Grantham Canal to Honington

In an ideal world, we might have spent the three days of the late summer bank holiday weekend walking from the point on the Viking Way that we’d reached last weekend to Lincoln, but I was too busy with work to spare the time. Before you feel too sorry for me (or Richard), or comment that I’m stupid, I would also point out that it rained a little on the holiday Saturday and tipped it down on the Monday. We definitely had the best day weather-wise and we had a lovely day progressing from the west to the north of Grantham.

We continued along the canal, passing the narrow boat “The Three Shires” that we’d been passed by last week. They were just welcoming passengers on board for another canal trip. Soon we reached the remains of a flight of locks; one was obviously in the process of repair, so there was something of a lack of water in places; and the “weir” half a mile further along is actually the remains of a lock too. We also passed Woolsthorpe Bridge and The Rutland Arms. The canal was quite overgrown but it was all very pretty. There were good views to Belvoir Castle, up on a hill a couple of miles away.

We left the canal just before Stenwith Bridge, and followed a track to the north. There were a few dog walkers about and we were passed a man behaving slightly oddly; he explained he was geocaching. We emerged onto a road and fell into conversation with a local woman, out walking two dogs.

We reached the A52, a very busy road, but we managed to get across it eventually, and soon afterwards we crossed a railway (one of several today). The next few miles were rather straight and boring along Sewstern Lane, now a stony track that descended and eventually became a minor road. The countryside ahead looked more interesting, with three churches coming into view – one to the south of Long Bennington, one in Westborough and one in Foston, up on a hill to the right.

Sewstern Lane ended at a sliproad to the A1 and we crossed the busy road and walked towards Long Bennington. We followed Church Lane towards St Swithun’s Church, a pretty little place, then continued into the outskirts of Long Bennington and down a footpath between houses to the young River Witham. We returned to the River Witham several times today (further upstream I think) and a quick google reminds me that we’ll encounter the river further downstream too, in Lincoln (the river then loops back to Boston).

We crossed the river and walked across a mixed field of sheep and cows, a pleasant change from the industrial-scale arable fields that are more common around here. We then crossed a stubble field to Westborough, and meandered our way to another Church Lane and the impressive All Saints’ Church. We returned to the River Witham where two conveniently placed benches provided an excellent place to stop for lunch. Then we crossed the river again and walked through a recently harvested corn field and then a large field of sugar beet.

Somewhere in the middle of this we must have missed a Viking Way sign because we found ourselves walking straight towards Foston, which isn’t actually on the path. We decided that it was easiest just to keep going to Foston. We took a footpath through a small housing estate then turned left at the main road, past several former farms that have been converted to upmarket housing, then we turned right, back onto the route of the Viking Way.

The path was initially grassy, but even when it became the harder Stonepit Lane (after a couple of dog-legs) there were good views to Marston Church and a wind turbine ahead of us, and to Hougham Church amongst the trees to our left. We reached Marston and walked through the village, passing mostly modern housing and the interesting Marston Thorold’s Charity Church of England School, founded by Dame Margaret Thorold in 1716.

Towards the southern edge of Marston, we turned left on a road, then track then footpath, which took us to the sewage works! The sewage works themselves were…like sewage works (in appearance and smell) but before we got there we walked past extensive reed beds with some wonderful bulrushes.

After passing the sewage works we took a tunnel under another railway line, this time the East Coast Main Line. We emerged into an extremely attractive rolling landscape, with the River Witham and then woodland to our left and agricultural land to our right. It was still a little aromatic, now because of muck spreading not the sewage works. We had some difficulty photographing a train speeding along the line behind us, partly because I was confused by the sound of trains on the Skegness line, which was a short distance away to the right.

We walked alongside the river for a while then stopped for an apple. Then we climbed up across the smelly field and turned left along a track which took us back to and across the river. Eventually we climbed up quite steeply, past Mickling Plantation and nearly to the wind turbine that had been in sight since before Marston, and turned right to descend again on Frinkley Lane. We left the route of the Viking Way at the point that Frinkley Lane reached the road, and carried straight ahead for half a mile or so, past the barns and self catering accommodation at Honington Grange, over the railway again, to return to our car in the layby.

On the way back to the other car we stopped at the National Trust’s Belton House, getting there about 4pm. The receptionist encouraged us to visit the exhibition of Downing Street silver, but we decided that tea and cake was more important!

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