To Barrowden from Duddington

We'd walked along the Jurassic Way between Duddington and Barrowden in the spring; it takes a big loop to the south by way of Finshade Wood, so we split this part of the walk into two "there and back” walks, with coffee at the halfway point of the Finshade Wood Visitor Centre on each occasion. The walk from Duddington to Barrowden on the Rutland Round is much more direct (always within a mile of both the River Welland and the A47, though it was a much more peaceful walk than that might imply) and thus shorter, taking less than 1.5 hours to walk. We had planned for some time to do this walk this morning, to leave us time to visit Deene Park , a historic house a few miles to the south of the walk planned for today, but only about a mile from Harringworth Lodge that we'd passed when slightly further along the Jurassic Way on 15th March. Deene Park doesn't open that often but would be open this afternoon. During the week we’d thought our plans might be scuppered by wet weather, but by this morning the probability of rain was forecast to reduce from about 9am, so we took the chance.

We had a fast journey to Duddington and parked close to where we’d parked last time we were here, on Mill Street (SK998008). We set off walking at 8.50, this time continuing along Mill Street to the old mill. It was overcast and we'd just reached the old bridge across the River Welland, when it started to rain. We donned our wet-weather gear, but it didn't come to much (we removed the wet-weather gear soon afterwards, and the sun came out from time to time).  In crossing the river, we passed from Northamptonshire to Rutland (the county in which we would remain all the way to Barrowden). We passed the path by the river on which we had approached Duddington back in February, on a route shared by the Rutland Round and the Jurassic Way. Today, this was where we joined the Rutland Round heading west.

We were heading towards the A47, which the Rutland Round follows as far as Tixover. However, the path is actually well back from the traffic, on what looks like a former route of the main road. The old road brought us seamlessly to Tixover, with its single street, which past Manor Farm degenerated from road to track. A sign near Manor Farm pointed to where one should go for the key to the church, which made me wonder where the church was. Ah yes, another sign indicated that it was still straight ahead, and two cars came past; were they heading to the church? A few hundred metres further on, past a pumping station, a track led down to the lovely church, and the two cars were parked by it (though I think they were dogwalkers, not heading to the church for a service).

Our route continued on a track to the right of the one leading to the Church and after half a mile or so, our now-grassy track led downhill to the woodland we'd seen ahead of us, Welland Spinney. The name is appropriate because the river was now just to our left-hand side, though it was down beneath us so quite difficult to see; we weren't bothered as the path through the wood was itself attractive. We emerged into a field of noisy sheep, with the A47 up above us and the river below.  As the river meandered, our route curved around above it, and we left the sheep field behind. We continued on a path near the river, grateful that they'd taped off a couple of deep holes in the path (otherwise I am sure that one or other of us would have tripped up over one of them). Eventually, the path straightened and followed a hedge boundary to a road. 

We'd noticed a church in the distance, but it took some time for us to be certain that this was actually the Church of  St John the Baptist, Wakerley (high up on a hill, surrounded by woodland), not St Peter's, Barrowden (which is on the far side of the village and only visible occasionally from the direction in which we were approaching). The road we reached is the road we'd taken from Barrowden to Wakerley when we were here on 22nd February, and we could have simply turned right and walked straight to Barrowden. However, despite the fact that I had convinced myself, when writing up that earlier walk, that the Rutland Round follows the road all the way from the centre of the village to Wakerley Bridge, I had now realised that this is not the case, and was determined to follow the "proper route".  So we turned left and followed the road towards but not quite to Wakerley Bridge, then turned right onto a footpath just before the river.  It was all very pleasant, but probably wouldn't have been the best of routes in February, because of mud and possible flooding.

The path took us across fields towards the centre of the village, passing more grazing sheep. We emerged onto Mill Lane, which is where the Jurassic Way comes up into the village from the south (so we were here on our return leg on 22nd February). Now we've visited Barrowden several times, we knew exactly where we were going today: the Barrowden and Wakerley Community Shop, or to be more precise, its coffee shop. I enjoyed a cheese scone with my coffee, while Richard had coffee and walnut cake; delicious!

We took the more direct route along the road back through Barrowden to the path to Duddington, then retraced our steps.  We'd allowed plenty of time for this morning's walk, so we had time for a leisurely picnic lunch at a bench outside Duddington Church, then we drove on to Deene Park and very much enjoyed our visit (our photos are here). It was "free flow" round the house, but Charlotte Brudenell, who lives there with her husband Robert, was going round chatting with the visitors, including us. She clearly loves the place and I much prefer visiting historic houses that are lived-in family homes rather than those that just display some historic and sometimes imagined way of life. We'd realised around lunchtime that the A47 had been shut immediately to the east of Duddington, but Google Maps sent us home by a sensible (not ridiculously minor) cross-country route by way of King's Cliffe, a large village just to the south of Fineshade Wood that seemed rather nicer than I'd thought it would be. There seems no end to the gems in Northamptonshire and Rutland.

Following leg