The Millennium Way in pictures

The Millennium Way in pictures

Foreword:

The Millennium Way (the Midlands version, not to be confused with the other Millennium Ways of Bradford and the Isle of Man) is a 100-mile walk that wends its way through the gently rolling countryside of the south Midlands. The walk, created to celebrate the Millennium by members of the National Association of ex-Round Tablers, extends from Middleton Cheney, Northamptonshire in the east to Pershore, Worcestershire in the west and describes an arc with the village of Meriden at its northern apex.

Day 1.1 All Saints church in Middleton Cheney, just before I set off.

Day 1.2 I started to make my way upwards across a meadow, following a clear path that climbed perhaps two hundred feet.

Day 1.3 A disused railway track cut across my path somewhere near Lower Thorpe, running in from the direction of Banbury to the east and arrowing westwards to an unknown terminus. This section of it had been converted into racing gallops.

Day 1.4 Chipping Warden: There is an iron age fort and the remains of a Roman villa near to the village, which is bordered on two side by the River Cherwell, so it would be quite easy to while away a day in this place.

Day 1.5 I entered a large field of Rapeseed, the pathway through it barely a foot wide so that I waded through the thick carpet of yellow blossoms, their strange odour permeating the air

Day 1.6 The buildings of Upper Boddington appeared from around a bend signalling the end of the days walk.

Day 2.1 I left the village of Upper Bodington behind via a kissing gate which led to a narrow footpath, shrouded by tangled hedgerows.

Day 2.2 Near Priors Marsden: The trouble with bridleways is that horses use them, horses with big iron-shod hooves that clomp along, churning the ground over and allowing the rain to soak in. The soft ground beneath me turned at first porridgy and then full-on muddy.

Day 2.3 The road allowed me a closer look at the village of Napton-On-The-Hill. The village has been around for quite a while – its name is derived from the Old English cnaepp, meaning hilltop, and tun meaning settlement and has an entry in the ubiquitous Domesday Book.

Day 2.4 I was now on the Oxford Canal, a 78-mile-long waterway running from Oxford to Coventry and terminating at Hawkesbury Junction.

Day 2.5 I crossed a busy road to set off alongside hedgerows on a straight route through sheep pastures and cropfields towards a distant farm.

Day 2.6 The Grand Union canal: The waterway links London to Birmingham and is 137 miles in length, flinging out spurs to Leicester, Slough, Aylesbury, Wendover and Northampton along the way.

Day 3.1 Long Itchington: I wandered down the high street passing neat rows of cottages and the lovely Holy Trinity Church before taking a left turn that led me over a stream and away from the village.

Day 3.2 I was going to have Cow Trouble. Ahead of me was a stile that led into a large pasture and clustered densely around the stile was a herd of Fresians They made no attempt to move off as I approached but merely gazed at me with limpid brown eyes and a general impression of inertness.

Day 3.3 This tiny woodland was an extremely picturesque place, punctuated by half-fallen trees all hung with vines and etched with a hundred shades of green. The River Itchin wound lazily through it, little more than a stream, dun brown and dusted with damsel flies.

Day 3.4 A succession of such fields followed, offering wide views of the countryside around me, particularly to the south-west.

Day 3.5 Ridgeway Lane ended at a tiny road which carried me into the equally tiny hamlet of Old Hunningham which consisted of a cluster of cottages and a rather squat church.

Day 3.6 I came to a stone bridge crossing the River Leam. Out here in the sticks the river was a quiet and secretive little waterway, bordered by graceful willows and with only cattle wandering its banks.

Day 3.7 I continued along the back lanes of Cubbington, heading towards its high street. Cubbington has an entry in the Domesday Book, 1086, where it is referred to as Cumbynton, an old English phrase meaning a settlement in a low or deep hollow.

Day 3.8 I had convinced myself that it would all be developed land after Cubbington but this was not the case. Although the edge of Leamington could be clearly seen, marked as it was by a tower block thrusting up beyond the greenery of arable farmland.

Day 3.9 There was a most pleasant section of walking ahead of me, a gently rolling landscape of crops and fields of wild flowers.

