Road to Home 2022 Day 15: Higham Ferrers - Harrold

Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none.

- John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678)

 

28 km

I have had the good fortune on this Long Walk to lodge with people who rise early in the morning, like myself, and my Servas hosts Sue and Elaine are no exception: at 6:30 Sue was already up and bustling about getting breakfast for me and for the little dog, Charlie. The route of Charlie's morning walk was modified to accompany me back to the Nene Way, where we parted ways and I followed the river to Wellingborough, then crossed over the bridge into Irchester Country Park, a large park on the site of a former ironstone quarry. 

The big loop through the park was made necessary by a closed footbridge across the Nene River in front of Chester House. Tony reported the bridge closure in his 2014 description of the trail, and I had assumed the bridge would have been repaired and reopened by now, eight years later; but it was still blocked off, and overgrown with climbing plants. I couldn't complain though, as the route through the park was beautiful and took me to The Quarryman's Rest Cafe for a cuppa, a blueberry muffin, and the use of clean public toilets. 

Chester House and the closed footbridge 

One of those odd corners of England where country charm meets modern industry 

Canal boats and flour mills (old and new) 

Wellingborough Embankment is home to the largest colony of swans I have ever seen 

There was something unusual about the park, and I soon realised what it was: it was full of school-aged children, on a Monday morning! It must be mid-term break in the UK.

I found my way out of the maze of pathways in the park and crossed a wheat field with Irchester church spire directly ahead of me.

Like all towns with chester or caster in their names, Irchester was a Roman fort, and after leaving the town I walked in a perfectly straight line along the route of the original Roman road. At first it was a paved road, but then it turned into a byway through the woods, wide and absolutely dead straight.

I turned off here and onto the Three Shires Way, then around an airfield and along another beautiful if rather muddy bridle path through the woods to Odell, where I stopped for a picnic lunch.

Glebe Lake in the rain

I shouldn't have stopped for a picnic lunch, because if I hadn't I would have been in Harrold before it started raining! At first it was a gentle sprinke, so I put on my rain poncho, and I arrived at the café in Harrold Country Park just as a deluge and hailstorm began! But it only lasted a few minutes, during which I waited under the café roof, and when it let up I walked across into Harrold and took a look around the village. Then I spread out my rain poncho over a wet lawn chair by the duck pond and waited for the bus back to Higham Ferrers, where my kind hostesses were busy preparing dinner. 

Waiting out the deluge 

Harrold village green