It’s now almost exactly a year to the day since we moved into our house in a Northamptonshire village. Over the twelve months we’ve been for plenty of walks around the county, both locally and further afield. However, we thought that walks from the house were limited to a couple of footpaths that didn’t really lead anywhere. We were very wrong and it’s just a pity it’s taken so long to realise.

There’s actually a permissive path leading from the village down into the neighbouring valley and joins a newly established footpath up to the next small settlement. Neither of these routes are on the Ordnance Survey mapping, so we were largely unaware about of them. We knew there was a permissive path but not really where it was or where it went, but after reading some arguments about it on the village Facebook page, we decided to check it out. It turns out the path is a real asset to the village and connects to a wider network of public rights of way.

On what was a very blustery late morning, we headed out well wrapped up but we soon warmed up. The walk was about 5.5 miles in total across open pasture and ploughed fields, along hedgerows and on some quiet country lanes. It’s reasonably rolling in these parts so there were a few inclines to climb but nothing too steep. There were good views all around as we headed down the slopes and reached new crests. I even managed to put some of my new badger surveying skills into practice but more on that later.

While this was a relatively short walk, we expected it to rain at any moment, it looks like we can extend it in various directions and create 10 mile and possibly 15 mile walks when the weather is nicer.

The route is a real find and no doubt we’ll be doing it as regularly as some of our other local walks as the spring arrives.