Day 3.10 I came to the river by crossing a large stone bridge and I peered over its parapet at the wide green waters of the Leam. No longer the modest little waterway I had met earlier in the day.

Day 3.11 I entered Jephson Gardens on the side of the river that hosted the Boat Centre. Here the great and the good of Leamington are commemorated in a variety of monuments, and wrought-iron benches line pathways resplendent with summer bedding.

Day 3.12 The tow-path was empty and quite a contrast with the parks I had recently crossed, I could hear birdsong again. Even the few narrow-boats tethered along the banks seemed unoccupied.

Day 3.13 I always enjoy a good stroll along a canal and today was no exception, I forgot the leaden feelings in my legs and my sore toes and simply enjoyed the final two miles.

Day 4.1 A detached cottage stood at the end of a drive leading out onto the main road and a little bench with a hand written sign invited the passer-by to ‘have a seat’, cheerfully surrounded by painted flowerpots.

Day 4.2 Kenilworth Castle stood framed against the sky, a romantic and haggard ruin which somehow still gave out the impression of the spectacular building it must once have been.

Day 4.3 I left Kenilworth via a small lane which in turn took me onto a track across open meadowland, the ragged silhouette of the castle framed above the acres of thistle and gorse.

Day 4.4 Beyond the wild meadows lay a vast field of wheat, rippling like a tawny lake and cracking audibly in the hot noonday sun.

Day 4.5 I tripped happily enough down the slow incline to the border of the woods and then paused in puzzlement. The map clearly showed me the direction I should take but equally obvious was the solid green wall that obscured the path. It seemed to be some sort of tough bean crop.

Day 5.1 I sat on a bench surrounded by the leafy tranquillity of St. Laurence Church, Meriden, and watched the morning sun slanting through the boughs of the oaks and ash that protected the little churchyard and its ancient headstones.

Day 5.2 Meriden sported a tall needle of granite which I’d always assumed was the centre of England monument but I soon discovered was a memorial to the cyclists who had given their lives in both World Wars.

Day 5.3 Meriden is another of those places that are on my doorstep but seldom visited, I had passed through it many times over the years, knew that there was some connection to cycling, had an idea that it claimed to be the centre of England, and always considered it to be one of those ‘nice places to live if you can afford it’ communities like Kenilworth and Leamington Spa.

Day 5.4 Standing before the blasted landscape of the quarries near Meriden, with its giant craters and dinosaur-like quarrying machines, it was hard to believe that anything could ever grow there again.

Day 5.5 I found myself marching along the boundary of a field so large that it almost had a horizon. The sun beat down on me as I traversed this savannah

Day 5.6 I hopped onto the towpath of the Grand Union Canal and began to consider a place to stop for lunch.

Day 5.7 Approaching Packwood House along its old driveway was always something I looked forward to as it was a long straight avenue, lined on each side by a variety of lovely old trees.

Day 5.8 I reached the neat lawns and gravel drive that swept past the complex of ancient buildings that grew about the main house, old red brick glowing in the late afternoon sunshine, and the uneven lines of tiled roofs delineated against the sharp blue sky.

Day 6.1 I crossed a couple of small fields and entered the grounds of St. Giles church at Packwood.

Day 6.2 I found myself on the tow-path of the Stratford-upon-Avon canal, an understated little waterway that was completed too late in the day and failed commercially as the railways quickly usurped its customers.

Day 6.3 All too soon I had to leave the green sanctuary of the canal, crossing a bouncy drawbridge and engaging a number of grassy meadows until the sharp spire of St. Mary the Virgin's church poked up above the rise of a green hill and my first testing climb left me at it's Lychgate.

Day 6.4 On either side there were neatly mown pastures and large greenhouses. Through a gap to my right I noticed a brightly painted gypsy caravan and further on a restored windmill which was now somebody’s des-res. This area is either Lapworth Grange or Green Acres and has properties with an average value approaching a million pounds.

Day 6.5 I climbed a field to emerge at a crossroads which took me onto Irelands Lane and a nice mile or so of road walking, sheltered from the warm sun by the dappled shade of trees either side.

