in April. We walked on though the Country Park which, for all its busyness, clearly attracts a lot of wildlife e.g. nesting birds on the island in the middle of Grebe Lake.

We emerged in Odell and walked past the Castle (the site is of a 11th Century Castle, but the current building was built in 1962!) and the Church. We took a narrow lane up past the Church and eventually this became a track and then a footpath which crossed fields to the attractive Woodend Plantation. We followed a lane through the plantation down to Sharnbrook, passing the site of Sharnbrook’s castle as well as modern housing and playing fields. We also passed the lodge to Colworth House, now part of a Unilever research and development centre, before meandering our way through Sharnbrook and back to the car.

Following leg