Day 6.6 At a tiny hamlet called Buckley Green I encountered two women walkers, the first fellow hikers I has seen all day and they cheerfully informed me that there was a good climb just ahead. Sure enough I approached a meadow which sloped upwards for around 100 meters at its further side.

Day 6.7 A ridge fell away to my right down to where the outlying rooftops of Henley-in-Arden could be seen.

Day 6.8 I descended into Henley-in-Arden. The route took me along Beaudesert Lane, a short little road that boasted large and ancient churches at both ends.

Day 6.9 Soon I was descending grassy pastures and narrow tracks between hedges as I left Henley behind, crossing a small brook and heading out into rural fields once more.

Day 6.10 I strode across several large fields with Bannam Wood hill growing imperceptibly larger as I trudged.

Day 6.11 Bannams Wood was devoid of people and I walked alone in a heavy silence broken only by the mad cackling of a Jay. It was both peaceful and on some level a little spooky, being up there on that hill surrounded by ancient forest

The Millennium Way - Day Five

The Millennium Way

By Mark Walford Day Five Route:Meriden to Packwood House Distance: 12.5m (20.2km) Elevation: 302ft (92m) to 479ft (146m) Climbing (ascent and descent): 686ft (209m) and 679ft (207m) Prev      Next

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Rumination and procrastination ...

I sat on a bench in the leafy quiet of St. Laurence's churchyard, Meriden, and watched the morning sun work its way through the oaks and ash, slanting across the old headstones. It was mid-September. My target had been to complete the walk by the end of September. I was still barely halfway through, and the year was already showing its intentions — the first tinges of autumn on the leaves, a distinct nip in the early air, the particular quality of light that September produces when it is telling you something is changing.
Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans, as John Lennon observed, and he was right about long-distance walkers as much as about anyone else. Holidays, family gatherings, and a generous portion of indolence had carried me through August and deposited me here, on a bench in Meriden, with fifty miles still ahead and the calendar moving in the wrong direction. By the time I reached Pershore it would be deep autumn, winter pressing in behind it. Walking in autumn has its virtues — I know this, I believe this — but the ploughed fields and cloying mud of late October were not something I was anticipating with enthusiasm.
Revised target: complete the walk by the end of October.
The church bell struck nine. I stood up and sauntered down the lane.

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Memorials in Middle England ...

High grassy meadows above the village, the rooftops of Meriden below me, Birmingham shimmering on the horizon as a faint tower-studded haze. A lady came the other way with a Jack Russell who took the view that I was trespassing on her personal countryside and communicated this without hesitation. I walked with them for a while and described the route I was taking. She had never heard of the Millennium Way, which by this point in the walk I had come to accept as the normal state of affairs. She winced sympathetically at the day's mileage, which was moderate by any standard I had previously applied to the word.
In the lower meadow a tattooed young man was scrolling his phone while a bulky Staffy nosed about in the long grass nearby. The dog became aware of me a moment before I became fully aware of the dog. It stiffened. It fixed me with the specific stare you do not want from a brindled slab of muscle with a powerful bite. I stopped and waited. The dog began to move. At the last moment its owner looked up, lunged, caught the collar. We exchanged curt nods — the man and I, not the dog — and I continued along the hedgerow with my walking pole shortened to whacking-stick length, listening to the Staffy's gargling displeasure on the other side of the hedge until a kissing gate delivered me into a field of black cattle, who regarded me with the satisfying indifference of animals that have no agenda.
Meriden's main road and then the village green — a large triangular swathe of neatly mown grass I had driven past many times over the years with the vague awareness that there was something here worth stopping for and the usual failure to stop. I knew about the cycling connection, had an impression of a centre-of-England claim, had always filed it under *nice place if you can afford it* alongside Kenilworth and Leamington Spa and driven on.

The village green, Meriden

The tall granite needle on the green turned out not to be the centre-of-England monument. It was a memorial to cyclists who had given their lives in both World Wars, originally erected in 1921, it is the focal point of an annual pilgrimage that reportedly draws cyclists in their thousands — a gathering I would genuinely like to see. Why cycling is so specifically entwined with Meriden I could not establish, but the monument is impressive and commands the green with quiet yet significant authority.
The actual centre-of-England marker was at the far end of the green, partly obscured by low shrubs and flower beds, easy to miss from the road: a weathered spire of red stone, five hundred years old, its crown cross long since lost. A Grade II listed monument announcing Meriden's claim to geographic centrality, in quiet competition with several other claimants around the Midlands. I had driven past it for years without noticing it was there. It seemed a shame, given its age and its provenance, that it was so easily overlooked.
I followed the guide's directions out of the village along one of the main roads and had not gone far before the lady with the Jack Russell appeared again, coming toward me from the direction I was supposed to be heading. One of us had doubled back on ourselves and I had a feeling it wasn't her. We exchanged pleasantries and I continued along the road for a short spell, admiring the fine properties that passed by on either side. I was directed down a claustrophobic track between a wire fence and thick brambles where a German Shepherd lurking onseen on the fence side erupted furiously without warning, making me start violently and produce a word I would not normally deploy in an open field. The fence did not look substantial. I edged along with one eye on the dog and emerged onto a concrete farm drive to find myself looking at the field of black cattle I had already crossed that morning, with the ascending slope of turf beyond them that I had already climbed.
The Millennium Way, I eventually concluded, had constructed a deliberate loop to carry the walker through Meriden, past its monuments, and presumably into its shops. A fair intention. The village is worth the visit. A more direct line across the cow field would have saved fifteen minutes and a German Shepherd, but these are the terms on which the route operates, and Meriden is, after all, its northern apex. From here the walk turned south-west, leaving familiar ground for the less familiar territory of Worcestershire.

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The silent land ...

Almost immediately south of Meriden the path found the perimeter of a large quarry — hidden beyond high embankments, announced by No Trespassing signs and warnings about deep and dangerous water in the flooded workings. The noise of the morning disappeared entirely. No traffic, no livestock, just gravel crunching under my boots and the looming fences of a quarry I had never known existed, despite living a few miles from it for most of my adult life.
Lafarge Tarmac, the aggregate and mortar operation hidden inside all this embankment, covers many acres of land just beyond my doorstep and had been entirely invisible to me until today. The gravel track became a metalled road, the quarry still unseen beyond its defences, the silence complete and slightly strange in quality — the particular absence of sound that a large industrial site produces when it is not working.

A scarred landscape

I stopped and breathed it in. There was an odd chemical tang in the air, with a sweet and slightly sugary undercurrent whose source — quarry or unseen field — I could not establish. I debated the wisdom of prolonged exposure and moved on.
Further along, the embankments dropped away and the quarry revealed itself — a blasted, cratered landscape of dust and rock, enormous machines parked among the craters like dinosaurs at rest. It was not beautiful. It was, however, genuinely impressive in the way that large-scale industrial intervention in landscape is impressive, the sheer scale of it making the idea of restoration and replanting seem, from where I stood, extremely optimistic. And yet this is what happens: the machines move on, the craters fill, the grass returns. It just takes longer than one afternoon to believe in.
The views opened again beyond the quarry and I crossed fallow fields under an autumnal sun that had decided to make an effort. By the time I descended into a shallow grassy valley I was warm and the day had the specific quality of late-summer sunshine that is pleasant precisely because it will not last much longer.
Two women were picnicking in the valley. Their dogs — a young German Shepherd and something smaller of uncertain heritage — were chasing each other enthusiastically over the tussocky ground. The German Shepherd spotted me at the same moment her owners did. I could read the intention in her eyes from twenty yards.
"No Sheba!" one of the women called.
Sheba galloped across the valley, tongue out, eyes bright, and from one yard away launched herself and planted all four paws squarely on my chest.
*Oooff.*
Mission accomplished, she raced back to her owners, who were apologetic. I waved the apology away. It was enthusiastic and well-intentioned and a German Shepherd jumping on you with its whole heart is a different matter from a Staffy staring at you with professional assessment. Sheba had passed no judgment. She had simply arrived.

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The accidental A Road ...

More fields, more hedgerows, the mental drift that long stretches of unchanged scenery produces in a solo walker. I was some distance into this drift when I found myself standing on the verge of the A452 Kenilworth Road — a dual carriageway I had no plan to be standing on — with the steady swish of fast traffic and the particular bleakness of unexpected road walking spread out ahead of me.
The GPS eventually explained what had happened. Somewhere in the fields I had drifted west instead of continuing south, missing the path alongside Sixteen Acre Wood and depositing myself on the A452 considerably further from Balsall Common than I needed to be. The options were to retrace and find the correct route through whichever combination of fields and gates had produced this outcome, or to walk the road to the point where the Millennium Way crossed it ahead.
I walked the road.
This required crossing the dual carriageway three times, the footpath mysteriously petering out on one side and resuming on the other in the manner of a route designed by someone with a dark sense of humour. The central reservation provided some cover. The experience was nonetheless strongly reminiscent of Frogger, the arcade game in which a frog attempts to cross a busy road and typically fails.
I was glad to reach the end of the game intact.

---

Canine capers (again) ...

Back on route before Balsall Common, I turned onto a quiet country lane between fields of cattle and horses and recognised it immediately — the Heart Of England Way, walked with Colin in the spring of 2013. A brief reunion, parting at the next gate as the Millennium Way struck left across a grassy valley.
At a metal kissing gate a scene presented itself: a shaggy pony being escorted between an elderly couple, each of them with arms slightly outstretched in the manner of people managing something that requires caution. A Jack Russell walked at a careful distance from the pony's hooves.
I assumed they were the pony's owners and waited for them to pass through the gate.
"Is he nervous?" I asked, meaning: *should I stand further back?*
The woman shook her head. "No, he's not ours. We were just walking through the field and he came up and started biting us."
"He's well known for it," the man confirmed. "Lonely, I think. Wants the attention."
The pony, as if to illustrate this theory, waited for the man's attention to be directed at the kissing gate mechanism and took a generous chomp on his shoulder. "OOOOW NO stop it that bloody HURTS!" The man flinched and waved his arms. The pony skittered back a few paces and regarded us all with yellowish eyes.
I assessed the situation.
"Right," I said. "How do I get past him without getting bitten?"
"Where are you heading?" the woman asked.
I told her.
"Oh, you're fine then. You go straight down the valley — you don't go into his field at all."
I said my goodbyes and set off down the valley, leaving the pony with the slightly deflated expression of an animal who had been looking forward to something and found the something had other plans.
The sweet corn field beyond the valley held a weather-beaten man and a younger companion who kept emerging from the dense green depths, peering back into the stalks, and plunging in again — searching for something with sustained, methodical intent. What they were looking for remained their business. I left them to it.
Stripped fields followed — harvest done, brown stalks in serried ranks, no livestock anywhere. Where do the cows go at this time of year? The question occurred to me somewhere in the middle of the largest field of the day, a vast open savannah of late-summer earth that took long enough to cross for the question to develop and then remain unanswered.
By the time I reached the far side I had shed a T-shirt and accumulated an impressive quantity of honest sweat.

The village of Temple Balsall across fields

The cottage at the field's corner had a paddock. The paddock contained a dog of Staffy derivation who had been minding his own business until I appeared, at which point he identified me as a target and committed to an approach. I stood stock still, as advised. I had time to notice the difference between this dog's expression and Sheba's — where Sheba had twinkle, this animal had something more businesslike — before it left the ground a few feet away from me, described a lower arc than Sheba (being shorter and less athletic), and applied its hard round head to the region below my rucksack with precision.
*Whoof.*
The owner apologised at length. He really likes people. He wouldn't have done any real harm. I did the right thing standing still.
I nodded reassuringly and wished, privately, that I had done the right thing by getting my boot to it while it was in mid-flight. I walked on, making a mental note about cricket boxes and their potential role in future kit lists.
Temple Balsall appeared in the middle distance — picturesque against its backdrop of billowing trees, the kind of view that a painter would compose deliberately and which this part of Warwickshire produces without effort. I crossed one more large field, and in the middle of it a walker appeared coming the other way. The first I had seen all day. We closed the distance over perhaps a minute. I considered possible topics: the weather, the routes we were each walking, the day's canine statistics.
We met in the middle of the field.
"Ayup," he said.
"Aye," I replied.
We walked on.

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Not far from the madding crowd ...

The lane beyond the field led to a road and the drive of the Black Boy Inn, — a familiar landmark whose appearance confirmed the mileage covered and suggested a cold pint was in order. The Black Boy has a good reputation: generous food, reasonable prices, canal-side position. On a warm Sunday afternoon it was, as it reliably is, packed to capacity. Smartly dressed people in the bar, the queue long, the collective fragrance of a hundred colognes. My walking attire and its associated aromas were not suited to this company. I left the drive and found the canal towpath instead.
The ideal lunch spot required some searching. A narrowboat full of people doing noisy Sunday lunch in the sunshine was too sociable. A barge behind whose portholes a shadowy figure moved in apparent silence was too mysterious. I eventually found a grassy embankment beyond an old brick bridge and flopped onto it with the gratitude of someone whose legs have been going since nine o'clock.
The Grand Union moved past in its soupy brown way, carrying fallen leaves. A gentle breeze stirred the opposite bank. White clouds built and dissolved overhead.
I ate lunch, lay back, and discovered I had a headache. I opened my medical kit and found that I had not packed paracetamol, which was consistent with previous practice. I made a brief call home and then lay back again.

The avenue of trees at Packwood House

Two fishermen a hundred yards downstream had not caught anything all morning. They appeared entirely content with this. Their flasks were full, the day was warm, and each other's company was sufficient. There is a philosophy in canal fishing that I find increasingly comprehensible.
I rose stiffly from the towpath, passed the fishermen with a wave, and left the Grand Union at the next bridge.
The paddock and horse-jump section that followed was extensive and deserted — expensive horsebox outfits parked along the track, sand training areas behind neat fences, all of it conspicuously unoccupied. Umpteenth stile, and my knee joined the headache in registering formal dissatisfaction. I added paracetamol to the permanent kit list and climbed the final stile onto Rising Lane at Kingswood.
Familiar ground again — this lane was part of a circular route I had walked many times over the years. Past the Edwardian terraces, over the railway bridge, and down the drive to the cluster of cottages where, years ago, my wife and I had spent a hot afternoon eddying fruitlessly around the perimeter looking for the footpath to Packwood House, bickering with the gentle persistence of people who are both lost and too warm. We had tried every available path. We had found none of the right ones. Today, armed with experience and foreknowledge, I walked directly to the correct route and followed it without hesitation up a hedged field to the main road.
Here I stopped for a little video shoot, gurgling the last of my water and realising with some surprise that I had made very good time today and the walk was almost done. It had been a warm day for sure, but nothing like the baking, humid day that had sapped my strength on the Kenilworth section and as such I had covered much the same mileage today but with far less effort.

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The green eaves of Packwood ...

Just a few hundred yards along the road I turned left onto the grounds of Packwood House, a National Trust property of Elizabethan vintage, approached along a straight avenue of old trees that I suspect was once the main carriage drive to the house. The trees have grown close together over the centuries and the avenue has narrowed to a footpath — carriages no longer possible, but the approach still carries the gravity of something designed to build anticipation as you walk.
I came along it with a scattering of families and couples, all moving in the same direction, the great chimney stacks of the house emerging above the treetops as we closed the distance. The old red brick of the buildings glowed in the late afternoon sun. The rooflines were uneven and characterful in the way of buildings that have been added to and modified across centuries without any one hand making all the decisions.
The house and its famous topiary yews were open, and I had intended to pay the entrance fee and film the gardens. The fair weather had brought people in numbers that made the idea of joining a crowd, after a full day's walking, feel like one obligation too many. I reached my car instead, drank a warm sports drink in one long grateful pull, and registered the arithmetic.
Five sections completed. Three remaining.
Whether three remaining could be managed before the end of October was a question that the calendar was going to answer in its own time. For now the day was done, the legs had carried their quota, and the walk was still in progress.
That was enough

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